STORIES IN STONE
“ Cartagena is a city of contrasts,” says Juliana Medina, co-owner of Impulse Travel, who grew up here.“ It’ s beautiful, colorful, lively, and deeply Caribbean, but it is also a city with a very complex history and many cultural layers.” Born and raised in Cartagena’ s historic center, Medina says familiarity has done little to diminish its effect on her.“ This architecture— beautiful, imposing, colorful and incredibly detailed— never gets old. There’ s something special about walking through centuries-old streets with so much history to tell.”
Those streets reflect generations of exchange among the many people who have shaped Cartagena.“ Cartagena is a place where Spanish, African, Indigenous and Caribbean influences have interacted for centuries,” Medina says.“ You can see, hear and taste this mixture every day.”
The connection to Cartagena has never been easier with United offering nonstop service from Washington Dulles starting in December 2026. Some of the most visible evidence rises above the city. Castillo San Felipe de Barajas reflects Cartagena’ s importance as a fortified Caribbean port, while elsewhere the Palacio de la Inquisición confronts a darker chapter of Spanish colonial rule. Now home to the Historical Museum of Cartagena, the ornate building preserves the city’ s history of the Spanish Inquisition.
INSIDE BAZURTO
At Bazurto Market, Cartagena hits the senses all at once. Heat, noise, and seemingly constant movement fill the air. Tropical fruits and vegetables abound. Fresh fish covers worktables while pelicans perch remarkably close by. Music adds another layer to the commotion, with champeta and vallenato music providing a soundtrack to a marketplace that feeds much of the surrounding city.
“ The first things you notice are the noise, the colors, the heat, and just how much is happening around you at the same time,” says Juan Ballena of Islas del Rosario Tours, who leads visitors through Bazurto.“ It can feel a little chaotic, but that’ s also what makes it so authentic.”
Ballena recommends visitors give themselves enough time to experience that rhythm.“ If you visit the market, you really have to give yourself the chance to experience it, not just walk through it,” he says.“ Listen to the music playing around the market, make a little stop for a cold local beer— a Costeñita— and try as many of the fruits as you can.”
HISTORY ON THE WALLS
Walk through the Getsemaní neighborhood, and you’ ll see colorful houses, public plazas, and murals filling its narrow streets. Here, Cartagena’ s history isn’ t confined to a museum. It is painted on walls, unfolds in plazas, and, perhaps most importantly, is still lived by the people who call it home.“ When you walk Getsemaní, you walk Cartagena history,” says Camilo Fidel López, founder of Vértigo Graffiti.
López connects the neighborhood to some of Cartagena’ s defining chapters, including slavery, independence, and the city’ s subsequent evolution. He says Getsemaní has remained part of that story for centuries. When Vértigo began creating murals in the neighborhood in
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2012, López says the organization brought together Getsemaní graffiti artists to recreate stories already part of the community.
One of his favorite murals is María Mulata, located near Plaza de la Trinidad. Created by artist Yurika, the mural depicts a great-tailed grackle that López says is closely tied to Cartagena’ s mythology.“ That’ s my favorite one,” he says.“ It’ s by an artist named Yurika, and it’ s very beautiful.”
Yet López wants visitors to look beyond Getsemaní’ s murals to the community around them. As the neighborhood has become one of Cartagena’ s most recognizable destinations, gentrification has pushed out many of its residents, he says. That makes the Cartageneros who remain an important part of what visitors should notice— not just the art on the walls, but the rhythms of daily life. López encourages travelers to“ appreciate, look at, and witness how actual Cartageneros live” as they explore Getsemaní.
AMONG THE MANGROVES
Continue north and Cartagena changes again. La Boquilla is a traditional fishing community where life has long been connected to the sea and surrounding mangrove waterways. Here, exploring Cartagena means trading narrow streets for narrow channels— and traveling by canoe.
Jaime Guzman was born and raised in La Boquilla, where her family has lived for generations. Growing up here taught her about fishing and mangroves, but also something less tangible.“ Growing up in this environment has allowed me to learn not only about the mangroves and fishing, but also about the history, memories and ancestral knowledge that are part of our identity,” she says.
Guzman learned about fishing, mangroves and the surrounding waterways from her family, knowledge rooted in the community’ s long relationship with the coast.“ It is a tradition that has been passed from generation to generation,” she says.“ We continue to preserve it as an important part of our history, part of our culture.”
Today, visitors can travel through the mangrove waterways by traditional canoe, learning about artisanal fishing and the ecosystem’ s biodiversity. But Guzman describes the experience in less instructional terms. From the moment visitors arrive, she says, they begin connecting with the environment. Enter the waterways and the noise of the city recedes.“ You will hear the birds singing and also the silence that sometimes speaks louder than a thousand words,” she says.
It is beautiful, certainly. But Guzman makes an important distinction between seeing the mangroves as scenery and understanding what they mean to those who live beside them.“ For me, the mangroves are more than a beautiful natural landscape,” she says.“ They are part of us, like who we are. It’ s a place where nature, culture, history and the memories of our ancestors come together.”
From the quiet waterways of La Boquilla, Cartagena’ s famous walls can feel a world away. Yet the journey from the historic center to Bazurto, Getsemaní, and the mangroves reveals how much of the city’ s story extends beyond its fortifications. The walls may hold centuries of history, but Cartagena continues beyond them— in its markets and neighborhoods, in the traditions passed down through generations, and, most importantly, in the people who call the city home.