Laureles

Primer Parque is the Laureles you read about in old guides — a wide circular plaza with mature ceibas, a fountain that runs most days, and benches that hold the same handful of older neighbors at the same hours every week. The cafés on the perimeter are quieter than their Poblado counterparts and the coffee comes faster. There is the smell of the ficus trees after a morning rain, the slight diesel from a passing colectivo, and around lunch, the warm starchy smell of arepas being pressed at the corner kiosk.

La Setenta is where Laureles eats and where Medellín pretends it is not being watched. The block from Calle 39 down to about 32 is closed to cars on weekend evenings and the smell shifts every twenty meters: grilled chicken, chorizo, sweet plantain, then strong arepa de chócolo, then a pocket of charcoal and beer. Conversations are in Spanish, the music spills out of doors, and the rhythm of the street is its own thing — neither tourist nor quaint, just somewhere a neighborhood feeds itself.

Segunda is smaller and harder to describe than the first park. The bars on its edge are unevenly lit and the music — when there is music — leans toward jazz that someone is actually playing, not piping in. By 9pm the seating fills with people who came on foot from inside Laureles. There is the smell of cigarettes from a doorway and rum from a counter, both faint, and the slightly resinous smell of the trees at night. We send people here when they want to feel the difference between Laureles and Poblado without being told.