above: View from the top of Piedra del Peñol, Guatape inset
Exploring the vibrant, majestic—and occasionally misunderstood—gateway to South America
Colombia has had quite a glow-up since her break-up with Pablo Escobar. The drug lord has been gone for 30 years, and in that time, the country has become one of the trendiest destinations for travelers.
The literary style of magic realism was born here under the pen and imagination of Gabriel García Márquez, one of history’s best-known Latin American novelists. It makes sense that the port city of Cartagena is where he dreamed up the much-imitated trope of integrating elements of fantasy into realistic settings.
Founded in 1533, Cartagena de Los Indios was one of the most important Spanish colonial cities in the New World. Its maze of Crayola-colored colonial houses, the UNESCO-protected walled city is deliberately confusing, designed to confound marauding Caribbean pirates. Marquez mused of his birthplace: “In spite of the oppression, the plundering and the abandonment, we respond with life.” This feels like just the energy we all need right now.
Because we can’t cover everything there is to do and see in this enchanting country, we’ve set out to give you a primer of highlights for your first visit.
Cartagena
Cartagena is a city where the mystical and the mundane are easy bedfellows. The city’s walls have stood since 1586, when Spanish King Philip III ordered the nearly seven miles of thick stone walls built after Sir Francis Drake plundered the town. Near the westernmost stretch of the wall, the sun descends right over the Caribbean. Watch the sunset from Café del Mar, a restaurant beside the wall. Or join the locals by bringing provisions and finding a spot on the wall’s warm stones, a practice they call murallando (“walling”).
Head to the Getsemani neighborhood— a funkier-in-a-good-way version of the city’s Old Town. With its thriving art scene of galleries, museums and street art, it’s a vibrant barrio just beyond the Old Town walls that’s quietly been repositioning itself as the city’s coolest counterculture quarter. Getsemani feels more like the gritty, rum-soaked Cartagena that Márquez fell for.
Stay at Casa San Augustin in the middle of Old Town. This boutique hotel was created by combining three 17th-century homes. It has retained some of the original frescoes and an unearthed aqueduct. In addition to the courtyard pool, guests can access the hotel’s privately owned beach on the Island of Baru.
Did You Know? A few facts that may surprise you
• Colombia is closer the U.S. than New York is to Los Angeles.
• There are more species of birds in Colombia than in North America and Europe combined.
• It’s always 82 degrees—always.
• Colombia is the second-most biodiverse country in the world, after only Brazil, ten times its size, and one of only 17 “megadiverse” countries.
• Colombian-born Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the second-bestselling Spanish language author in the world. The first? God. (Well, the Bible.)
• Colombia has a coast on the Pacific Ocean as well as the Caribbean Sea.
• Colombia is home to the Rainbow River, a 60-mile-long river with multiple naturally occurring vibrant hues.