The secret to taking ayahuasca

If you’ve ever wondered what happened to drug lord Pablo Escobar’s enormous cocaine and occasional execution palace, as featured in the Netflix series Narcos, I can tell you. These days – following the violent death of Escobar in 1993 and the consequent escape of his pet hippos from his private zoo – the estate is now a garish, plasticky, hippo-themed children’s waterpark called Hacienda Nápoles. I have just driven past it.

I am deep in the Colombian province of Antioquia. Until about six years ago this hilly, jungly, notably remote region – halfway between the capital Bogotá and the once-murderous cartel citadel of Medellin – was strictly off limits, thanks to Escobar and friends, alongside revolutionary guerrilla outfits, militias and kidnapping gangs.

Happily, much of that violence has receded, even as Pablo’s feral coke hippos have multiplied (they are now regarded as a pest, and sometimes wander into local towns).