Colombia Forum

meincolombia
Joined 2016
Posts: 159

7 years ago

Some coming, others going (part 2)

7 years ago

I got tired of scrolling through pages of messages to get to the new posts on the old thread so I´m starting a new, similar one.

I agree wholeheartedly that Medellin is better than Panama, and better even than Costa Rica, but to say that Medellin is OMG YOU GOTTA GO THERE is a big stretch of imagination. It is a typical Latin American city, with congestion, crime, contamination and pollution, polluted air and rivers, grimy streets and homes, shoddy construction and so forth.
However, there are friendly people, and the cost of living is less, maybe even 1/2 less, than a similar size city in the US. The climate is excellent. Decent health care is available and health insurance is not terribly expensive as it is in the US.

Yes, there are many reasons to live in Medellin or any part of Colombia.

Still, some of us are happy to be returning to US.
Both countries have petty everyday annoyances but they seem to be magnified in Colombia. The pollution is really starting to annoy me. Trash everywhere, rivers stink, breathing the air hurts my throat, dog sh!t all over the place, people parking their car over the street grate to change their oil.......just some of the things that have grown more and more unpalatable for me.
People rave about the beauty of Colombia, but when you look more closely its an illusion. The place is filthy, gritty, smelly, polluted, over promoted.

Beautiful for me is a sugar sand beach along the coast of Florida, or the state and federal parks and forests in New England, or clean rivers where you can swim and kayak without fear of hepatitis. Where you can hike for days along wilderness trails without fear of guerrillas or paramilitaries or narco gangs or just plain ordinary robbers.
In my opinion there are lots of good reasons to live in the US even with the extreme climate changes and extreme cost of living.

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