Top Travel Leads

Over the years, we have come to realize, depending on the nature of a city, some places are better enjoyed without the structure of an itinerary. Cartagena, behind the walls, is just that kind of place, a walking city beckoning you to wander its narrow cobblestone streets and allowing serendipity, and not a tour book, to be your guide. Historic Cartagena is a visual treat, a place where color takes advantage of every available surface, the character of the paint expressing the style of the owner or the passage of time. The grand buildings, expressing colonial and republican charm, are painted in soft shades of pink, peach, white and ochre and the smaller ones, usually one story, formerly occupied by workers and tradesman, are painted in a varied palette of bold colors.

Cartagena is a mélange of many cultural influences, a mix of people, Caribe Indians, Black Africans, Arabic, Spanish and other Europeans, who have been blending in an ethnic stew for over 500 years. Life here is lived out on the streets in a perpetual carnival pulsating with a vibrant Caribbean atmosphere. This city, with its seductive charm, is waiting for you to soak it up and to seep gently down into it. It is an emotional place that should be engaged, not so much studied; a place to be felt more than read about.

Historic Cartagena is divided into four sectors. Our hotel, located on Calle Santo Domingo, was in the Center or Calamari district and on our second morning in Cartagena, we set out on foot to explore this area first.

ON FOOT IN CARTAGENA
It was still early but the humidity here works 24/7and even before we could step into the street, it had us cloaked in a soggy wet blanket. Our immediate concern was to find a banco, a place to change money. We turned right out of the hotel and then took the first left, arriving at the Plaza Bolivar, a popular gathering spot with a storied history. The moneychanger was located on the west side of the plaza and we found him in a small office behind a thick wall of glass. Donald presented him two crisp one hundred dollar bills and in turn received several sheets of bureaucratic paper work to fill out. The man, without reason to hurry, slowly examined the money, held it up to the light, marked it with a pen and finally decided it was good enough to exchange for Colombian pesos. Apparently not trusting his calculator or his computer and relaying on nothing more than an invoice book and a sheet of carbon paper, he began to do the math by hand. Losing patience, I stepped outside and found myself standing in the former Arcade of the Scribes. In the past, illiterate people came here and paid a “scribe” a few pesos to write a letter or fill out a form. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia’s most famous author, worked in Cartagena when he was a young journalist and used the city as the background for several of his books. Those who have read Love in the Time of Cholera will recognize this to be the place where Florentino Ariza, one of the main characters in the book, worked as a scribe.

With our dollars changed into pesos, Donald and I walked across the street and entered the Plaza Bolivar, already filled up with morning visitors. During colonial times, this was the center of political and religious life. The Cathedral, home to the archbishop, is located on the eastern side of the plaza and rebuilt after Sir Francis Drake’s attack in 1586. The headquarters of the Inquisition is located on the north west corner and during colonial times, this square was called Plaza Inquisition. Established by the Dominicans to guard the purity of the Catholic Church against heresy and witchcraft, the Inquisition was exported to Cartagena in 1610. However, it was not carried out in the Spanish colonies with the enthusiasm experienced in Europe. Today, their early 17th Baroque building has been restored to its former glory and turned into a museum explaining the Inquisition with exhibitions of the torture instruments used to gain confessions. The Gold Museum and the Central Bank are both housed in renovated colonial buildings, adding additional grandeur to the park area.

With the advent of independence from Spain, the hated Inquisition was closed down and the plaza was turned into a bull fighting ring. Then in 1896, it was renamed, this time to honor Simon Bolivar. In 1810, Cartagena tried to liberate itself and became one of the first towns to declare independence from Spain. However, by 1815 this attempt had failed and even though they were defeated by the Spanish army, Bolivar called Cartagena “la heroic”, the heroic city. Cartagena would eventually gain independence in 1821 following Bolivar’s defeat of the Spanish at the Battle of Boyacá near Bogota in 1819.

Today an equestrian statue of Bolivar is in the middle of the plaza and benches line the perimeter. It has been landscaped into great expanses of green punctuated with large leafy trees, palms and rubber trees, providing shade from the over bearing sun. Donald and I sat on a bench, joining the others in people watching. Everyone seemed to be waiting for someone or something else, but for us the nothing that happened was done in a most interesting way. Food vendors pushed their carts through the park, offering a wide variety of freshly squeezed fruit juices, fried arepas, and ice cream. A young man’s small cart consisted of nothing more than one coffee thermos and a few cups. We were offered lollipops on long sticks, peanuts wrapped in newspaper and cigarettes sold one at a time. While children chased the pigeons and old men played dominoes and chess, Donald and I tried to discourage the shoeshine boy, no we did not want our sneakers polished black and we did not need any shoelaces. Armed policemen were keeping a close watch on the park. For us, the measure of security they provided was always mitigated by the thought of why they were still needed.

With Garcia Marquez’s Florentino Ariza as our guide, we walked in his footsteps to the Plaza Fernandez de Madrid, finding ourselves in the San Diego district, formerly an upper class neighborhood, home to wealthy businessmen and high ranking military officers. In the novel, Florentino’s love for Fermina would go unrequited and just like him, we sat on a bench under what I hoped was an almond tree and stared at the white house across the street which Garcia Marquez used as the model for Fermina’s home. Just as he described it, there was a large balcony and a doorknocker in the shape of a parrot. Called Gabo by his friends, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, now in his later years, returned to Cartagena and built a house. We were walking in that direction until the sounds of music filling the air caused a small detour and we found ourselves in the nearby Plaza de San Diego, adjacent to the School of Fine Arts. A jazz band was practicing a Latin version of “Falling Leaves”. While listening to Roger William’s piano version reinterpreted into a salsa beat, we viewed an unexpected student art show.

We finally made our way down Calle del Curato and at the corner, near the walls of the city, we stood in front his Gabriel Marquez’s house. It is an artful arrangement of cubes and arches designed by Rogelio Salmona, Colombia’s foremost architect who clad Bogota in red brick. Keeping him in or keeping us out, the house is hidden behind a high forbidding wall painted the color of rust.

Donald and I walked through the San Diego section, back to El Centro and to the plaza adjacent to the city’s main gate. Along the way, we marveled at the beautiful balconies where brilliantly colored flowers cascaded over the railings. Using our eyes to peel away the encrusted layers of time, we knew the wooden balconies were constructed in colonial times and the stucco ones constructed after independence during the time of the Republic. A cacophony of sounds filled the streets, a group of young men sitting on over turned crates strumming guitars, vendors crying out, advertising their fruits and vegetables sold from wooden carts. We passed the palenqueras, Caribbean women dressed in their traditional colorful skirts and blouses selling fruit from baskets balanced on their heads. They seemed to sway down the street to the sounds of Caribbean music pulsating through the thick air, once again from unseen sources. Cartagena’s private life goes on behind high walls and heavy ornamental doors. Nevertheless, I interpret a door left open as an invitation to step inside and we were often rewarded with scenes of courtyards filled with fountains, flowers and shade trees.

Thick walls surround historic Cartagena and the main entrance, facing the bay, is through a triple arched gateway guarded by a drawbridge that is no longer there and a clock tower that forms part of the iconic scene. During the latter part of the 19th, it became fashionable to place clocks in public buildings and one was placed in this tower in 1888 giving the gate the name, Puerta del Reloj, Clock Gate. In the area in front of the gate, Plaza de los Coches, there is a statue of Pedro de Heredia, the founder of Cartagena. This plaza is the site of the former slave market, the largest such market in the Americas, and by the time slavery was abolished in 1811, over one million people had been processed through here. A series of buildings face onto the plaza and underneath its arcaded façade is the El Portal de los Dulces, stall after stall selling candy presented in glass jars. When we arrived, the plaza was alive with activity, people walking through, construction workers restoring an old building, and bus tours gathered around Pedro de Heredia. At the edge of the plaza, a man was standing on a wooden crate waving a Bible in the air, apparently preaching to a small crowd that had gathered to listen. Several days later, we returned to this plaza in the late afternoon. By that time the famous restaurant and bar, Fidel’s, had set up their chairs and tables and even though we never felt a cooling sea breeze and the sunset was hidden behind the clouds, we enjoyed a cold beer while listening to music and watching the local dance troupes that perform each afternoon in the plaza.

We walked to the adjacent square, Plaza San Pedro. It is named for Peter Claver the 17th Spanish monk who was appalled by the inhuman treatment of the slaves and while attending to their needs, managed to baptize over 150,000 of them. For this work, he became the first Spanish churchman in the Americas to be canonized. The nearby church is named for him and its ochre colored cupola can be seen from most parts of the city. The day we were there, we had the entire plaza to ourselves and spent time looking at the metal sculptures depicting people at work on traditional crafts and trades. Their Modern Art Museum is nearby and stepping inside, we gratefully welcomed the air conditioning. While cooling down, we wandered through their collection of Colombia as well as Mexican artists. The art was abstract and expressive and the air was chilling. The building is an excellent example of how their historic buildings are being renovated to accommodate modern needs while still maintaining their original façades.

As anyone knows who has spent time in tropical heat, the siesta exists, not because the people are lazy, but because it is necessary to get out of the sun. After enjoying the museum, finding a place for lunch and walking back to the hotel for a rest seemed a good idea. As the days past, we would tour in the morning, siesta in the hotel and then come out again in the early evening. Was it inevitable that the cloud cover would persist or were we fated to enjoy a sunset over the Caribbean Sea? We never knew, after all, we were in Cartagena.

Construction on this fort was started after Sir Francis Drake’s attack on the city in 1586. It began as a small fortification and after 150 years of construction, with the help of slave labor and a Dutch engineer, it eventually became the largest Spanish fort built in the Americas. Seen from below, it looks like a massive pile of stones covering a hill. We walked to the top, saw how it commanded entry into the city by land as well as sea and walked back down to wander through it endless tunnels which served as supply routes.

We navigated our way through the throng of souvenir sellers and stood in front of the statue of Don Blas de Lezo, one of the most famous Spanish naval officers in history and honored here for saving the city in 1741 from a British attack. In his forty year naval career, he fought the British, the Dutch and the Genoese and along the way, he lost a leg, an arm and one eye. The British, prompted by their desire to increase their colonial empire, attempted to take over Spain’s possessions in the Americas. Deciding against attacking Havana, they directed their attention toward Cartagena and the ensuing sixty-seven day battle became known as the Battle of Cartagena de Indias. Under the leadership of Admiral Edward Vernon, the British amassed a fleet of 186 ships with 7,000 sailors plus 18,000 infantrymen. Colonial soldiers from the United States were also sent accompanied by Lawrence Washington, George Washington’s half brother, who would later name his country estate Mount Vernon after the British Admiral. This armada represented 25% of the British navy and can be considered the largest massing of troops and ships prior to D-Day. Facing this British juggernaut was Don Blas de Lezo with six ships and fewer than 6,000 men. Even though he was badly outnumbered, he was fighting on his own turf with uninterrupted supply lines and could depend on the extensive series of fortifications. However, his greatest advantage was his brilliance as a strategist and taking a page out of Sun Tzu, he understood the weaknesses of his enemy. He correctly predicted the British troops would eventually die from tropical sicknesses leading to their humbling defeat and Spain’s American possessions free from British take over. During this battle, de Lezo lost his other leg but it would be the plaque that would finally kill him and he died in Cartagena in 1741.

This heroic defeat of the British contributed to releasing the energies of the people and the next fifty are called Cartagena’s “Silver Age”. Cartagena was the economic center and maintained its distinction as the wealthiest Spanish colonial city. Ciudad amurallada, inside the walled colonial city, the wealthy citizens continued to build their graceful mansions and contributing to the cultural development, they refined their lives with universities, theaters, libraries and literary societies. People flocked to the city creating a surge in population and Cartagena became the center for political activities when the Spanish Viceroy moved there permanently.
Returning to the city, we thanked Nico for our tour and I asked him to sign my tour book in which he was mentioned. We then took time out for a siesta as coming from the cool mountain air of the hinterlands, we were not yet ready to confront Cartagena’s hot, sticky humidity. We were hoping that by late afternoon it would cool down. We had just arrived, did not know, and could only hope. The chic time to come to Cartagena is December through February when the tropical climate is enjoyable and the evening breezes have cooling potential. We were there in June and would soon find out the breeze was off blowing somewhere else, leaving behind humidity so dense we could hold it in our hands and stroke it with our fingers.

We had an overview of the city and now it was time for Donald and me to see Cartagena on our own.

La Popa translates into “stern hill” and this five hundred foot high mound, the highest point in Cartagena, reminded someone of the back end of a ship. The Augustinians built the monastery in 1607, commandeering the ground that had once been sacred to the Calamari Indians and from this vantage point, the church played a role in the defense of the city. We visited the chapel to the Virgin of Candelaria, the patron of the city. She is portrayed holding baby Jesus in one hand and holding a candle in the other. The Virgin of Candelaria was first worshipped in the Canary Islands and when transported to the Spanish colonies, she was readily adopted. The Caribe Africans upon converting to Catholicism conflated her with their own goddess, Yoruba. She is credited with saving the city from pirates and disease. On her feast day, February 2, she is dressed in a fancy gown and leads a candlelight procession down the hill into the city. Upon request, one can see the collection of these gowns. We spent time admiring the renovated courtyard enclosed by a two story loggia with gracefully curving Romanesque arches. An old well in the middle of the courtyard is surrounded by potted tropical plants and some of the most beautiful bougainvillea we have ever seen, thick roots with vibrant colors. Stepping to the edge to enjoy the panoramic view of the city below, I found a moment of silence. The air was mute, not carrying up the sounds of the city below, or music, or even the songs of birds. However, this is Cartagena and soon the stillness and tranquility was interrupted by the cries of the hawkers, senorita you buy, you look, where are you from? Most of these people seemed to be selling the same merchandise and I found it ironic that the local people were trying to sell the white man tourist the same beads and trinkets the white man had sold them five hundred years ago. From the monastery, we looked down on the fort of San Felipe, the next stop on the tour.

With help from the hotel, we booked a half day tour of the city. Our tour guide was Nico Medez. Previously, he had worked with Sarah Woods, the author of the Bradt tour book on Colombia, and she had listed his name in her Acknowledgements. Receiving an imprimatur from Michael Palin, this book has been recommended over the Lonely Planet version. To date, there are not many tour books on Colombia and purchased through Amazon, it was the only tour book we had brought with us. Excited about touring with an experienced guide, I was surprised when my first request, a tour of the Basurto market, received a resounding no. He described the market as a horror, a dirty place filled with pick pockets and thieves and not suitable for tourists. Of course, he did not realize his description would not have the intended result of scaring us off but would only increase our desire to go. How bad could the place be if Anthony Bourdain had filmed a segment of his program there? After laying out our bona fides, a list of the Asian markets we had visited and survived, and promising to be careful with our belongings, he said he would take us.

BASURTO MARKET
Located outside the historic city, close to the water in an industrialized area, the Basurto market is Cartagena’s main market. It is the kind of place where you can find most everything you need just not in the form by which you know it. Crawling out of the van, we found ourselves standing in front of a business selling bags of charcoal and used tires, the debris of both scattered over the yard. When I looked up, we had caught the attention of an overly large woman stuffed into a white plastic chair, sitting next to a stack of old tires. She did not return my smile and as she continued to stare, I felt she was pinning us, as butterflies, against a cardboard background. Apparently, she was not part of the welcoming committee but more the mistress of her domain. Then tiring of us, she began to yell at a small boy, covered in charcoal dust, struggling to fill a large plastic bag with small pieces of charcoal. This tableau included a large man, whose formerly white shirt was covered in black stains. He was sitting in an adjacent plastic chair, hard to determine his role, as he seemed concerned with nothing more than the morning bottle of beer he was cradling in his outsized hands. As for us, we were only passing through and could only process this scene as just part of the local color and the future of the young boy we recognized as details unfortunately beyond our immediate grasp or present sensibilities.

Fish stalls, whose tattered ancient tarps provided scant protection from the sun or rain, lined the entrance to the market. Soon we heard vendors calling out to Nico, who had apparently been here many times before. We stopped to watch one of his friends in the process of cleaning a large red snapper. Armed with something that looked like a small machete, scales were flying everywhere, attaching to any available surface and falling onto the ground, glistening for the moment before being ground into the dark soil by footsteps from passing customers. In Asian markets, the fish are kept alive because many will not buy a fish unless they first see it swimming. Here the fish for sale were dead but had never been frozen and their firm flesh and clear eyes testified that they had been swimming in the sea not too many hours before they ended up on a fish monger’s wooden table. Nico knew about fish, pointing them out and calling them by name and amazing us with the wide variety available in the waters around Cartagena.

Before stepping inside the market, we heard music coming from an unseen boom box. Enjoying the sounds, even though we could not discern a salsa from a cumbia from a vallenato, we immediately knew this place was humming with the rhythms of an Afro-Caribbean beat. On the produce side of the market, vegetables and fruits were piled up in huge mounds. It was not the quantity that amazed us but the variety. In Bogota, we had learned from Ettica that Colombia grew many different kinds of fruit and here were learned that potatoes, peppers, onions and root vegetables are available in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors, many that we have never seen before. Nico spoke to a wizened old man selling herbal medicines and after listening to him through Nico’s translation, we wondered why we would ever need to visit a drug store again. Having become used to Asian market women, we noticed here that men were the dominant sellers, especially in the fresh meat section. If you cannot afford the traditional cuts of meat sold in the super markets, you come here to buy the parts of the animal that are left over. The butchers’ tables were piled high with bones, hearts, livers, lungs, stomachs, hoofs, eyeballs and lengths of intestines.

Passing the clothing stalls specializing in tennis shoes, jeans and baseball caps, we headed toward the cooked food area where Anthony Bourdain had eaten “shark, seafood, rice with octopus and icotea turtle eggs”. It was close to lunch time and in an open air space, we found women dressed in colorful clothing stirring large pots of bubbling stews and soups containing either fish or meat. The pots were fired up by charcoal, the air was thick with aromas, and once again, from an unknown source, the sounds of Caribbean music punctuated the air. Here the women were in charge and the men lined up, waiting for lunch to begin. You could sense a festive atmosphere, people, music, food and beer collaborating to make a good time for all. Women offered us places at their tables and never removing our smiles, we shook our heads no. We left thinking, more power to Anthony and his staff. Our next stop was the La Popa Monastery.