Medellín Day 2: Museums

The second of my three-day trip was spent both in Medellín and Bogotá. In the morning, I’d quickly realized that I wouldn’t get to do all that I’d hoped to do in Medellín, though I suppose that’s to be expected when visiting a pretty famous city for all but 24 hours.

After narrowing what I wanted to do down from seemingly everything to just two things, I got a move on. Lachlan and his girlfriend had haircuts, and I felt more than okay being alone in Medellín, especially at the tourist spots, so I called an Uber and got going.

My first spot was the Museo El Castillo, a museum of a castle that was used as recently as a couple decades ago. Driving up to the Castillo really exemplifies what I see as Medellín being a “3D city.” You are constantly driving over underpasses and under overpasses, the streets are on a near 30° slope at points, and tall buildings eclipse shorter ones. It makes for a really interesting drive, and I can imagine, it makes the GPS system a nightmare, as you may not know whether you are on the right “altitude” of street… Either way, I got to the castle and walked around the gardens a little bit. The castle has another amazing view of Medellín, as it is quite high up, though the castle itself isn’t out of the city at all. It is surrounded by regular houses and apartment buildings that wouldn’t be out of place in any other barrio in the city.

The gardens were very pretty, but nothing all that special. They reminded me of Cranbrook gardens, and to be honest, there’s a lot of comparisons to draw between Cranbrook House and Museo El Castillo. I felt weirdly at home walking around the castle and its grounds, feeling as if the Greek theater was to my right and the lake was just through the trees.

The castle itself was very odd. A fine, European castle nestled inside this very distinctly South American city. A city that you’d never find in Europe. And notice I say European, not French or German or Spanish. That’s because it’s all those things. I heard someone once say that sometimes South Americans are weird. When they pretend they’re Europeans, they don’t pretend to be one kind of European, rather, just a general weird grab-bag of “Spanish this, but French that and German this.”  And this castle was my first look into that weird mix of European traditions. The castle was clearly inspired by the castles from the Loire valley in France (which I’ve seen!) which even the tour guide mentioned. It’s got those wide circular towers capped by black cones, a very “round” interior where you can walk in a circle without even knowing it, and several layers of balconies. But stepping inside (and pardon my lack of photos, as photos were “prohibited” in the castle), your eyes fall immediately on several things. First would be the bronze cast sculptures of Roman gods, another may be the assortment of swords used in the Spanish conquest of South America. Or if you look straight ahead, you see the Andalucian style fountain or to the side, the walls lined with Sevillano tiles made authentically in Triana. There are cases filled with Dutch pottery, coffee spoons painted with cityscapes from places the family had traveled to, portraits of classical composers, one of the three smallest Guttenberg bibles to have ever been printed, and chandeliers imported from Persia and China. The walls in the daughter’s bedroom were lined with paintings she made as a kid with her mom which depict four classic German fairy tales, and they even had a jukebox. It truly is an odd collection of European customs and cultures.

Andalucian style fountain made from Sevillano tiles, notice the German imperial eagle in the back as well.

So why so European? The castle was owned by a family whose father was born in Itagüi (a city bordering Medellín) and whose mother was German. They had one daughter, who died of ALS in her early 20s while living away from home in the US. The whole family story was a heartwarming one, ending with tragedy. The father was a great believer in education, and founded a German school in Medellín, several libraries, and other philanthropic works in the city. He really believed in his power to help his city with his money, and he’s remembered fondly by locals. (Keep this in mind for someone we discuss later on…). His wife was similar, and she wrote in her will that her estate would become a museum, as she loved her house and her collections so much that she wanted others to be able to enjoy them just as she did. The estate was last occupied in the early 1970s.  

Composers in the library

I exited the castle and took an Uber through some very cool roads to my next destination. Both these places were high up in the hills, so the roads we took were winding, always on an incline, and had some great views of the city. And this next spot, sitting on a road that was almost at 45° of incline, was the Pablo Escobar Museum, located in one of his many old houses.

It was about time I did this—Lachlan had told me in the car home from Poblado last night the majority of what you need to know, though I figured going to a museum may have some good visual displays of his story.  I feel like Pablo Escobar is written off as a typical bad guy, his motives generally chalked up to his “evil soul,” and his story told incompletely. I also haven’t seen the hit series Narcos yet (though I hope to start it soon), so maybe I am uninformed about the general public’s knowledge about Escobar. But for now, I’ll tell you the parts that are important to understanding Colombia’s collective trauma, and why he, surprisingly, is a more controversial figure than a universally hated one.

Pablo Escobar made a lot of money from smuggling drugs into the US. Simple as that. He was born at a time when there were only a few families in Colombia that possessed most of the power, even if more were wealthy. These two facts are the most important facts in understanding why Pablo Escobar was who he was. Escobar, coming from a not powerful family, found himself greedy of more power. He sat in the senate for two years, and at one point, he ran for president. But to amass that power, he used violence, killing those who possessed that power he so bloodthirstily desired. And by the end of his reign of terror, he was blowing up entire city blocks to kill just one official. He ordered the killings of (only) about 5,000 people, but in the crossfire, several tens of thousands more were killed. Cities were destroyed, and public trust in safety was destroyed. As well as a political power struggle, there was also an intra-cartel struggle, with the Cali Cartel posing a significant threat to his Medellín Cartel.

But if there is one man who represents Colombia’s troubled past, there’s no contest, it is Escobar.

Now, why was he controversial, not just universally hated? Well, the guy was stupid filthy rich. And though people were concerned about where his fortune was coming from, he figured that the best way to assuage critics was to simply help his country. So, though he bombed Bogotá to smithereens, he actually did some serious good in Medellín. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s one of the main reasons Medellín is such a special city nowadays. Previously, before Escobar’s time, homelessness was as much a problem in Medellín as it is in other major cities. But one of the first things Escobar did with his wealth was build 3,000 new houses, fully furnished, and donate them, for free to those in need. He would hold gatherings for the city, where, at the end, he’d give out thousands of dollars to thank the attendees for coming. He was, in some ways, the Oprah Winfrey of Colombia. Except, his gifts came tax-free! He had so much money that he started burying it, and everyone in the country knows that if you dig hard enough you could find a very generous posthumous gift from Mr. Escobar. He’d drop his money from helicopters, and invite the most famous soccer players to play with him at his own private pitch. Of course, these players knew that if they won against him, they’d get the bullet, and if they let him win, they’d leave a hefty bit richer. It is very easy to frame Escobar as an uber-wealthy little kid, to make him seem kind. And though he did do all these really great things for Medellín and its inhabitants, much of it was a tool for him to gain support. And, of course, he brought much more violence to the country than he ever brought philanthropy. But anyways, I was given much more positive information about Escobar than I was expecting my whole time down there. Maybe that’s a metaphor for Colombia—that everything bad has a good side, and you don’t have to dig far to see it.

The museum was cool—it had lots of Escobar’s objects, including escape vehicles, helicopters, jetskis, and airplanes, and it was filled with photos that our guide could talk endlessly about. They also opened up a tunnel, and replicated a secret door he had. I wish I caught more of the information, but my notes document unfortunately failed to save, so I lost all of that.

They had five identical escape cars lined up, all bulletproof, and each shot several times with no bullets having pierced into the cabin. Escobar used to ride in a motorcade, as to lessen his chances of him being in a car that’s shot.

They also had a plane tire there, which, though unassuming sounding, is actually very important. Escobar did much of his smuggling, especially earlier on, through the tires of Avianca planes—Avianca being both the flag carrier airline of Colombia, and the airline that’d be operating my flight to Bogotá in about two hours.

Another exhibit was a “prison cell,” though it was more a piece of performance art than it was a replica of Escobar’s prison cell. When Escobar was “arrested” and “put in prison,” he managed to bargain his way into a pretty sweet deal. Of course, he had his “Plata o Plombo” ‘doctrine’ where if you didn’t take his money and do what he wanted, you were shot. So this deal of his was that he’d be in prison, but he got to build the prison in a location of his choosing. Into the prison, he was able to bring in pretty much whatever and whoever he wanted, and he had pretty lavish amenities, such as a soccer field. Escobar escaped a little after a year of being in his mansion (aka prison). So on this "prison cell" exhibit, though it appeared to lock, the lock was assembeled in a way as to never actually close the door, rather, just to give the appearance that the cell was locked. This was a metaphor for Escobar's prison: that though he was "behind bars," there was nothing stopping him from interacting with the outside world.

The museum was not all the information I had hoped for—there wasn’t even an information plaque anywhere, instead, requiring you to buy a guided tour, but I really enjoyed seeing some of the relics from the time.

So, I headed from there straight to the airport. Lachlan and Cata had my stuff—passport included—so I was sort of relying on them to get there. But, they had some unexpected delays on their way to the airport. They made it with enough time to hand me my passport and run, but they missed the flight. So I headed on to Bogotá alone, on my Avianca flight I hoped was not carrying cocaine in the tires.