The bad Part 1 / A Robbery Story

Our taxi driver got lost four times, even though the accommodation was just two streets away. But the neighborhood is also confusing!

I like Colombian taxi drivers. They are visibly eager to safely take you to your destination and tell you wonderful anecdotes. And...taxi riding is by far the safest and most comfortable means of transportation.

Pablo Escobar Gaviria. Rejected by his own father, who did not want to support his criminal career. He paved the way for himself at the age of nine with his first theft. He received support from his mother. A megalomaniac narcissist with a social character. 

Weird? Not necessarily.

Picture of Hacienda Napoles, once owned by Escobar, almost completely destroyed. Photographed in the house of Roberto Escobar, his brother.

But the good and evil are not always so simple, because fascination and disgust are sometimes closely intertwined, and often, as I myself have noticed along with many Medellin residents, one cannot exist without the other. Because what seems to be obviously good is not always good for everyone, and what is evil is not always entirely evil, and very often, one does not exist without the other.

When I was researching Escobar's story on the internet, I accidentally found the number of one of the countless Escobar tours in Medellin, and indeed, no other information except the number. The answer to my request came quickly, and the next day we were picked up by a minivan. 

'He knew Pablo.' They were neighbors and friends, they played soccer together and had dinner at his family's house, the man behind the wheel told me. I couldn't remember his name, but his face and the way he presented himself made me curious. 

Pablo's last place of residence. The Monaco building. Now a strict restricted area, as all of Escobar's properties were nationalized. We are lucky. It is scheduled to be demolished next week. Another step towards forgetting.

Pablo was not a bad person, our guide tells me. Not for everyone. He was also a kind of Robin Hood. 

After all, he built apartments for the poor. 

'With blood money,' I think to myself, but I dare not speak the words aloud. 

When we enter the cemetery with Escobar's tomb and the other visitors stand on his grave to take pictures, I feel this strange feeling for the first time, which prompts me to take photos from a distance. 

Out of respect for the deceased, the murderer of thousands of people, who deserves respect? Deserved respect? And what does the old man who has been taking care of Escobar's grave since his death think? 

The last stop of the tour takes us to Roberto Escobar's house. We meet his brother. Almost deaf and blind after an attack on him. The bullet holes are still visible in his house, the old man, short with glasses and a hat, stands in the garden surrounded by bodyguards and greets us for coffee.

Almost impossible to surpass in sarcasm. A tourist corner in the house of the once most powerful and brutal brothers in Colombia, who had entire families murdered if they did not accept the offered bribe.

Guided tours in Roberto's house. You can have pictures of Escobar signed for a mere 10,000 pesos. The photo with Roberto is free. 

Roberto Escobar. Brother and chief financial officer of the world's most brutal drug boss and number two of the once most wanted men in the world. Today, a living tourist attraction. 

On the way back through the suburbs of Medellin and former territory of Escobar's rule, I think about it for a few more minutes, while I ask our guide for a small tip to send me some more exclusive photos of Escobar. While I say the sentence, that feeling emerges again, which I already know from the visit to the cemetery.  

Pablo's legendary figure, the personification of evil for some who lost money, power, or people through him, and as a heroic benefactor, friend, and fighter for others, the outcasts and the hunted. One who used the corrupt authorities as a pawn for years and supported those who fell victim to them. One from the street, one of their own.  

I start to understand after the conversations and stories that Colombia and its drug history are not only politically processed but also, and therefore much more complex, socially, ethically, and emotionally almost symbiotic. Or who among us would sell T-shirts and hats with the inscription 'el Patron' of a criminal and mass murderer, or let himself be photographed arm in arm with a criminal and pay money for it. Why we still do it is due to the ambivalence.

Lies and truth, good and evil, morals and immorals are strangely close together here, also because everything still seems so immediate in time. 

The real truth probably lies somewhere in between, and the true winners at the moment are mainly the tourists, who diligently buy signed pictures, take cheap cocaine, and buy sweets from little girls. 

To the delight of drug cartels, Uncle Roberto, and Juan Manuel Santos, the current president, who fights against drugs with an iron hand and diplomatic skill, and for peace with the paramilitaries, corrupt but at least successful. 

And then I see the current article about Popeye, Escobar's chief hitman, who killed 250 people and now wants to enter politics after his release. Publicly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 

A picture of him shaking hands complacently with high-ranking politicians, a slap in the face for all the families of his victims. 

In the end, I remember a quote from Pablo Escobar that our guide proudly recited to me before I share a few more of my favorite Escobar pictures with you and then tell you a bit about my impression of this tremendous city and its struggle to forget.

'I am not a rich man, I am a poor man with a lot of money.'

Pablo Escobar