| Six swimming pools, water slides, wave machines and some pleasant green pastures for cycling or roller blading provide a cheap and convenient escape when Medellín is too hot and you don’t have time to travel to somewhere more laid back.
Weirdly, the park is located adjacent to Medellin’s Enrique Olaya Herrera Airport, so you’ll enjoy the surreal experience of a picturesque view of El Poblado combined with the occasional thunderous landing of a small jet plane.
Juan Pablo II is predominantly a working class venue and it seems that the vast majority of visitors cannot swim. So, when the pool gets too crowded, just paddle into the deep end and you’ll find vast open spaces of tranquillity, except for the occasional blow up octopus with several bodies hanging on for dear life.
If you make the mistake of going during school holidays, you might find you do more queuing than swimming.
Indeed, after you have queued to get in, you’ll no doubt queue again to put your bag in a safe place and after all that queuing, you’ll likely find yourself queuing to buy a cold drink. After so much queuing, you’ll probably have had enough, in which case you’ll find yourself queuing to get your bag back. Thankfully, there are no queues on the way out. |
