Colombia city’s electric powered wheelchair tours demonstrate Medellin from new angle

Martin Londoño, owner of MATT, an electric wheelchair tour company talks during an interview in Medellin, Colombia, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2020.  Londoño, 31, started to work on the hand-cycles four years ago in a bid to improve his own mobility. He lost the use of his legs after breaking his spinal chord in a traffic accident at age 18.

MEDELLIN, Colombia — Wilson Guzmán shed the use of his legs at age 17 when he was shot in the back while striving to recover a stolen bicycle in his hometown of Medellin, Colombia.

Two decades afterwards, he glides as a result of the city’s streets applying an electrical hand-bicycle attached to the front of his wheelchair. He lately gave a tour of Medellin’s parks to seven people today who adopted him down bike lanes and up steep hills on very similar autos.

“Every person who receives on these wheelchairs leaves with a smile,” claimed Guzmán. “They also learn what it is like to be in the shoes of a person with a incapacity.”

The wheelchair excursions that Guzman qualified prospects once a 7 days are the most recent tourist attraction in a metropolis that is slowly and gradually shedding its popularity for drug violence and has become a single of Colombia’s most frequented destinations.