Feria de las Flores in October

Medellin's typical Flower Festival is held every year for 2 weeks between July and August. The weather is usually perfect, if not a tad too hot, and tourists can personally testify to Medellin's nickname as the "city of eternal spring."

So when my friend Ashley who was visiting from the US decided to come in October, well we got lucky and we were able to show her the typical flower festival. Except it was in a small but growing town about 1.5 hours outside of Medellin called La Ceja (the Eyebrow, if you want the literal translation. Who knows why). So instead of the usual sunny skies and thousands of sweating tourists waiting for hours to see some flowers, we stood in the rain along with maybe a few hundred other people for not nearly as long as we would in Medellin watching as some impressive "silletas" (the flower arrangements and they way they're presented as they're called in the region) nonetheless passed by.