++ graffiti tour medellin

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About two actor tourists visited Colombia aftermost year and advance charcoal able [Chris Arsenault/Al Jazeera]

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Medellin, Colombia - It's the affectionate of allure adventure-seeking backpackers love; nine Western travellers in shorts and Birkenstocks accumulation into a van for a bout able tales of "drugs, excess, sex and violence".

Based on the activity of one of the world's best belled drug-dealers, the Pablo Escobar Bout highlights the acceleration and abatement of "El Patron", an aggressive bandit who climbed from petty crime to become the planet's seventh richest person.

He operated a agile of planes bringing cocaine from South America to the world, revolutionising the all-around biologic trade, captivated a bench in Congress and - in an attack to abstain displacement to the US - offered to pay Colombia's absolute adopted debt of $20bn.

"Escobar's grave is the additional best visited [tomb] in South America," says Paula Taborda, the 28-year-old bout guide, as the accumulation stares at the gangster's baby applique in a abundant cemetery. "Many bodies saw him as a blazon of Robinhood," she says of a man amenable for bags of deaths and after-effects of abandon in the astern 1980s and aboriginal '90s.

The bout stops at the abode area Escobar fabricated his aftermost angle afore annoyed in a barrage of bullets from aegis armament in 1993.

Today, afterwards abundant acknowledged wrangling, the baby average chic abode is home to a approved Colombian family. "It charge blot to accept groups of gringos staring at your abode demography photos all the time," quipped Peter, an Australian backpacker as he airtight photos with his smartphone.

As genitalia of burghal Colombia balance from years of centralized battle affiliated to the biologic barter and a alternation of insurgencies, tourism operators such as Taborda are aggravating to change perceptions, while creating bounded jobs.

Urban renewal

Twenty-years ago, Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city, was busted by biologic violence, car bombs and approved shootouts as biologic gangs, accompaniment armament and clandestine militias fought for supremacy. In 1991, at the acme of Escobar's battle with authorities, Medellin faced 6,349 murders.

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Today, it's a advancing city, analytic safe by Latin American standards, with an arising accumulation of adolescent high-tech professionals and a near-perfect climate. Between 1991 and 2013, the city's annihilation amount fell by 80 percent.

However, in barrios about the city, generally busy by bodies displaced by battle in added genitalia of Colombia, aerial levels of abjection abide forth with delinquency.

"In the aftermost 10 years, there has been a lot of transformation and amusing addition accident here," says Sandra Echeverri Duque, the tourism sub-secretary for Medellin. With advice from the bounded government, youths in poor communities are aperture baby restaurants, and organising hip-hop and graffiti tours to banknote in on new tourism. The businesses are allotment of a broader government attack to try and advance activity for some of the city's atomic residents.

"We accept accessible libraries, cable cars and added basement for the bodies active in the [traditionally poor] aerial zones [surrounding the city]," she says. "We adopt to allocution about acceptable things accident in our city, not aloof Pablo Escobar."

Escobar's ballyhoo as Medellin's best abominable bounded son irritates locals, who say they feel banal with common references to cocaine and annihilation back they biking abroad. His bequest in Colombia's biologic bazaar has emanated through accepted culture, captured in Johnny Depp's blur Blow, Killing Pablo and Pablo Escobar: King of Cocaine.

"We abhorrence actuality associated with Escobar," says Taborda. "Part of the abstraction of the bout is to accomplish things clear, to abode misunderstandings on this topic."

'Not the end'

The bout passes some of the several hundred barrio already endemic by Escobar and his associates, and the country club area Medellin's old aristocratic denied associates to the cipher criminal.

After visiting an alfresco altar already accepted with Escobar's sicarios, or hit men, Taborda regales the tourists with belief of Escobar's hidden wealth. Like the pirates of yesteryear, biologic dealers were accepted to backing ample amounts of banknote beneath the arena and central the walls of old houses with the ambition of award it later. Bodies occassionally blunder aloft the hidden boodle back refurbishing old buildings, acclimation the accouterments or digging holes.

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"Did you anytime acquisition any of Pablo's money?" asks Cameron, a alpine Scottish day-tripper in a catchbasin top and astern baseball cap.

"What happened actuality [with biologic violence] 20 years ago is the aforementioned affair accident in Mexico now. The killing of Escobar wasn't the alpha - or the end.

- Paula Taborda, bout guide

"You'll never know," Taborda smiles. "This chat never happened."

"I could abiding use some of that money buried in the walls," pipes in Luke from England. "I'd haversack forever."

Luke is one of about two actor tourists to appointment Colombia annually. The industry is growing by about seven percent per year, and government admiral aspect the acceleration to business campaigns, bigger aegis and chat of mouth.

"We are acceptable ambassadors for our city," Duque says. "People are appreciative of how things accept changed."

Well acquainted of Colombia's acceptability for abandon and biologic dealing, admiral accept confronted abrogating perceptions bang in anxious business campaigns.

"Colombia: The alone accident is absent to stay," reads a tourism advertisement at Bogota's airport.

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Medellin's acceptability for vice, however, could be adorable a demographic of tourists added absorbed in brothels than the paintings of acclaimed bounded artisan Fernando Boltero.

"A lot of the foreigners who appear actuality are up to no good," says Juan Carlos, a auto driver. "They are consistently allurement about girls."

In Parque Lleras, a accepted neighbourhood abounding of confined and cafes in the chic Poblado district, it's not aberrant to see groups of ample middle-aged gringos belted by adorable 20-something bounded girls with aggrandized breasts.

But backpackers such as the ones of the Escobar tour, forth with approved tourists from added genitalia of Colombia, Canada, the US and Latin America are mostly fatigued to the airy atmosphere and prices, which are bargain compared to the basic Bogota or added ample cities.

While Escobar is today's day-tripper attraction, rather than a amount alarming fear, his baneful bequest of popularising cocaine amid the aerial rollers of Europe and North America lives on.

"What happened actuality [with biologic violence] 20 years ago is the aforementioned affair accident in Mexico now," Taborda says. "The killing of Escobar wasn't the alpha - or the end."

For tourism operators, however, his afterlife was the alpha of a new opportunity. At $20 per person, it's proving analytic advantageous - but annihilation compared with Escobar's amount business.

Follow Chris Arsenault on Twitter: @chrisarsenaul

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