Medellin Transformations - The Phoenix from the Fire

Today I took a tour worth taking. The owner of my hostel, Yolo International Hostel Medellin, Federico, is a guy with an interesting history in this town - and he takes people on the transformations tour, which tells his own story. And through that, it tells of the history and present day of Medellin - of the city’s rise from abject misery and danger to a relatively safe modern city.

Ok - the ”big man” of Medellin features in the tour and in this post - and how could he not, since the ups and downs of the city are closely connected to this man’s actions. But Federico did not really want to talk more than necessary about Pablo Escobar, since the man was toxic to the whole country, but especially this city. The tour is about the rise of neighbourhoods, the people in the city and the past and present. Also: all the proceeds of the tour are donated to the Children of Colombia foundation! So all for a good cause and off we went. 

Basically and cutting many corners, here’s what went down. A very brief history: Medellin was a smallish coffee growing town in the 70’s. The international drugs business at the time was mainly run through Chile. Then Pinochet cracked down on the drug lords, killed a whole bunch of them and caused many of the rest to flee the country. Many of them fled to Colombia. In Medellin at the time, a very ambitious young man of humble origins was making a name for himself smuggling cheap booze and cigarrettes into the country. The drug lords approached him about running a little cocaine for them. However, the man - Pablo of course - was unimpressed with the offer and immediately realized the huge potential of the business. So he got a few cronies together and they set up a huuuuge cocaine factory themselves, leaving the Chileans out of the picture. That was the beginning. 

What about the rest of Medellin? For the next several years and until the late eighties, business was good and Medellin was a very safe place to grow up as a child up. Escobar certainly wasn’t hiding as this ”house” he built for himself shows. It used to have a big text ”Escobar” on the side - still slightly visible in the dirt though not in the photo. (The house will be pulled down within the year to make a memorial park for Escobar’s victims). 

Our host Federico went to school with Pablo’s son, Pablo Jr, and played in the same sports team. They apparently sucked, but kept winning matches, since nobody wanted to be responsible for Pablo losing. This house was also where the young Federico was invited a few times by Pablo Jr to eat pizza and bicycle around in the countryside - which is what the Poblita area - now the most exclusive and expensive part of town - still was in the late 80’s.

During this time, Pablo Sr became ridiculously wealthy making billions - in US dollars cash - stashed away left right and centre around properties in Medellin. ”Officially” nobody knew where the money came from. It was claimed he got it selling cows (don’t laugh, it was apparently big business at the time). 

On the tour we drove through many parts of town. Some showed what the city was like in the 80’s, when it was still quite small. Back then there were no high rise builidng in town - only one or two story houses with little gardens in the front for the richer people and more humble shacks for the poorer people. Whatever else Escobar did, the city certainly grew during the heyday of his activity. Also a lot of people - even ones not directly working in the drugs industry - were making serious money via Pablo: accountants, layers, architecs, engineers... As Federico said: some rich people in Medellin are very happy to tell you how they made their second million. They don’t want to say how they made their first.

However, things took a nasty turn. A young member of the rival Cali drug cartel thought to make a name for himself and planted a car bomb in front of Escobar’s house. Pablo’s daughter lost hearing in one ear from the blast. This is when Escobar, a loving father, went, to put it mildly, bat-shit-crazy. The resulting carnage and retaliation spree the following years saw loads of drug stores around town owned by the Cali cartel blown up - with quite a few unfortunate customers inside them. Policemen also became major targets as did judges, politicians, other rivals... Things got very bad for the people of Medellin. A curfew was put in place and for several years no-one could leave the house between 7pm and 7am.

The next change in the fortunes of the city happened in 1991, when Escobar, who at the time had been a wanted man for several years, agreed to surrender to the Colombian government on condition that he could build his own prison, choose where to build it, it would be manned only by his own people and the police, army (or anyone else for that matter) could come there only with his permission. Oh, and he could leave it whenever he wanted - by car or helicopter. Seems like a fair deal, right? And indeed the deal was struck. 

So with the police and army now protecting him from the revenge of the Cali cartell, Palbo was free to continue his lucrative trade in his hilltop mansion, la Catedral, a mountaintop villa with great views over Medlling (see above - helicopter pad visible), complete with a football pitch, huge casino and an outdoor jaccuzzi, which had a good view of Medellin airport so that Pablo could monitor his drug planes coming and going. He did, however, compromise and stop the bloodbath so the city had a much wanted reprieve for a while and life became good again for the average Medellin citizen. However, reports of Pablo’s continuing criminal activities made the government decide to move him to a conventional prison. Pablo heard of the plan through his moles and made a well-timed escape, spending what remained of his life fleeing the police.

Things for the locals got messy again - until 1993, when Pablo Escobar was finally shot (or shot himself while fleeing the police over rooftops, when he  saw he couldn’t get away from the police this time). Then things got positively awful for the citizens! 

The king was dead and there was no clear heir to the throne. A full time war between different fractions started and life became more dangerous than ever. Also the active kidnapping for ransome of Medellin’s upper and middle classes began. Federico himself was kidnapped for 18 hours at the age of 17. After this experience our host, as many, many others from Medellin, decided to move abroad. A ten year stretch in London followed, when every call to his family started with the question ”is everyone still alive?”. 

On the tour we also visited area 13, which until 2002 was a definite no go zone. Notorious as the place where the kidnapping victims were usually held. 

Then things changed. 2002 a new president increased the army and police force and came down with a vengeance on Medellin - starting with a three day ”cleanup” of area 13. In practice, there was a long list of names - the wrong doers, drug trafficers, kidnappers - and if your name was on the list, you were killed. Not captured, not prosecuted and imprisoned, but killed. A very brutal justice with many innocent bystanders, but the end result was... well, it worked. Now area 13 is coming alive again, the houses are painted, shop owners have started businesses, escalators have replaced the endless stairs of the hillside area and the lifeline is a wide and curving pathway full of graffiti that connects the whole area. 

Indeed graffiti art plays a key role in the process, where the empowerment of the people and installing a sense of pride in their neighbourhood have been the key aims. Below is one artists version of the government crackdown on area 13: the grey fist of the law enforcement cracking down on the grey and dull area - afterwards the city bursts into colour, flowers and life in the painting.

However, some areas and forces still resist Medellin’s transformation. We also drove through the one neighbourhood still actively dealing drugs - but the police aren’t doing anything about it. On all the street corners there were ”watchers”, people working for the drug bosses, who monitor what’s going on in the area and maintain the peace. This is indeed a very ”safe” neighbourhood, since the people in the drug industry do not want police presence in the area. So they make sure no mobile is pinched and no noses are punched in this neighbourhood. 

However, a truly ingenious government project saw a huge and sports park built just besides this neighbourhood. A swimming pool, football and basketball fields, running track, tennis - and all free. The idea is to give the children something better to do with their time, than to hang around people dealing drugs. A vision of the future even the drug lords approve of, since apparently there is a strict ban on anyone dealing drugs in the sports park.

There is still work to be done, but the transformation from 2002 is nothing short of spectacular and quite unique. And I have to say the municipality and government have done many many things just right! Things such as the sports park, free wifi in public parks, the graffiti road and the teleferico (cablemetro) system build to connect the poorest and most dangerous neighbourhoods of the city to the metro system and so allow the residents to find honest work in the city with reasonable commuting times.

So much changed in and after 2002, that many Paisas (as the people of Medellin are called) returned from exile to their native city - as did Federico in 2006. These returned immigrants, for their part, used the skills and education they got abroad to make the city come alive and invested the money they made abroad into it. Federico, who was living on the streets for the first month of his stay in London worked his way up from cleaner to hotel manager in London and now has his own hostel here in Medellin - and is a member of the foundation for the Children of Colombia. 

This city has a truly nice vibe and feels and apparently is safer than Bogota. A lovely story of the rise of a city from an incredibly bad place to one, where the future looks bright - and good urban projects have played a big part in this. 

Gracias Fedi.

(Posted with permission from Fedi)