PUERTO TRIUNFO – Tucked between mountain ranges, the sprawling palace of Pablo Escobar was home to kangaroos, giraffes, elephants and other exotic animals — a private zoo of illegally imported animals that was the greatest ostentation of the feared drug kingpin as he reigned over the cocaine trade in Colombia.
Escobar and his Medellin Cartel are long dead, but one of the zoo’s prized specimens is flourishing in the tropical countryside and wetlands in and around the palace-turned-theme park — the hippopotamus.
Like the man who introduced them to this country after obtaining them from a U.S. zoo, they are a source of endless controversy.