First theme park based on a drug baron’s estate

When Hacienda Napoles in Puerto Triunfo, Columbia, opened to the public on 26 December 2007, it became the very first theme park to be based on the estate of a drug baron – the notorious Pablo Escobar, who died in 1993. Costing US$10 million (then £5 million) to start up, the theme park spans the 1,497-ha (3,700-acre) ranch and boasts the ‘Parquet Jurasico’ life-size dinosaur sculptures, water park, 500-seat former bull-ring, Escobar’s car collection, and five hotels, as well as a zoo of elephants, hippopotamuses, rhinos, zebras, buffalos, bears and big cats. The entrance includes a scale replica of Escobar’s first airplane, a small Piper which he used to send his first shipment of cocaine to the USA. Born in 1949, Pablo Escobar started off his life of crime by stealing cars in the Columbian town of Medellin, before expanding to cocaine trade in the 1970s. The riches derived from this illegal activity allowed Escobar to develop Hacienda Napoles as paradise of exotic animals and expensive landscaping maintained by 700 staff. According to one story, over 100 employees spend several weeks training a flock of special birds to roost in trees near the main house.