The Colombian drug lord’s exotic menagerie fell apart after his death, and now wild hippos are breeding out of control
In the steamy heat of the afternoon, Yamit Diaz Romero steered our motorised longboat around overhanging bamboo branches and islets in the Claro Cocorná Sur River in Colombia. Red howler monkeys swung from the cables of a footbridge and screeched in the jungle. Herons, snowy egrets, brown pelicans and parakeets darted across the coffee-coloured water and soared over our heads. The river is known as a destination for whitewater rafting. But these days it’s also become the scene of a more unsettling natural phenomenon.
Joining me on the vessel was Alejandro Mira, a veterinarian from Medellín, and Joshua Wilson, an American jiu-jitsu champion and world traveller who had hitched a ride with Mira and me and was sharing the experience with his followers on social media. Fishers motoring from the opposite direction gave warnings to Romero about what lay ahead. After an hour, the Claro Cocorná spilled into the Magdalena River, the longest in Colombia, which originates in the Andes and flows north for 1,600km before emptying into the Caribbean Sea.
