Tag 161: Guatapé

It's 7:30 am. We are standing with about 60 other backpackers in front of a hostel, waiting to be picked up. We arrived yesterday after an incredibly stressful day in Medellín.

From Salento, we traveled to Bogotá and spent a few days there. Since I got sick on the day of our arrival in Colombia's capital, we didn't do much. We walked around the city, took a small city tour with a friend of a friend's car, and of course, tried the local delicacies as always.

Today, the 'Escobar Paintball Tour' is on the schedule. We meet Lutz again. He has booked everything for us. Two big buses are parked in front of the hostel. We get on and drive to 'El Peñol'. From here, we then go to the former summer villa of Colombia's biggest criminals: Pablo Escobar, in a jeep. In his favorite bar with a beautiful view of the lake, we are divided into several teams. We are given guns and protective clothing. After a detailed introduction, we start. We shoot at each other with paintballs for about 45 minutes in the ruins of the employee houses. Then it's the turn of the other teams, and we get a guided tour of the estate. Our guide tells us the story of the biggest drug lord in a nutshell and answers all our questions. We walk through the ruins of his impressive summer house and then meet the others for lunch in his bar house. After eating, we take a short rest, enjoy the sun and the idyllic view of the lake. The whole estate is in the hands of 'Mr. Williams'. He started working for Escobar when he was 12 years old and fought side by side with the drug lord against the police until his death. We sit in a tight circle gathered around Mr. Williams. We ask him all sorts of questions, and he answers them all. It's exciting and grotesque at the same time. When someone asks how many people he has killed in his life, he answers with a laughing 'I have no idea', and everyone starts laughing. I don't. Many people who take this tour find the whole story about Escobar very exciting and somehow admire him. But as our guide told us, Escobar was not a good person. He was much rather the worst person Colombia has ever produced. He killed countless people, terrorized and bombarded cities, and wrote a very dark chapter in the history of Colombia. The bodyguard answers the question of whether he would work again for Colombia's most famous criminal with a very quick and direct 'Yes!'. As exciting as all these stories are, I am standing here next to a man with a gunshot scar on his face, a huge bundle of cash in his pocket, and the blood of dozens of people on his hands. Somehow grotesque. We leave Escobar, his estate, and his bodyguard behind and take a boat across the lake to Guatapé. In one of the most colorful cities in Colombia, we drink one of the best coffees in Colombia and enjoy the street music. Then we take the bus to the second largest rock in South America, the 'Piedra del Peñol'. After climbing the around 700 steps, we are rewarded at the highest point with one of the most incredible views of our trip. A beautiful end to a beautiful day.