I was in two minds about whether I wanted to do the trip. I was worried it would be some kind of macabre gringo glorification of a mass murderer. Regardless of how many people he killed in this city, there's a certain group within the backpacker community who just want to go and snort coke on his grave (nice.) Plus many people think its wrong that people should be making money out of the horrible things he did to this country
Indeed there is even a tour where you can meet his brother. A. why would I want to do that? and B. Why does he want to do that? He doesn't exactly need the money.
Anyhoo, we went because at the end of the day, you cant really understand Colombia´s socio historical situation without learning a bit about narcotrafficking, and also because we had heard one side of the story in the Bogota Police museum and thought we should try to gain a more balanced view.
The Bogota Police museum was the most surreal experience of my life! Its a building full of weapon collections, a church and a section on how they killed Escobar and his chums. We were guided around by a police officer who couldn't have been much over 18 years old. He was super friendly and chirpy, happily explaining the different weapons and gory photos we came accross, and throwing in the odd joke for good measure. When the tour ended he actually gave us some sweets and a poster of the museum!!
The Medellin tour turned out to be brilliant though. We went with Paisa Road. I've forgotten our guides name, but she was excellent. Really informative, but she didn't pull any punches. She was very clear about how much damage and suffering Escobar caused but she also had plenty of vitriol for the corrupt officials and rich families that had allowed him to become the person he became. Not least the fact that the section of the government devoted to handling the drug Cartels' confiscated assets is the most corrupt of all the departments. When the new government took over three years ago, this departments could only account for 7000 of the 60 000 vehicles, properties , helicopters ets they were supposed to be selling or renting for the benefit of local community initiatives. She seemed to me to be very honest and objective. She also enjoyed peppering the talk with a variety of english swear words, which definitely added something to the whole experience.
We visited various buildings he owned, places where he was bombed, where he died and finally his grave. One thing that you can't escape is the fact that his story is probably the most ridiculous life story ever known. If it was written as a fictional novel, nobody would publish it because it would be too farfetched.
Two of my favourite escobar facts are;
At one point he was so rich that he offered to pay off colombias national debt to america. Just because
he thought it would be funny if america cocaine users paid for colombias debt!
He collected various exotic animals in his mansion outside medellin; tigers, ostriches etc, all of which where taken to the medellin zoo after he went into hiding. All except the hippos, which where considered to be too big and dangerous. Unfortunately, it turns out that the Medellin climate suits hippos rather well and there are now 34 hippos roaming the hills around medellin! The local government dont know what to do about it.
Its fair to say that the guy had a sense of humour, which i think is one of the reasons he became such an icon. But he did too many horrific things to even begin to list here. But to give you a general idea, he blew up a commervial flight in order to kill ONE man. Who missed the flight anyway.
ITs also hard to exagerate how powerful he became. By the time he died he had 1 million people working for him directly within the cocaine trade, but a total of three million people working for his various companies. When he went down the Colombian economy took a big hit.
However, I think the thing I liked most about the tour was that it highlighted the fact that Escobar was just the recognisable face of a vast network of corruption, drug trafficking and murder, which continues today just in the new form of the paramitiaries and guerillas who now own most of the production (These are the same paramilitaries who had links to 90 of Uribes government ministers!). Then you´ve got the multi national corporations fighting over stolen land for its resources. And we mustnt forget the USA's bizarre interferences. One of it´s most énlightened´policies being to spray hundreds of hectars of colombia's lush agricultural areas with plant killer every year. Killing not only coca, but practically everything else in its path. I dont think that Uncle Sam is going to come out of this trip in a very positive light.
She finished the tour by saying that the real tragedy was that Colombia was still losing its children to the narco trafficking lifestyle and the egotistical, get rich quick, ´plata o plobo´ (money or a bullet) mentality that has survived the demise of the Cartels. She argued that this was because people are still not ready to talk about what happened openly and as a result the children are not been educated about thier own history.
Overall it was really moving, and I feel like I´ve learnt alot more about Colombian history, how far it has come and how far it has left to go. Although obviously Im still shamefully ignorant. Must read more books!
Actually, thats not how she finished it. My heart stopped when she announced that she would like to offer us all a small quantity of free cocaine to try. (oh no! we were doing sooo well!) Then she burst out laughing - she does that joke everyday just to see the different expressions on her customers' faces!
She did have a flyer attached to her business card asking you to post your ´most hilarious picture of Escobars grave´ though. Hmmmmm.
So after the trip we thought that the only sesnsible thing to do would be to go to the childrens section of the local science museum. Parque Explora is a HUGE interactive complex with a planetarium and aquarium and loads of interactive displays. IT WAS AMAZING. We´re going again before we leave because it put the science museum in london to SHAME.
ME and Dermot had immense amounts of fun beating primary school children at various mind puzzles and interactive games. Although as you can see, they nearly didnt let me play on some of them!
So I suppose you could say that we saw two very different sides of Medellin yesterday.
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