Date of last update: October 23, 2024
Index
You can click on the question of your interest to go directly to its answer.
- What is Pablo Escobar’s tour in Medellín like?
- Opinions about Pablo Escobar’s tour
- What places are visited on the Pablo Escobar tour?
- Pablo Escobar Museums
- Pablo Escobar tour prices
- Duration of the Pablo Escobar tour
- Recommended schedules
- Pablo Escobar and Comuna 13, what is the relationship?
- Are all Pablo Escobar tours “narcotours”?
- What is Medellín de Cerca’s approach to Pablo Escobar?
What is Pablo Escobar’s tour in Medellín like?
We visit places that may be curious or shocking for many visitors (a few paragraphs later we will detail these places). However, since this is a historical tour, it is the story that plays the leading role. That story will depend on the approach of the operating agency you hire and the experience, knowledge and skills of the guide: mainly, having lived in the city at the time of the Cartel, being very well informed, having the ability to critically analyze that information, ability to convey ideas clearly and to maintain the interest of tourists.
Now, if the story is so important, how can you predict its quality before booking a particular tour? There are two things that can help: 1) Read the tour description page well, to identify the approach the operator has. 2) Read the comments or reviews of previous users.
In the following 2-minute video you will see a summary of the interview with Feliciano Escobar, director of Medellín de Cerca, about the Pablo Escobar tours in the city.
In Medellín de Cerca we believe that Pablo Escobar tours imply a great responsibility towards the tourist and towards our society. Our private tours are conducted only by native and local guides who lived through the time of the Cartel and have studied it rigorously.
Learn how Medellín de Cerca approaches tours about Pablo Escobar
Opinions about Pablo Escobar’s tour
Opinions may vary widely, since each tourist’s experience is different. To get an idea of what to expect, it is best to check the reviews of the particular service you intend to hire. If you cannot find them on the tour page, you can request them from the seller.
Get to know the opinions of the Medellín de Cerca tours about Pablo Escobar
What places are visited on the Pablo Escobar tour?
The most commonly visited places are:
Parque de la Inflexión (former Edificio Mónaco): in 2019, the Mayor’s Office of Medellín demolished the Edificio Mónaco and, in its place, built this park that pays homage to the victims of the Medellín Cartel and the Colombian narco-war.
Barrio “Medellín Sin Tugurios”: more commonly known as “Barrio Pablo Escobar”, it is a working class neighborhood that the Colombian drug lord built to provide decent housing for hundreds of families living in misery and extreme poverty.
Jardines Montesacro Cemetery: cemetery where Escobar’s tomb is located.
House where Pablo Escobar died: located in the Comuna Laureles-Estadio, you can see from the outside the facade and the roof where the drug lord died cornered.
Ruins of the old La Catedral prison: private penitentiary where Escobar was held. Currently, it is the headquarters of a geriatric home. Admission is COP 10,000 for national visitors and COP 30,000 for foreign visitors.
Visited less frequently:
- Barrio La Paz de Envigado: residential area where Pablo Escobar spent his adolescence and early youth with his family, and where he met his wife.
- Altar to the Virgin of the Mystical Rose: This is a place frequented by the city’s devout Catholics. Like many other altars, mainly located in churches, it may have been visited by gunmen of the Medellín Cartel as part of their religious practices. It is not directly related to Pablo Escobar, however, some shared tours include it in their itinerary.
Other places visited in the Medellín de Cerca tours:
- Museo Casa de la Memoria: public establishment with some contents that inform about the humanitarian drama lived during the narco-war. There are some testimonies of victims of the Medellin Cartel.
- Museo Cementerio San Pedro: this was still the cemetery of the city’s elite during the 1970s, the time when Escobar began his acts of juvenile delinquency. It is said that Escobar would desecrate luxurious tombs to steal the marble tombstones, which he would later sell. It is important to clarify that these facts were never judicially proven, but they did constitute a widely spread rumor among the Medellín underworld that contributed to Escobar’s legend, even before he became a drug trafficker.
- Former men’s prison “La Ladera”: this was the first place where Escobar served time for crimes committed before he started in the world of drug trafficking. Today, it is a park-library and sports center that provides personal development opportunities for young people and families.
To our knowledge, to date no other agency has visited these last three places. Medellín de Cerca includes them in the tour about Escobar in the north of Medellín or as an extra service to learn about Escobar’s beginnings in crime.
Pablo Escobar Museums
In Medellín there are two museums with objects of Pablo Escobar or allusive to him.
- Roberto Escobar Museum: the first museum to exist is owned by Roberto Escobar, alias “El Osito”, Pablo’s brother and former member of the Medellín Cartel. Visitors have the opportunity to purchase items signed by Roberto and have their photos taken with him.
- Nicolás Escobar Museum: Nicolás is the son of Roberto who, at the beginning, worked in his father’s museum. Family differences led Nicolás to found a new museum with other exhibits.
Pablo Escobar tour prices
Shared tours are the most economical. These can be found from COP 115,000 per person.
Private tour prices vary according to the size of the group. The larger the group of tourists, the lower the rate per person. To establish a price guide, we will take as an example the Medellín de Cerca tours, whose rates are similar to those of the tour operators with the longest trajectory in the city. The essential tour about Pablo Escobar for a group of 10 passengers costs COP 100,000 per person; for a group of 4 passengers, COP 150,000 per person; and for a couple, COP 180,000 per person.
Duration of the Pablo Escobar tour
Pablo Escobar tours are usually half-day programs, i.e., 4 hours long. At times of heavy vehicular traffic, they may take an additional hour, for a total of 5 hours. If you add extra services or extended versions, the tours will take 2 or 3 hours longer, for a total duration of 6 to 8 hours.
Recommended schedules
Ideally, the tour should be completed in sunlight. In Medellín, nightfall usually arrives around 6:15 p.m. However, it is also possible to complete a tour of Escobar ending around 7:30 p.m., but no later. This is because some of the places visited only allow people to enter until 5 or 6 p.m. Some others can be visited at any time. Some others can be visited at any time, but not all of them are recommended at night, for security reasons. Check the duration of the tour and choose a starting time that allows you to make the most of it.
Pablo Escobar and Comuna 13, what is the relationship?
The internet abounds with programs that package these two tours: Comuna 13 and Pablo Escobar, which has led to generate great confusion in many tourists who believe that Comuna 13 was a sector built, dominated, especially attacked or inhabited by Escobar. None of these things happened. In fact, the history of Pablo Escobar has practically nothing to do with Comuna 13.
It is worth noting that, at the time of the cartel, Escobar’s influence was felt throughout the city, in every commune, sector and neighborhood. There was a popular saying that “when Pablo Escobar sneezed, Medellín got the flu.
Now, one thing in which the stories of Escobar and Comuna 13 are related is that they have the common denominator of violence, but they are very different forms of violence, with different motivations, ends and actors.
Are all Pablo Escobar tours “narcotours”?
In Medellín and Colombia, the word “narcotour” has been used to refer to tours that glorify or glorify Pablo Escobar and drug trafficking in general. In Medellín de Cerca we have chosen to offer different tours about Pablo Escobar, having as a principle the search for objectivity and impartiality, therefore, we do not exalt Escobar or drug trafficking, or any form of crime, but neither do we assume the position of the authorities and traditional institutions. In conclusion, Medellín de Cerca’s tours about Pablo Escobar are not narcotours.
What is Medellín de Cerca’s approach to Pablo Escobar?
The Medellín de Cerca tours on Pablo Escobar do not praise, exalt or promote the crime; neither are they limited to the official versions nor to the institutional stance that flatly demonizes Escobar, seeks to nullify the issue and inhibit independent reflection. Instead, we strive for a deep understanding of causes, context and consequences.
Our tours allow you to analyze history and reflect on drug trafficking, violence and corruption in Colombia. An independent journalistic approach is used, without being limited to the biases of the media, the censorship of the authorities and traditional institutions, or the particular feelings of the people closest to the head of the Medellín Cartel.
With historical context, different views and different versions are addressed, so that the tourist can identify the lessons that should be learned from drug trafficking and the narco-war, on the principles of objectivity and neutrality.
We invite you to get to know Medellín de Cerca’s tours about Pablo Escobar.
