7 minute read
A Perfect Day in Cartagena, Columbia
from Range - Volume 7
by Ensemble
From eclectic shops in the historic Old Town to champeta lessons in lively dance clubs, a wealth of discoveries awaits in this storied port city.
By Caitlin Walsh Miller
When tour guide and journalist Néstor Meléndez Soler was a little boy, he thought kids all over the world had secret hiding places they called la caleta. Turns out, that was a Cartagena thing — la caleta means “secluded cove,” or cove within a cove, and it’s how the Spanish, who arrived in Colombia around 1500, referred to the port city. It’s also where they stashed their plundered gold and silver. “Leather, liquor — whatever you want, you can find it in Cartagena,” says Meléndez Soler.
Indeed, the walled Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984, and the neighboring Getsemaní area, a former working-class enclave in the throes of gentrification, are a color-blocked tangle of streets made for treasure hunting. You never know what’s around the corner — an impromptu salsa street party, a boutique filled with one-of-a-kind handicrafts or a breathtaking view of the Caribbean Sea.
Morning
It’s 8 a.m. and Cartagena’s Bodeguita dock is bustling. I’m boarding a powerboat alongside 20 strangers heading for the Islas del Rosario, a 27-island archipelago about 22 miles off the coast. As we cruise through Cartagena Bay, the city’s humidity, powerful even early in the morning, disappears completely.
Soon, we’re on the Caribbean Sea and our driver revs up. “Hold onto your hats, and have fun,” he says in Spanish. We bound over the waves, and our first moment of bonding is a collective “Wooo!” as we catch air over a particularly big one. (Joy, it turns out, sounds the same in English, Spanish, Dutch and Italian.)
The best emeralds in the world come from Colombia, prized for their color, clarity and sparkle. The blue-green sea around Isla Grande, the biggest island in the Rosario cluster, ticks all the same boxes. We alight at Pa’ue Beach Lounge, and I get into the water immediately to confirm its quality. (Verdict: flawless.) I swim-snooze-repeat my way through the morning, hopping on a paddleboard once just to say I did, until my cabana attendant shows up with a chair, a table and a whole pan-fried mojarra. The fish, typical of Colombian Caribbean cuisine, is served with sweet brown rice and fried plantains.
Afternoon
Back in Cartagena, I spend the afternoon winding my way through the Old Town in search of hidden treasures to bring home. The family-run Librería Los Mártires sells first editions of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel García Márquez at a bookstall nestled under the arches at the base of the famous clock tower. There are playful, modern finds — including papier-mâché cows, pigs and chickens encrusted in fuchsia and chartreuse beads — at El Centro Artesano, an organization that works with, and provides microfinancing for, Indigenous artisans. At Artesanías de Colombia, a nonprofit with a similar mission, I pick up two mustard-yellow piggy banks — well, a turtle bank and an armadillo bank, technically — carved out of totumo, an inedible fruit with a hard rind. St. Dom carries exclusively higher-end Colombian designers who do chic, riotously colorful updates on classic accessories, like Woma Hatmakers’ two-tone woven sun hats, Michú’s multihued embroidered handbags and Garces Bottier’s chunky-heeled leather sandals.
It’s a lot of browsing, so I stop by a corner café called La Esquina Del Pandebono for its specialty: a starchy, fluffy cheese bread and a glass of tart lulo juice, a must for citrus lovers. From there, I secure a rooftop table at Mirador Gastro Bar, a day-to-night café, restaurant and bar that prioritizes Colombian flavors and ingredients. I’m just here for a snack, but somehow end up ordering a trio of ceviches — shrimp in a tangy passion-fruit mayonnaise is a standout — and a spicy mango- inflected darkrum cocktail called Tiempo al Tiempo. It’s inspired by the clock tower directly opposite my perch, and it’s the ideal drink to linger over, watching the Plaza de los Coches below come alive as the sun sets.
06
Evening
It’s about 6 p.m. when I get to Plaza de la Trinidad, the heart of the Getsemaní neighborhood. You can feel the city’s energy shifting, relaxing, released from the afternoon heat — which is perfect for my purposes. I’m meeting the charismatic Danny Stark, who runs the tour company Beyond the Wall Cartagena, for an intro to champeta, a homegrown dance and music style that blends Afro-Caribbean rhythms and sounds.
As we meander through Getsemaní’s narrow streets, Stark rattles off his inside-out knowledge of champeta, from its origins in percussive communication between settlements of escaped slaves in the 18th century to the impact of the first vinyl records to arrive from Africa in the 1960s. Today, it’s defined by “picó parties” — gatherings of 10,000-plus to hear modern champeta blasted out of building-size sound systems — and the rise of champeta TikTok. We end our tour at Club Los Carpinteros, a local hot spot on Calle 28, with a dance lesson. One 12,000- peso margarita later (that’s about US$3) and I’m dancing champeta-style (if you squint) to the sounds of Mr Black El Presidente and Kevin Florez. Then I remember my dinner reservation.
Getsemaní might be a bohemian backpacker paradise, but it’s also home to Cartagena’s buzziest restaurant. Celele, named one of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2023 (and every year since 2020), is tucked inside a colonial house featuring exposed beams and brick walls, yellow and brown tiles and an intimate interior courtyard, which makes chef Jaime Rodríguez Camacho’s quasi-experimental fusion cuisine feel like home cooking. Well, home cooking if your parents made burrata with roasted watermelon and hibiscus gazpacho, or confit hen served with sour guava and fried banana peels. The chocolate cream, served with a sharp tamarind gel, sweet chilies and a crumble made of local seeds and corn, is one final treasure to cap the day.
WHERE TO STAY
SOFITEL LEGEND SANTA CLARA CARTAGENA
Set in a former convent dating back to 1621, this 125-room hotel seamlessly blends history and luxury within its grand Spanish Colonial walls. Join a butler-led tour to learn about the property’s original features, such as the convent well, and see tributes to Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, whose time at the convent as a reporter inspired Of Love and Other Demons
