Comuna 13

A neighbourhood on the western slope above the city, officially San Javier. Today one of the most visited places in Medellín and at the same time the one with the hardest past of any district here.

Everything is there at once and none of it pretends otherwise. Originality next to kitsch, a view across the whole valley, food and drink on every corner, crowds of people and sellers who speak to everyone walking past. Motorbikes ride up and down the narrow pavements. Statues, a gorilla, a helicopter, a small Eiffel tower, all of it a spot for a photo. During the day it is safe here, which nobody would guess from the history.

Six sections of outdoor escalators under an orange roof lead up the hill, just under four hundred metres in total. They opened in 2011 and turned a climb equivalent to a twenty eight storey building into a few minutes. It is not an attraction, it is transport: until then people walked up the steps.

Why it was so bad here: the neighbourhood grew out of people driven from the countryside by the war, and it sits by the road heading west to the sea. Whoever controlled it controlled the route for weapons and for drugs. In the nineties and the early two thousands, urban guerrilla militias and then paramilitary units fought over it. In October 2002 the state sent in the largest urban military operation in the country's history, Operación Orión. Helicopters flew over the houses, shooting went on between homes, and along with fighters, civilians disappeared. Families are still looking for them, mainly at La Escombrera, the dump above the neighbourhood, considered one of the largest urban graves in Latin America, where digging has started again after years.

What grew out of it is on the walls. Graffiti and hip hop are not decoration for tourists here, they are how local people talk about that time. The tours are led by people from here and you can tell.