Colombia (Lonely Planet, 5th Edition) - Jens Porup [106]
For more transportation details, Click here.
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Getting Around
The Caribbean coast is well serviced by an extensive coastal bus system, though sometimes you’ll need to hop in a boat as well. For more transportation details, Click here.
CARTAGENA & AROUND
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The capital of the Bolívar department and the crown jewel of Colombia, Cartagena (in addition to its raw beauty and historical significance) is a major port and the gateway to offshore destinations like the northern section of Parque Nacional Natural (PNN) Corales del Rosario y San Bernardo and sleepy down-shore towns like Mompox.
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CARTAGENA
5 / pop 1 million / elev 2m
Cartagena de Indias is a tale of three cities, all dancing hand in hand in a ménage à trois of Latin juxtaposition. There is the fairy-tale city of romance, legends and sheer beauty, immaculately preserved within the impressive 13km of centuries-old colonial stonewalls. Here in Cartagena’s old town, a Unesco World Heritage Site, where a maze of cobbled alleys slither below enormous balconies shrouded in bougainvillea and massive churches cast their shadows across plazas, it’s difficult not to get lost in its charms.
But then there is the outer town, full of traffic, working-class bells and whistles, and a chaotic nature that can leave you dazed and confused in mere minutes. It is here where the Cartagena of broken dreams lives on, a workhouse South American city like any other. To the south, the peninsula of Bocagrande – Cartagena’s Miami Beach – is where fashionable cartagenos sip coffee in trendy cafes, dine in glossy restaurants and live in upscale luxury condos that line the area like guardians to a New World. All three are worth taking in, but none of them could be more different from the other.
Cartagena is a place to drop all sightseeing routines. Instead, just stroll through the old town day and night. Soak up the sensual atmosphere, pausing to ward off the brutal heat and humidity in one of the city’s many open-air cafes that sit, not unlike Venice, in enchanting colonial plazas hidden around one corner or another.
Holding its own against Brazil’s Ouro Preto and Peru’s Cuzco for the continent’s most enthralling and righteously preserved colonial destinations, it’s hard to walk away from Cartagena – it seizes you in its aged clutches and refuses to let go.
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History
Cartagena was founded in 1533 by Pedro de Heredia on the site of the Carib settlement of Calamari. It quickly grew into a rich town, but in 1552 an extensive fire destroyed a large number of its wooden buildings. Since that time, only stone, brick and tile have been permitted as building materials.
Within a short time the town blossomed into the main Spanish port on the Caribbean coast and the major northern gateway to South America. It came to be the storehouse for the treasure plundered from the local population until the galleons could ship it back to Spain. As such, it became a tempting target for all sorts of buccaneers operating on the Caribbean Sea.
In the 16th century alone, Cartagena suffered five sieges by pirates, the most famous (or infamous) of which was that led by Sir Francis Drake. He sacked the port in 1586 and ‘mercifully’ agreed not to level the town once he was presented with a huge ransom of 10 million pesos, which he shipped back to England.
It was in response to pirate attacks that the Spaniards built up a series of forts around the town, saving it from subsequent sieges, particularly from the biggest attack of all, led by Edward Vernon in 1741. Blas de Lezo, a Spanish officer who had already lost an arm, a leg and an eye in previous battles, commanded the successful defense. With only 2500 poorly trained and ill-equipped men, don Blas managed to fend off 25,000 English soldiers and