up in the night and driven to our bodega. From there those people who could show ID to guards were placed in the seats and those who could not were put in the hidden tunnel. At the checkpoint the guards would ask, “What are you taking there?”

The password was “Materials.”

Each time a truck left the bodega we were called and told who was coming up.

In addition to our family and friends, politicians visited us, businessmen, priests, the greatest soccer players, and some of the most beautiful women in the world. There were many parties and in attendance were the beauty queens of Colombia and other countries, including famous actresses, models, and the prettiest girls at the universities. We would see a beautiful woman on television or in the newspapers and she would be invited. There was never any danger to them and for their visit they would receive a very nice gift. Often by their own choice they would stay the night, and leave after breakfast the next morning in the tunnel. In fact, between many of our bedrooms we had built small hideouts, so the girls could stay there without anyone being suspicious.

No one was ever pushed to come if she felt uncomfortable. One of the girls at the university remembers being approached by a friend who asked her if she wanted to go to a lovely party, for which she would be well paid. “What do I have to do?” she asked.

“Nothing. Just be beautiful.”

There is a magazine in Colombia called Cromos that publishes pictures of beautiful women. We would pick out women from the pages and invite them to the parties. One of the very first women to stay at the Cathedral was a twenty-year-old beauty who had just been fourth in the Miss Universe pageant who I had invited—she arrived there and stayed for five days. From these visits several people fell in love and there were some marriages at the Cathedral. And one of these women I fell in love with, she was a beauty queen and we had three beautiful children together before our marriage had a bad end. As I learned eventually, she had not fallen in love with me, but instead with my bank account.

It should not be surprising that there was a lot of sex at the Cathedral. We were young men, many of us rich, and confined inside the walls of a prison. Who could protect a woman better than the men of Pablo Escobar? Even our parties were moderate, with nice music and dancing.

Later, photographs found at the Cathedral after we’d escaped, of blow-up sex dolls and some of our men dressed as women, were printed in magazines to try to embarrass us. The impressions of those photographs were not true at all; these toys were jokes, the dress-up part of a costume day we had as our entertainment.

The beautiful women were never invited there during the weekly family visits. During the years we’d been running we had only been able to spend brief periods with our families. Being in prison allowed us to finally spend time safely with our wives, children, and families. In fact, Pablo had three beds put into his bedroom so his whole family could sleep in that room with him when they visited. He even had a small playhouse built for his daughter and a go-kart for his son.

There were always many people there when our families visited. Pablo would stay in his bedroom, which was right off the main living room, and invite those people he wanted to see into his room. Often through one of the trusted people there with us, he would hand out cash to the family. One of those people who came to visit was his seventeen-year-old cousin, who he called Pelolindo, the girl with the pretty hair. She came there dressed in her high school uniform with her mother and sisters. Like other members of the family, they had not seen Pablo in all the years we’d been on the run. And during that time she had become very beautiful. “When we were invited into his room,” she remembers, “he looked at everybody but he focused on me.” He said he didn’t really remember too much about meeting these girls when they were children. “The way he looked at me that day, I felt shy.”

She returned a few days later, this time dressed as a young woman. At first she was invited into his room with her two