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Poverty surrounds historic Cartagena Desperation, crime afflict luxurious tourist stop

Poverty surrounds historic Cartagena
Desperation, crime afflict luxurious tourist stop

By Frank Bajak
The Associated Press
Posted April 29 2007
CARTAGENA, Colombia · A colonial gem with the country's priciest real estate, this Caribbean city is Colombia's pride -- increasingly popular as a port of call for cruise ships and aspiring to be the new Cancun with a frenzy of luxury construction.
Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, the king of Spain -- the list of celebrities visiting these days is rich, the catalog of Colombian notables acquiring Cartagena homes a veritable who's who. An evening carriage ride in the majestically preserved walled city, which has U.N. World Heritage status, is a magical vault into the past.
But Cartagena's efforts to set itself apart from so many other poverty-ringed Latin American cities are failing. No longer, it appears, can it claim immunity from the fallout of Colombia's half-century-old civil conflict.
Hopelessness and despair are growing just minutes from the harborside center where the Fourth International Congress of the Spanish Language paid tribute last month to novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez and where Gates presided over a regional Microsoft forum.
The regional public advocate, Arturo Zea, provides this snapshot:
One in five kids in this city of 1 million goes to school hungry.
Cartagena has more than 70 youth gangs, some now being challenged by budding protection rackets formed by demobilized paramilitary fighters. It's short more than 50,000 homes and 600 hospital beds.
Each month, 24 people die on average as they're ferried from hospital to hospital in search of a bed, said Fabio Castellanos, the city's public ombudsman.
"We're a historic and cultural heritage site and yet have the uncivilization of the most bitter and trying problems of injustice, of decadence, of inequity," said the Rev. Efrain Aldana, a Jesuit priest who runs the Afro-Caribbean Cultural Center.
Crime is on the rise, fed by the scarcity of opportunity. Cartagena had 275 murders last year, 49 more than in 2005, while armed robberies of individuals almost doubled to 1,955, according to police statistics. Local and federal officials will put 500 more police on patrol by July.
"The young people are lost. There's lots of drug addiction, lots of prostitution," says Ana Luz Ortega, a 39-year-old mother of seven who for six years shared a shack with two other families abutting the La Virgen estuary on the city's eastern edge.
Thousands in Cartagena lack running water and plumbing. In the rainy season, they sometimes slog through waist-high floodwaters.
About 150,000 cruise ship passengers are expected in the 2007-2008 season, twice this season's number, says Cartagena port spokeswoman Maria Paula Correa. Cruise visitors spend an average of $100 per visit -- the typical stay is a day -- and none has been a victim of serious crimes, she said.
But Cartageneros like Jaime Velasquez are skeptical their barrios will get any safer. An extortion gang is plaguing his neighborhood of Amberes. One gunman began halting motorists in January on a corner near Velasquez's house and hit his son in the face with the weapon, Velasquez said in a formal complaint.

He said police have done nothing to end the intimidation.

"People don't dare denounce these things because they're afraid they'll be killed," Velasquez said. "But I've had enough. I don't care."

In Cartagena, where unemployment runs above 15 percent, the gulf between Colombia's rich and poor is at its widest.
Housing downtown now fetches about $300 per square foot when three in five Cartageneros live on less than $2 a day. Sixty-seven major construction projects -- including boutique hotels but no public housing -- are in the works.

Some improvements are under way, including a partially finished perimeter highway along the putrid La Virgen, a municipal bus system, an esplanade along the quay and the construction of new high-rises. One tower, currently a skeleton of steel, is to be Colombia's tallest building at more than 50 stories.
But Cartageneros complain these projects leave out the poor.
In late March, just before 1,200 guardians of the Spanish language arrived from all over the Americas and Spain for their congress, the city destroyed a dozen food and boat trip-selling kiosks along the quay. Among them was the fruit stand that Antonio Monroy had run for 29 years. He says he was offered less than $4,000 in indemnization, with no hope of relocation.

By El_Rey_de_Rey_Siempre on Apr 29, 2007, 15:29 in Friendly Talkzone.

pedro (☼Travelguide writer) says on Apr 29, 2007, 16:10:

Cartagena Call me prejudiced, but no way would I call Cartagena "Colombia's pride".

Maybe Cartagena is Colombia's defining feature for an outsider who followed the gringo travel advice and only visited Cartagena and Bogota, and who has a limited knowledge of the country.

The social problems have always been there, I would have thought. You could make a case that things are getting better in Cartagena, not worse as the article implies.

que nota!

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aztec says on Apr 29, 2007, 16:52:

Some of the reasons we elected... ...to look in Bogotá instead of Cartagena for an apartment. We made three trips and saw some beautiful places especially to the west, where you will find El Laguito (The Little Lake) and Castillogrande (Big Castle).

Cartagena is an explosion waiting to happen!

I don't see how Foreigners living in the tourist zones could live there year round without feeling under siege. One would begin to feel like General Custer when he realized he was hopelessly surrounded and would not live much longer!

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dibbs says on Apr 29, 2007, 18:42:

Aztec, you're totally right, Cartagena is an explosion waiting to happen,With the ever fast growing Real estate market, then the challenge of having to deal with social issues, to make the city safe for tourists! if you see how prices in Real estate jumped up since Donald Trump decided to go all luxury in cartagena, and that Spanish company which offered some guy a million dollar for a small piece of land, lord have mercy on us. The best place to invest in right now is villa de leyva.

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tomtom33 (☼Travelguide writer) says on Apr 30, 2007, 04:01:

CTG certainly lacks a middle class. The tourist zone continues to be very safe. Those buildings under construction are going to need porteros, maintenance people, maid service, and food. The construction activity(including the Transcaribe) is offering jobs as well. The economic engine of tourism is better than no economic engine.

After 4 years I just moved to Medellin from CTG. Things are getting pricey in CTG, and I didn't like living in the middle of a 24/7 party.

The prostitution is no worse in CTG than it is in MDE. But there is a middle class in MDE.

I do intend to spend more time in CTG. For a month or two, it can be enjoyable.

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