"Take a dash of faded colonial grandeur, then add a dose of sultry nightlife and an influx of cosmopolitan travelers seeking the next great Caribbean hot spot. Oliver Schwaner-Albright sets his sights on an emerging Colombian getaway that delivers all this and more."
Cartagena is Colombia’s prize jewel, far from the Medellin drug wars and full of colonial charm
By JEFFREY SIMPSON
Sat. Mar 15 - 6:52 AM
I HAD BEEN in Cartagena only a few hours when I was approached by a young guy on the street.
"Where you from?" he asked me.
Then he had a few suggestions about how to enhance my visit to the seaside city.
"If you are looking for a nightclub there’s a good one over there. And if you need anything else while you’re here, I can help you."
He rattled off a list of illegal things he figured I might be interested, enabling me to now be able to tell people that — in keeping with the stereotypical image of the country — I was offered drugs in Colombia.
But he was quite pleasant about it and this was the sole slightly unsavoury incident of a recent visit to the South American country.
For years foreign visitors have been scared away from Colombia with tales of cocaine cartels, paramilitary groups, kidnappings and violence.
Now its reputation is on the mend as visitors discover that it’s actually quite safe with much more to offer than its most famous export.
And nowhere is this more evident than in its prize jewel, the Caribbean port of Cartagena.
"I never seen anything as special as Cartagena in any other country," a young English-speaking woman working at one of the country’s rare tourist-information booths in the city told me; until now there hasn’t been much of a demand for her services because there have been relatively few foreign visitors.
But over the past couple of years the security situation in the country has improved. And Cartagena, which never experienced narco-fuelled violence like cities such as Medellin, has been a prime drawing card. There are now direct flights from the United States and major cruise lines are adding the city to their itineraries, bringing in hundreds of tourists.
They come to wander the labyrinth of cobblestone streets beneath wooden balconies draped in bougainvillea that adorn the grand colonial buildings. This section of Cartagena is known as the old town and consists of an appealing jumble of imposing churches and leafy plazas encircled by massive stone walls.
The Spanish founded Cartagena in 1533 and within decades it grew wealthy, becoming one of the most important settlements on the Caribbean coast. It served as a gateway to South America for the Spanish and it was from this point they shipped home the copious amounts of treasure they plundered from the continent.
Pirates were naturally attracted to the area and attacked the place on a pretty regular basis. So the Spanish decided to build huge walls in attempt to keep out those after their booty.
If anything, these days, the wall keeps people from leaving.
Valetto is part of an influx of foreigners who have poured into the city over the past few years and he has watched as they have bought historical buildings and driven up property values.
They saw potential in the crumbling colonial building and set about restoring even the most neglected. Indeed, it sometimes seemed like the entire town was under construction, with every second address undergoing some plastering or painting. Even as I sat talking to Valetto, workmen were lugging huge boards upstairs to build luxury apartments.
Much of the movie Love in the Time of Cholera was filmed here, based on a story by the Colombian author and Cartagena native Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez. It’s easy to recognize the appeal such a place would have — many of the streetscapes are so perfectly colonial it’d be difficult to do any better if you were designing a film set from scratch.
At night, it’s especially romantic as outdoor lanterns glow and the stone facades of churches are illuminated with spotlights. Horse-drawn carriages clack over the cobblestones, squiring visitors around on romantic tours.
The heart of the old town is the pleasant but bustling Plaza Santo Domingo, set in front of its namesake cathedral. The square is filled with outdoor seating for the restaurants that ring it and passers-by are constantly fought over by the aggressive waitresses who aren’t above even luring customers already settled at another eatery.
In the evenings dance troupes, musicians and mimes perform for diners amid the illuminated buildings; during the day men roam around trying to sell knock-off Breitling watches or Gucci sunglasses.
Street food is also abundant throughout the city. Men sold fried arepas, a type of corn bread, next to women peddling a selection of sticky sweets resembling jams.
Older women wandered around balancing on their heads bunches of pineapples, mangos and other tropical fruits to chop into salads.
But there’s a shady side to Cartagena’s past.
It was also a centre for the Inquisition and the various modes of extracting confessions from suspects are on display in the Palace of the Inquisition, where hundreds of heretics were once sentenced to death for crimes including magic and blasphemy. Housed in a beautifully restored mansion that’s worth a peek in its own right, the museum displays such torture standbys as stocks and the rack.
The city was also once a slave-trading port and this heritage is visible in the faces of its predominantly Afro-Caribbean population. The market for this unsavoury business was located at what’s now known as Plaza de Los Coches at an entrance of the old town’s main section. The area is now a hub for pub-crawling partygoers in the evenings, lined with bars crammed with men and women shaking their moneymakers..
There’s a newer section of Cartagena that’s stacked with modern skyscrapers and is popular with well-heeled Colombian tourists who enjoy the beachfront resorts and high-end restaurants.
I thought Cartagena was good for 2-3 days to acclimate before going some place like Santa Marta. And far from hidden....and the reason you see so few foreigners is that are still so few tourists going to Colombia..
Don't these people that write positive articles about Cartagena ever read this forum?
They need a few of our members to set them straight about how terrible a city Cartagena really is...
Saltador, terrible? Not for a tourist spending a week there.
"I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth. A nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present."
on the other hand... you're right.
Cronica de pirry: Fantasmas en la Ciudad de Piedra 1/6
"I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth. A nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present."
"Don't these people that write positive articles about Cartagena ever read this forum?
They need a few of our members to set them straight about how terrible a city Cartagena really is..."
At first I THINK that I misunderstood the sarcasm, and then read in his profile:
"I'm getting closer to buying an apartment in Cartagena. One of the questions I have is how I will go about furnishing it? I'll need everything, beds, sofa, dining room, TV, refrigerator, lamps, lines, dishes, towels etc. What is the best way to accomplish this? Just head to Exito with credit card in hand? "
