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Published: August 10th 2010
Kyle Pablo Escobar wanted never to leave Medellín, even when he was on the run from the authorities. I wonder if the enormous fake tits were part of the reason? That's a question we should have asked his brother! Why do these things always occur to you too late? Before we could go asking Roberto Escobar silly questions we had to find somewhere to stay. Pablo had numerous safe houses all over the city, but we couldn't even find one double room...
Arriving in Medellín with no room booked during their biggest annual festival was a stupid mistake. We got off the rather uncomfortable overnight bus from Bogotá at 7am, in a daze, and the last thing we needed was to go from hostel to hostel begging for a room. We tried our hand at five different places scattered around
barrio El Poblado, including a
residencia run by a Marlon Brando lookalike circa Godfather I. In true Godfather style he tried to extort us, askling twice what we were willing to pay. At our wits end and almost prepared to join
la familia Corleone we stumbled accross Tiger Paw hostel. We were lucky their system had crashed the previous
day so they couldn't see if any of the vacant rooms had been reserved. We were able to check in immediately to a decent sized double room and proceeded to sleep away the next three hours. Crisis averted. Or so we thought.
The first day was a write-off as we tried to catch up on sleep that we missed out on during the overnight bus ride. However over three nights at Tiger Paw hostel we never fully recovered as it tried itd best to be a party hostel, with music reverberating through the building until the early hours of the morning. It's ironic that we accidently ended up at one of Medellín's best known party hostels when usually we would avoid these places like the plague. In spite of hearing the same songs played at a deafening volume every night, the clueless staff, the severely underequipped kitchen, the bar running out of alcohol, and seeing one of the rooms closed down to deal with an infestation of bugs the size of you fingernail, we were still able to have a good time. If it wasn't for the
futbolín table we probably would have found more things to complain about.
In addition to being able to kick Tahlei's ass at
futbolín every night, the other saving grace for Tiger Paw was the Pablo Escobar tour you could organise through them. Like all run of the mill Pablo Escobar tours we first visited one of the fortified houses that he built for him and his family. It was a place of firsts - it had the first security camera in Colombia and was also the site of the first car bomb in the country, thanks to the Calí cartel. The first of many. This was what triggered the war between the Calí and Medellín cartels. Next stop was the cemetery where he is buried close to one of his top
sicarios, Sigifredo Goméz, who, when he was killed at the age of 23 was one of Pablo's top hitmen. He led a group of 80 teenagers who could be hired for as little as 30 US dollars a hit. We were told that in less than a year Pablo ordered the deaths of over 500 policemen. No wonder he had such a big workforce. Last stop on the normal itinery was the rooftop where he was shot dead or commited
suicide, depending on who you talk to. Our driver, Jaime, an ex-bodyguard of Pablo's, firmly believes he took his own life as Pablo always said better a cemetery in Colombia than a jail cell in the USA.
What set our tour apart from the others was the last stop where you got to meet Pablo's brother, Roberto "El Osito" Escobar. Roberto was famous well before his brother for being a champion cyclist and coach of the national team, but gave all of this up to join his brother in the Medellín cartel. Asked if he regrets this decision he says no, which is hard to fathom considering he spent eleven years in jail and is basically blind and mostly deaf due to a letter bomb exploding in his face, sent by a vigilante group hunting his brother.
He showed us around another of Pablo's houses including a bullet proof 4x4 in the garage and a hidden recess in the living room wall where they used to hide millions of dollars in cash. This was only a small, simple hidey-hole Roberto told us; at another property they had a stash of hundreds of millions in a hidden room under
a swimming pool which could only be accessed by lifting off the pool with a specially built, hidden hydraulic system.
Nowadays Roberto seems like a small, harmless old man, who dedicates his time to investing money in a cure for HIV AIDS and trying to clone his favourite horse which was carstrated by the Calí cartel. Without the opportunity to talk with Roberto the tour probably wouldn't have been worth it.
Our second full day was all about exploring the city. In contrast with Bogota, where the hostels are centered around the historic district, in Medellín they are mostly in El Poblado - the richer, more upmarket, nighlife district. So we hopped on the metro - yes it even has a metro - and made our way to the city centre. The metro runs on raised tracks through the city and is a great way to orientate yourself. Some of the best views can be had from the metro, seeing the neighbourhoods creep halfway up the mountains of the valley where the city is situated. If that wasn´t enough, there are two cable cars that are part of the metro system, and for the cost of one metro
Plaza Botero
Lots of fat sculpturestrip you can get a panoramic view of the city. Some friendly locals on the metro suggested that we take line J - they said it was
muy impresionante and they weren´t wrong. It was quite a long trip up one mountain, down the other side and up another over some of the poorer barrios where the houses are almost stacked on top of each other on the steep slopes. The
metrocable systems are intended to provide access to public transport for the city´s poorer residents, but we only saw people riding up for the view.
The rest of our day was all about Botero. We had already had a taste of Botero at the museum in Bogota but in Medellín he´s everywhere. We started off at Plaza Botero, where we admired various bronze sculptures. We continued on to Parque San Antonio to see Botero´s bombed bird sculpture. In 1995 a FARC bomb killed 23 people and ripped a hole through the sculpture. Botero requested that the damaged sculpture be left in place and he created a new replica to be put beside it to demonstrate the futility of violence. It´s
impactante. We rounded off our day at the
The bombed bird
and its replacement Antioquia museum where entry was free during the
Feria de Flores. We saw even more Botero, amongst other Colombian art.
We woke up early the next day prepared to take a day trip but we were surprised to find a letter slipped under our door saying we had to check out even though we´d been told upon arrival that we could stay another day. Tiger Paw strikes again. Luckily a new hostel had only opened that week and we were able to check in there for the remaining two nights. Not only could we get a decent nights sleep, but it was a whole lot cheaper, even more so considering the price Tiger Paw quoted didn´t include 10%!I(MISSING)VA. Cheeky. The hostel, Arcadia, is not quite finished yet, but the Greek owner Spiros has some great ideas for the cool house that he´s turning into the hostel. Over these two days alot of people we met at Tiger Paw turned up at Arcadia with more stories of ineptitude and theft.
Our day trip plans were in disarray, but the day turned into possibly our best so far. We finally got into the spirit of the Feria de Flores
Botanical gardens
Part of the flower festival and joined throngs of Colombians admiring their national flower, the orchid, at the Botanic Gardens. The gardens are beautiful and a little oasis in the middle of busy Medellín. Across the road is Parque Explora; a hands-on science museum. For as little as four euro you can spend hours upon hours acting like a big kid. My favourite experiment was trying to channel a little stream to produce the maximum amount of hydroelectricity possible. I also enjoyed watching Tahlei get completely disoriented in a pitch-black sensory maze (that even a mentally-challenged guy got out of without difficulty) while everyone else watched in hysterics on an infrared TV screen. She had to be let out of the entrance. Tahlei´s favourite bit was being cornered by a group of inquisitive school children who wouldn´t let her go and had to be reminded by the staff that she was not part of the exhibition. The park also had a
vivarium full of huge snakes, hair tarantulas and tiny, pretty, killer frogs. It was pretty cool to be able to get so close to the worlds two deadliest frogs.
We capped off this excellent day with a bit more festival fun. With a
litre of beer in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other we enjoyed some traditional music in concert at the
parque de los pies descalzos (barefoot park). The park has a small area where you´re supposed to take off your shoes and "feel the earth´s energy", but to us the earth´s energy was a bit too gravely and hurt our delicate feet.
On our last full day we finally got to do our day trip to El Peñol de Guatapé. It´s a huge rock that towers above the surrounding countryside and has fantastic views from the top, once you catch your breath after climbing 649 steps. The wide, shallow valley has been dammed, and what were once hills are how islands surrounded by turquoise channels and inlets. It´s an uninterupted 360 degree view, and one of the most amazing I´ve ever seen. The nearby town of Guatapé, where we went to have lunch, is cute and colourful. All of the houses and shops had 3D murals sculpted onto the bottom half of the exterior walls, depicting various scenes often related to the activities of the shop. It´s a unique effect.
We arrived back in Medellín
Poison arrow frog
in Parque Explora´s vivarium quite late and quite exhausted but soldiered on and went out on our last night around Parque Lleras. This is the nightlife centre of Medellín. Around the park and all the streets off it there are big, loud, expensive bars, restaurants and clubs that all look the same. I think we found the one cheap place that had a bit of character - Niagara. We´ve become accustomed to the small, intimate bars of Madrid that have
mucho encanto, so to us the bars of Parque Lleras seemed a bit soulless. We did see many fine examples of Medellín plastic surgery. It´s amazing the number of girls who have had boob jobs. We´d been told about the high proportion of Medellín girls who go under the knife, but you have to see it to believe it. It´s a sea of perfectly round, perky boobies. Don´t even get me started on the bum implants.
Tetas aside, Medellín has been our favourite place in Colombia so far. The city is modern and clean, there´s so much to do and the setting is quite stunning. Now we´ve left the big Colombian cities behind and are back in the country. Our time in this
country is almost up and our next blog will be the last one on Colombia. Next stop, Ecuador.
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Babak
non-member comment
good work hanging out with the big boys, but no need to hold back on the bum implants... do tell all!