---
type: Video
title: "Exploring Colombia's Famous Hood 🇨🇴"
description: A guided day in Comuna 13 — outdoor escalators, free wi-fi, street rappers and a district that went from one of the world's most dangerous to a tourist route in a decade.
tags: [colombia, medellin, comuna-13, graffiti, safety, guides, coffee, tourism]
timestamp: 2026-08-07T14:10:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CM7u88Xbgc
video_id: 3CM7u88Xbgc
upload_date: 2022-02-11
duration: 1787
---

# Exploring Colombia's Famous Hood 🇨🇴

The closing video of the [Colombia](/countries/colombia.md) cluster, and the one
that makes the cluster's argument explicitly. Harry is guided round
[Comuna 13](/places/comuna-13.md) in [Medellín](/places/medellin.md) — a district
he describes as having been one of the most dangerous places in the world ten to
twenty years ago and now a tourist hotspot — and says on camera that it is a
perfect example of somewhere you shouldn't stereotype, and that it sums up
Colombia.

**The video also supplies its own qualification, which is what makes it worth
having.** The description says the district is safe *with a tour guide*. The
guide steers him away from parts of it, explaining that people there don't want
to be filmed. An arrest happens in front of them, a helicopter circles, and the
guide's own story is of a shooting near the escalators three years earlier that
terrified a group of American visitors. None of that contradicts the
transformation; all of it bounds it.

The other half is the neighbourhood's own account of itself, from the guide:
families displaced from elsewhere, a lot of self-built housing on land nobody
held title to, and — before the tourists — nothing here but graffiti and
escalators.

It ends somewhere else entirely, on a lookout swing over the city at $4 a go,
which Harry says he wasn't going to film.

## Key moments

- [00:00] An Uber across Medellín, 11,000 pesos for 10–15 minutes — about £2 —
  and a note that public transport is cheaper still.
- [01:01] Meets his guide, who was born here and raised in Los Angeles.
- [01:31] The plan: the tourist part, and then off it.
- [02:02] Houses stacked up the hillside; he compares it to a Brazilian favela.
- [02:33] An informal parking attendant who finds a space and watches the car for
  5,000–6,000 pesos.
- [03:03] Graffiti, colour, stalls and a lot of tourists.
- [03:34] Local football talk — and the local club with few titles and, the guide
  says, the most loyal fans in the country.
- [04:39] Street rappers who ask before being filmed; 2,000 pesos is the going
  rate.
- [07:27] They freestyle about each listener's home city in turn, at speed.
- [08:34] The guide on being welcomed in: not just anyone can walk into a
  neighbourhood that isn't theirs.
- [08:34] The significance of the place, stated: one of the most dangerous areas
  in the world, now a tourist spot, and an argument against stereotyping.
- [09:38] Who lives here — Afro-Colombian families displaced from their towns and
  by guerrillas, drawn by cheap rent and space to build.
- [10:08] Roughly half the housing is on land the occupiers don't own, and the
  proportion rises with the hill.
- [10:40] The outdoor escalators, described as the only ones of their kind.
- [11:10] Free public wi-fi in the neighbourhood.
- [12:00] The view back over the city from the upper levels.
- [13:34] Some households pay no taxes or water charges.
- [14:42] Police and army stopping people and running ID numbers on a handheld
  device; an arrest happens in front of them.
- [15:12] The guide's own account of a shooting near the escalators about three
  years ago, with six American visitors present.
- [16:14] A new park at the top — recently built, clean, planted, and full of
  local families.
- [17:16] Off the tourist route, and the guide explaining who doesn't want to be
  filmed here.
- [17:48] A helicopter circling.
- [19:58] A clothes shop run by friends of the guide; Harry buys an
  Escobar-branded shirt for 25,000 pesos and calls the purchase interesting.
- [20:58] The house of the artist behind most of the district's graffiti, which
  is also a shop for original paintings.
- [22:08] Iced coffee with Baileys, whipped cream and caramel, from a café the
  guide says grew out of a shack. Beans from Santa Bárbara, Antioquia.
- [23:09] Colombia's 32 departments, and what they correspond to.
- [24:15] Verdict on the coffee: he says he can't go back to the chains.
- [24:45] Elsewhere in the city, a lookout swing over the valley at 15,000 pesos
  — about $4 — which he wasn't going to film.
- [26:53] The operator's joke about a 50% survival rate, delivered too straight
  to read.
- [29:09] His verdict: the best three dollars he has spent.

## Extracted pages

- [Colombia](/countries/colombia.md)
- [Comuna 13](/places/comuna-13.md)
- [Medellín](/places/medellin.md)
- [Judge a place for yourself](/tips/judge-a-place-for-yourself.md)

*Obs: the guide's phone number and a clothes shop's contact are published in the
description and plugged on camera. Neither is named in the bundle; the tour and
the shops are described in full.*