I just wrapped up 10 days of creating street art for Paul’s “The Roaming Wolf Hostel” in Medellin, Colombia. I was able to create several pieces of street art during that time and meet tons of amazing local artists.
The street art scene in Medellin has a lot of momentum and is a great place to practice (the perfect yearround weather is a nice bonus as well). A lot of people say the turning point for street art in Colombia came in 2013 when Justin Bieber played a show here.
When I arrived at the hostel on the first day I had a casual chat with Paul (the host, pictured below, young Australian guy) over a cold beer (Aguila, Cerveza de Colombia is a fantastic local lager). I showed him some of my portfolio from my iPhone and he gave me free reign to create what I wanted right on the spot.
“Roaming Wolf” is a massive three-story townhouse with about 10,000 square feet of mostly untouched wall space (inside and outside high ceilings) and has an open rooftop. I sketched and painted several different ideas for 4-5 hours a day alongside two other local artists (from Bogota and Buenos Aires). Paul hooked me up with a bed, daily breakfast (cereal, butter/jam toast, bananas, coffee), and laundry service.
The hostel has excellent energy as Paul will tell you that his goal for “Roaming Wolf” is to create his own “dream party hostel.” To that end, in the last couple of months he started a pub crawl, added a plunge pool, and put up 3 new HDTVs around the bar. On my last night at “Roaming Wolf” he brought in 3 house DJs and threw a rager for about 80 guests in the courtyard.
Thank you Working Traveller for making this experience possible!
Cheers,
@bennynomad
Interested in doing this also? Contact the host via Working Traveller
PS – almost all visitors to Colombia receive an automatic 90 day visa upon either air or land entry and removes any complications for travellers – no special paperwork required
PPS – “The Roaming Wolf Hostel” is formerly “Paisa City Hostel”
