Pablo Escobar Tour

           Pablo Escobar a man at one point worth 7 billion owning 1,300 properties was on top of the world, controlling a major Colombian city with his Medellin cartel was not a good man by any means.  Mass murdering, cop killing, narcotrafficker would be the best words to describe him.  However, I still find him to be a fascinating figure, I’m not advocating for what he did but his story is intriguing.  A pioneer in the world of narcotraffic, able to amass a tremendous fortune, control a government by force and instill fear in a nation, at one point having 1 million people working under him.  He bought his own network channel to broadcast what he was doing in the city, as well as offering $1,000 to anyone that killed a police officer in Medellin.

The tour was $30 it lasted about 3.5 hours.  The Pablo tour is a new tour in Medellin; originally the city wanted no tourism based around him.  In the past year however it was proposed because of such an interest by outsiders and the money from the tour goes to two charities in Colombia one for the poor and one for children with HIV.   Our tour guide Natalia was a student at a local university who first heard about the tour and proposed to be one of the guides so people learned the real story and not the glamorized one, she said she did not want people to think Pablo Escobar was a good man, he was no Robin Hood as some would lead you to believe. 

The tour was extremely informative; we started out at Pablo’s main property the Monaco building.  He only lived on floors 4 and 5 and left the other ones empty.  This was the first building to ever be bombed in Colombia, setting off the drug war between the Medellin cartel and the Cali cartel.  The building as of now is about to be remodeled and turned into a police station. 

From his house we next went to the cemetery to see his grave.  The cemetery where Pablo is buried does not allow grand headstones so his grave is simple and he is buried next to his other family members.  From the cemetery we then went to one of the many safe houses owned by Pablo.  This one however was the one where he was killed in 93’.  After seeing where Pablo was killed we then went to his brothers house to meet with his brother and nephew.  Pablo’s brother Roberto Escobar handled the money and had nothing to do with the drug aspect of the business.  Both him and his brother had a 10 million ransom for their capture during the height of the Medellin cartel.

Roberto Escobar is now half blind and deaf because during his 11-year jail sentence he received a letter bomb that went off on him.  Neither Pablo nor any of his family members did drugs or drank.  Roberto was a world-class cyclist, and had two college degrees before his brother got involved in the drug trade.  So basically his brother ruined his life.  When we got to Roberto’s house we went through one security gate.  The house is modest at best as they had all 1,300 properties seized by the government this house however was not bought under the Escobar name so they were able to keep this house.  It does have a nice view overlooking a lot of the city.  Four of the properties house workers a year before tried to plan a kidnapping of Roberto and his son to extort money from the remaining family members however the police found out about it before and were able to stop this from happening.  

We toured the house, and chatted with Roberto he was pretty funny making a few jokes at the girls with boyfriends on the tour telling the bf’s he’d take the girls away from them.  He basically told us he loved his brother and would do anything for him, but that drugs was the worst thing to ever happen to him and ruined his family and if he could take it back he would.  He said the money was not worth the jail time.  I asked him how much he thought he spent during the height of the cartel, he said he didn’t keep count and there was no way of knowing as they had 2 million in spending cash on hand at all times.  At the end you get to take a picture with Roberto.  

$2 Million in this desk always

Bullet Proof Windows truck was a gift from Cali Cartel

Monaco House

Pablos Grave

Wearing Pablos Actual Hat

Tour Group at Robertos House 

Only 4 of these bikes were made: Pope, Prime Minister of Canada,  President of France and Roberto

Safe House where Pablo Was Killed on roof