Night Buses and Pablo Escobar

After dodging a sudden thunderstorm and torrential rain, we made our way to the Bus Terminal del Norte in Bogota at 8pm to get ourselves a night bus to the city of Medellin. The trip, we were told would take 10 hours, so night bussing it seemed the cheapest option; no need for a night's hostel accomodation! En route from our Cranky Croc hostel, we met a Canadian girl Jamie and her Welsh boyfriend Bleddyn, who were planning the same trip as ourselves, so at least we had good company for the journey!

When we arrived at the Terminal del Norte, so many bus companies offer the same trip, but negotiating a price and finding a bus that isn't likely to break down mid journey was our priority! We settled in a company called Brasilia, who did the trip for 55,000 COP, so about 18 /19 Euro. The bus was feckin' luxurious in the sense that seats fully recline, not like economy airline seats, so getting a decent night's sleep is not so hard! But with air con on full blast for the entire 10 hours, it feels like a ham travelling in a refrigerated truck. 10 hours later, we arrived in Medellin, driving along a very scenic, dramatic mountainside road. Our hostel is in an area called Poblado, a nice, swanky area of town, which is a welcome change to the poor, run-down area of Bogota we were staying in. The hostel's called the Black Sheep and it's very clean, big rooms and friendly travellers.

Medellin city centre seems to be a mish mash of really pretty buildings and leafy squares combined with really poor city streets lined with sleeping homeless people and pregnant prostitutes. So after one brief trip into the city centre for some photo ops, we left and have no real desire to go back in. There are some nice museums, botanical gardens and cable cars on offer though, for those willing to spend more time there.

So, after an evening of chilling with beers with the crew in the hostel, we got up earlyish for the 2 hour journey to Guatape, a town built near a man-made lake, flooded for usage of the hydroelectric dam called El Penol; a massive monolith rock perching high above the city streets. Reminded me of La Corcovado in Rio. We were heading to Guatape to visit the former mansion of the notorious drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, who lorded over the manufacturing and exportation of Cocaine during the 1980s.

Our pretty swish bus dropped us at the Lake View Hostel in Guatape where the British owner organised a boat trip for 4 of us and 2 others staying in that hostel to La Manuela, Escobar's lakeside estate. I say boat, but really it's a small, diesel-fuelled "speed" dinghy. Luckily an Aussie guy with us had good Spanish as the boat driver had not a word of English, so his pointing and rapid Spanish tourist info made no sense to us!

A short, pleasant boat ride through the lake later and we had arrived at Escobar's now burnt-out, crumbling mansion. The first thing I noticed was the eerie feeling, almost like you were visiting a haunted ghostly ruin. We were all thinking "if these walls could talk......". The second thing I noticed was that absolutely anyone can access the site, with no restriction. So anyone with a boat basically, armed with a few cans of spray paint can access the ruin and leave their mark on it. It's literally crumbling to pieces and you're probably risking your safety by going in there at all. No "Danger" signs of "Hard Hats Required" signs here! It's amazing to walk around the site; through the house, into what was probably his huge bedroom, walking around the pool area and what seems to have been a BBQ house and outside Bar. I was constantly imagining how plush it must have been; the glamour and luxurious excess and all the famous people, gangsters and underage prostitutes (!!!) that would have spent days lounging around here, drinking champagne and snorting the odd line of coke or two.

It's obvious too,due to the fact that the mansion has been left to ruin and disrepair that the people of Colombia want to forget his legacy and erase him from history, despite the fact that he's so revered among the poor in Medellin, for his Robin Hood-style charitable acts for the people of the Barrios. He was so rich at one point that he offered to pay off Colombia's national debt............

Love him or loathe him however, his presence is still felt around here, like a Day 2 Hangover and visiting his mansion was definitely a highlight for us.

Bus ride from Bogota to Medellin: 55,000 COP (about €19)
Bus ride from Medellin to Guatape: 12,000 COP (about €5)
Boat tour to La Manuela: 20,000 COP (about €8)

Medellin centre

Escobar's mansion

beautiful streets in Guatape

Where we stayed: The Black Sheep http://blacksheepmedellin.com/BlacksheepEnglish.html
How much?: 55,000 COP per room (private double, shared bathroom) per night (about €20)