Medellin: Exotic Fruits Market Tour & Tasting Experience

4.95

(125 reviews)

What’s the experience like?

“Try this one, it’s called lulo,” our guide grinned, holding out a slice that looked like a tiny green-orange sun. I hesitated — the smell was sharp, almost grassy, but sweet too. We were somewhere deep in Medellin’s main fruit market (I think it was Plaza Minorista), and honestly, I’d lost track of the maze of stalls after the third turn. The vendors were all chatting in Spanish, laughing at my attempts to say “maracuyá” without butchering it. There was this old man with hands stained red from guava — he winked at me when I flinched at the first bite. It was tart, but then suddenly sweet. Not what I expected at all.

Our guide — Camila, who grew up just a few blocks away — kept tossing little facts between bites: how some fruits only show up after heavy rains, or how kids here trade granadilla seeds like candy. She handed us a cup of fresh juice (I still don’t know exactly what went in there) and it tasted like summer if you could drink it. The whole place smelled like ripe mangoes and something floral I couldn’t place. One vendor tried teaching us to peel mangosteen without making a mess; I failed spectacularly and got purple stains on my shirt. Nobody cared.

There was this moment where everything just slowed down — the noise faded under the hum of fans and distant salsa music, and for a second I just watched people bargaining over passionfruit like it was the most important thing in the world. You don’t get that in Poblado or any touristy spot; here it felt honest, messy, alive. Even now I think about that first taste of feijoa — weirdly minty — and wonder if I’ll ever find it back home.