Nathan Rundle with his Aussie brew.
Pablo Escobar:there,we've got it out of the way. We've checked off the inevitable mention of the former drug kingpin who immediately springs to mind whenever you think about Colombia,and in particular when you think about the city of Medellin.
This is the place Escobar once called home,where you can still find his abandoned,fortified mansion,where the presence of this feared and also oddly respected gangster in some ways lives on. The thing is though,the people of Medellin are sick of talking about Pablo Escobar. They'd probably be riled by the very mention of him in this story. The cocaine kingpin died 25 years ago,and his former home city has changed immeasurably in that time. It's cleaned up its act. It's moved on.
It's moved on so far,in fact,that expat Australians now like to call the city home. One,Nathan Rundle,picked up his life in Brisbane and moved it to Medellin four years ago,and has since kicked off a successful craft beer company. I decided to chat to him about life in the (former) land of Escobar.
The view from the Rock of Guatape,in the town of Guatape,on the outskirts of Medellín.Credit:Alamy
How did you come to be living in Medellin?
Basically,I just wanted to go travelling. In 2012 I was travelling in South America,and I included Colombia on that itinerary. I met my ex-girlfriend,who's Colombian,here in Medellin,I went back to visit her a few times and just fell in love with the place. We ended up breaking up,but I moved over here permanently in 2014. I was working as an IT administrator in the mining and engineering industry in Australia,and that was going through a tough period at the time,so I put my hand up for a redundancy and took off.
Was it hard to settle in?
Aburra Valley Brewing Company in Medellin.
I struggled with the Spanish language for a while. I struggled trying to find IT work too. I did get a job after I'd been looking for about 12 months. Finally. But then the Colombian government denied my work visa! So not only did I have to leave the country within 30 days,but I also lost the job. The thing is,though,every calendar year you're allowed six months as a tourist in Colombia,and because that happened about the middle of November,by January I could get another six months as a tourist. So I just went to Central America for a bit. When I got back from Central America I started putting some things for the microbrewery together.