On one corner of the 3,700-acre park, a bright pink hippo statue poses on a plinth; in another, dinosaurs are frozen in time. Elsewhere, a giant octopus emerges from a swimming pool with waterslides wrapped up in its tentacles.
As far as theme parks go, there isn’t really anything too surprising or out of the ordinary going on here. Yet this is no ordinary tourist attraction. The Hacienda Nápoles theme park is situated on grounds that once belonged to Colombia’s (and perhaps the world’s) most famous drug lord: Pablo Escobar, whose abandoned island getaway we explored in a previous article.
Even when the estate belonged to Escobar, Hacienda Nápoles was not your average house and garden. For one, Escobar’s estate included a private zoo stocked with elephants, giraffes, antelope, hippos and other exoticcreatures. Still, before you think the wealthy drug lord had a soft spot for animals, Escobar also built his own private arena for bullfighting.
In 2012, the Hacienda Nápoles theme park was included on Time magazine’s list of “Top 10 Weirdest Theme Parks.” Apart from the bizarre novelty of the fact that it was once a drug lord’s estate and is now a family-friendly tourist attraction, it’s also an interesting place to visit for anyone interested in Colombia’s troubled history. We thank Pete Hottelet for sharing his photographs with us.
It’s appropriate that the Hacienda Nápoles welcome gate features Pablo Escobar’s first ever drug-smuggling plane. After all, it was the cash he made from his illicit trade that enabled him to buy the estate in the first place. Escobar flew the plane himself in the early days as he built his cocaine empire from the ground up.
Check out the Pictures here!
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