What To Expect During The Hacienda Napoles tour:
The park is one of the largest spaces of regional transformation in Colombia, after a difficult time for the country, as it became an environment for the conservation of species and a tourist attraction.
It is a pole of development for the entire region, with a proposal based on environmental and cultural content, knowledge, and recreation for the whole family.
The total area of the park is 1600 hectares.
In Hacienda Napoles Park there are 38 felines, including Bengal tigers, lions, and jaguars. Vanessa, the hippopotamus is the official mascot. She was born in the park and was raised by humans when she was rejected by her herd. The park has a large herd of hippopotamus, and it is the only one that lives free outside of Africa. Seeing them is a privilege!
The aquatic area of the park has four water slides: two outdoor and two indoor, three jacuzzis, an antique boat with six water cannons, and a bridge crossing on floating lotuses are waiting for you.
Hacienda Napoles Background
Hacienda Nápoles was acquired in 1978 by Pablo Escobar. With the purchase, sometimes forced, of other smaller properties, which were later reunited in a single property of about 3,000 hectares under the name of Hacienda Nápoles.
Buildings with dozens of rooms, roads, six swimming pools, 27 artificial lakes, its own gas station, an airplane landing strip, heliports, hangars, and an exotic tree plantation that included giant palm trees and stables with horses were built there.
The hacienda’s logo was a single-engine plane over its entrance gate, which was the same one in which Escobar sent his first cocaine shipment to the United States, or at least a replica of it, as he stated in an interview with journalist Germán Castro Caycedo that the original was lost at sea with a drug shipment.
The hacienda, whose land was valued by Escobar at 4500 million Colombian pesos in 1983 (57 million dollars at the time), besides being the meeting place of the leaders of the Medellín cartel, Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, Carlos Lehder, the Ochoa Vásquez brothers, etc., it was also the meeting and resting place of thousands of visitors, linked or not, to the cartel’s business. This is why it is still one of the popular destinations for Pablo Escobar tours.
Under the slogan “The State Triumphed”, the Hacienda Nápoles Theme Park began its first developments in April 2007, with the adaptation of the main areas of its large extension and the assembly of a Memorial Museum that would honor the victims of drug trafficking violence, contents that were commissioned to an expert in museums, historians, architects, anthropologists, designers, artists, engineers, administrators and others. In this place, based on press archives from different periods, a tour through different episodes of Colombian life was exhibited, critical and severe against violence, corruption, drug trafficking and all forms of crime that were consolidated through this practice.
What To Bring For The Hacienda Napoles Tour
You’ll be able to buy food, drinks, and other essentials in Hacienda Napoles (in addition to what we’ll provide on the tour), but there are a few other things to bring on the Hacienda Napoles tour that will make the day go smoothly.
- Shoes that are suitable for hiking/walking and water
- Camera
- Bug spray
- Swimming suit
- Sunglasses and hat
- Sunscreen
- Cash for incidental purchases
- Towel and extra clothes
