The Hacienda Napoles Flickr set is here.

New York City?!? (Get a rope.)

After the aforementioned bus ride o’ glory, Aussie Actor Andrew and I made it to Puerto Boyaca unscathed and checked in to the first hotel we found off of the main square. There wasn’t hot water, but it was toasty hot enough in Puerto Boyaca that the cold water was super refreshing. Only saw one cockroach.

Walking around in the small pueblo is quite a change from Bogota, where they’re used to whitey. In Puerto Boyaca, we were the only gringos in the whole city and were the center of much attention. Everybody made like an owl as we walked past. The beggars were extra insistent. Someone said as we passed, “My God, the gringos are here.” I wanted to go to one of the pool halls full of old guys, but Andrew didn’t seem to feel comfortable with it.

Bribing Cops with Coke (-a-Cola)

The next morning, we attempted to rent motorcycles to ride to Pablo Escobar’s estate-come-tourist-attraction, which is called “Hacienda Napoles.” Without a Colombian national ID card, we were out of luck.

It was probably fortuitous that the motorcycles were out of reach because we were unaware of the pending police roadblock we would encounter at that point. Instead of renting bikes, we hired a taxi to take us on the 45 minute drive to Hacienda Napoles.

About halfway through the pretty drive over, Colombian police with guns stopped our taxi and asked us to all get out of the car. The ensuing conversation with the two police officers, me, and Andrew (who speaks no Spanish) went something like this (in Spanish):

Police Officer, “Your documents.”

Me (attempting to smile and assume an air of amiability) “Sure. Here you go. I only have a copy of my passport with me, though.”

Police Officer, “This is only a copy. This is a problem. Where is the original?”

Me, “In my hotel.”

Police Officer, “Which hotel? Where are you staying?”

Me, “Umm… in Puerto Boyaca. I don’t remember the name of the hotel. It’s off the main square, though. Here’s the room key if you want to see it.”

Police Officer (inspecting room key with suspicion), “Where were you guys before that? Where are you going? How long have you been in Colombia?”

Me, “Well, we were in Bogota. I’ve been here for about a week and a half. Now we’re going to Hacienda Napoles. (silence ensues) It’s… uhh… it was Pablo Escobar’s estate.”

Police Officer (with raised, I’m-about-to-fuck-with-you eyebrow, assuming an even more stern look and tone), “Pablo Escobar. Who is that?”

Me, “I, Um… well… a very bad man?”

Police Officer, “A bad man? Really? What did this bad man do?”

Me (thinking, “Killed a whole lot of police officers.”), “He, um, sells drugs.”

Police Officer, “What, is he popular in your country or something? A hero? You know he’s dead, right?”

Me (wishing I had more vocabulary and ability to speak in the past tense at my disposal) “Oh, yes, he is not alive. Not a hero. A bad man. A very bad man. A dead man. I see a documentary about him when I was in Peru. I see the picture when the police kill him on the roof. The police seem very happy in the picture. Smiles. It is very good. Good work from the police.”

Police Officer #2 then goes in to a fairly quick string of Spanish sentences which I can tell are about drugs, and probably about whether or not we are interested in them on our travels through his country.

I decided against asking him to repeat himself slowly and instead mumbled out some sort of half-assed reply repeating what I’d said: Pablo Escobar is a bad man. Drugs are also bad. We’re only interested in seeing where Pablo lived for a historical perspective.

I tried my best to play amicable, Colombia-loving gringo and smile at him a lot. Andrew mostly just stood there. The questions continued for another few minutes about what our jobs were, where we were from, what we knew about Escobar, etc. Eventually, either my awkward smile worked or they just got bored. He decided we were harmless and the mood shifted to something more jovial and back-slapping than menacing and “What idiot doesn’t have his passport and visa with him?”

We were allowed to get back in the car. First, however, the policeman explained that they were thirsty. Would we be so kind as to drive to the next town, buy them a 2-liter bottle of cold Coca Cola, get three plastic cups, and bring it all back? You know, considering that we don’t have our passports and that we don’t want any problems. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

Right. Yes, sir.

In the taxi, I asked the cab driver if it was really necessary to bring them the Coke. “Oh yes,” he said, “It will keep things friendly. Do you understand?”

Right. Yes, sir.

So we brought them an icy cold 2-liter bottle of Coca Cola and one, two, three plastic cups – exactly as requested. The drive back through the checkpoint later that day was hassle free. A cheap bribe for two hapless gringos.

My immediate reaction to this was, “I am really glad I speak Spanish.” I get the sense that the whole experience had potential to take a much further turn south if the only answers I had for his questions were confused stares and shrugged shoulders.

Hacienda Napoles: Bizarre-o-town.

Pablo Escobar’s former estate and playground for rich narco types is strange. It’s not strange per say for what it was when Pablo hung out there, but it is strange for what the Colombian government is turning it in to. Check out the entrance sign on the right that says, “Here Begins the True Savage Adventure.”

Back in the day, it was an impressive, extravagant, and chocked-full-of-animals estate created by eccentric and exorbitantly rich international drug trafficker described on Wikipedia like so:

“[Pablo Escobar] is considered to be the most ambitious and powerful drug lord in history. His brutal ruthlessness was also legendary; he would kill anyone who stood in his way and was responsible for the killing of 30 judges, 457 policemen, and other deaths at a rate of 20 each day for two months. In total, it is said he is directly responsible for the deaths of over 4,000 people.”

Today, Hacienda Napoles is being turned in to a theme park by the Colombian government. “What’s the theme,” you ask? Pretty much Jurassic Park Zoo with a splash of half-assed narco-history. It opened to the public about 8 months ago.

We drove in, twisting down a rutted, gravel and dirt road towards the main entrance area. We passed a jail that is currently under construction and to be built right next to Pablo’s old estate. A bit of poetic justice, I guess?

Upon our arrival at the entrance area where tickets are purchased, the air was filled with some sort of jungle sound track played by speakers bolted to trees. Jungle ambiance mixed with deep and rhythmic drums, animal noises, dinosaur noises, etc. They played this throughout the park. A large, newly-built sign welcomed us. They even used the same font from Jurassic Park to do all of their lettering. Savage.

The five or six workers at the entrance were standing around and chatting. As Andrew and I walked up to the ticket office, the herd of workers followed behind us, the ticket-seller walked around behind the counter, and the group then watched over our shoulders as the pleasant young lady sold us our tickets, handed us our maps, and explained what to do next.

We drove in the through the main gate. First stop: the hippopotamuses.

The Savage Adventure of Pablo’s Arc

Pablo Escobar had four hippos flown in from Africa; one male, three females. Originally, there were also giraffes, lions, and tigers on the estate, but those have since been donated to zoos. The hippos, however, remain. After Pablo’s death and before the organized park was started, the hippos became wild. Attempts to capture and move the fiercely territorial and dangerous hippos have failed.

Those original four hippos flourished and have now multiplied to be 22 hippos, which park visitors can see wallowing in one of the park’s many lakes.

There is even a young female hippo named Vanessa who resides in her own special section of the park. We pulled up to Vanessa’s pen and got out of the car on the stiflingly hot afternoon. The guide girl working the Vanessa section greeted us and then called out to Vanessa in Spanish. “Come here, Vanessa! Come here! Come, Vanni!” Right on cue, the small Vanessa lumbered over to us and got a refreshing spray of water from the worker.

We then got to feed Vanessa large pieces of carrots while the guide rattled off fun facts about Vanessa and hippos in general. I enjoyed this very much.

Here’s some savage adventure video of Vanessa the Hippo:

Feeding Pablo Escobar’s Hippo, Vanessa from Nathan Shipley on Vimeo.

Welcome… to Jurassic Park!

After we looked at the hippos, we continued on and passed Pablo Escobar’s Jurassic Park. This consists of life-sized, colorfully painted concrete dinosaurs.

I will repeat that: life-sized, colorfully painted concrete dinosaurs.

These have not been added by the park’s curators, but were rather built by Pablo himself and are now part of the Hacienda Napoles Experience. There’s a brontosaurus, a tyrannosaurus rex, and even those little flying dinosaurs, to name a few.

Who knows? Maybe if I had more money than I could possibly use, I’d build concrete dinosaurs, too. Why not?

Pablo’s Mansion, Bull-Fighting Ring, Swimming Pools, and Air Strip

We were the only tourists in attendance and were free to walk where ever we chose in the park. This included a walk out to the air strip used to transport mountains of cocaine, a walk around Pablo’s giant swimming pool and cabanas (you can go for a swim for about $5), a walk through the bull-fighting ring, and, most interestingly, a walk through Pablo’s house. None of this is guided; you just walk around.

Pablo’s house in a state of total disrepair and destruction. After his death, the house was ransacked by people looking for hidden money or drugs. The floors have been dug up and the walls have been stripped down. Anything that wasn’t part of the actual walls and floors has been taken. There are no cabinets, shelves, toilets, shower heads, or anything else; just crumbled house, broken bathroom tiles, and several bird’s nests.

Enlargements of old newspaper and magazine articles about Pablo’s reign of terror adorn the walls. The most prominent of these is the famous picture of Pablo’s just-been-shot dead body on the roof of a building in Medellin. It’s on the side of the house and is the first thing you see upon walking up to the house. Take that, dead guy.

You can walk wherever you choose through the crumbling house, but nothing is labeled. However, I’m pretty sure I figured out which bathroom was Pablo’s.

Interesting. Weird.

Andrew seemed fairly unimpressed by the whole affair, which actually detracted from my experience a little bit. After walking around for an hour and half, he was ready to leave. The benefits of traveling solo were made apparent again. I walked to the horse stables and saw a few more things while Andrew waited for me. From there, though, we went back to our taxi and headed back to the pueblo.

Impressions

I found myself picturing the empty pools and rooms how they might have been 15 years ago: full of partying Colombian narco-traffickers having assumingly really interesting conversations. I thought about Johnny Depp in Blow. I would have liked to spend more time in the park and talked to more of the workers, but my parter was ready to skedaddle. For me, it was genuinely interesting to see a window in to the life of the infamous Escobar.

However, from the middle-of-nowhere location to the towering concrete dinosaurs to the absence of any other guests, the whole thing felt like some sort of has-been Route 66 sideshow town that the interstate system made obsolete. Like a once-proud Sheisterville that hasn’t had a car stop for days to admire the famed World’s Biggest Ball of Yarn.

I, for one, love going to see things like the World,s Biggest Ball of Yarn. The weirder, the better, I say. Furthermore, even though they had little to actually do, the people working there were genuinely friendly, helpful, and proud of their gently used, slightly dilapidated animals.

I think this place is coming up. They’re still working on it. Andrew commented that they should be trying to make it more like a museum rather than Colombian Jurassic Park. Include some signs and information in English. While that would certainly be informative and interesting, the whole reason I wanted to go in the first place was because I’d heard it described as “weird” by a fellow traveler.

Weird, it was. It made a good side-trip to break up the ride from Bogota to Medellin. I’d go back. I wouldn’t mind a little more museuminess, but don’t take away the concrete dinosaurs, the hippos I can feed, or the Jurassic Park typeface. I was promised a “Savage Adventure,” after all.

Here’s the photo gallery for this post on Flickr.

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