On the first day that we checked into the Hilton Cartagena we noticed that around 4:00 pm the fishing boats
landed on the beach with their catch and the pelicans went into hyper-drive to try to steal the catch away.
This took place every day: the colourful old boats, the rusty anchors, the fishermen, the tangled green and
blue nets and the accompanying cacophony of shouts, calls, splashing and chasing the birds away: It all
made for great photos. The fishermen would jump out of their boats, reel in the nets by hand, weigh the
fish, and divvy up the undersized ones to take home, all under the watchful eyes of the supervising pelicans.
The late great author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez lived in Cartagena for a short time but maintained a home in
the city and would visit his family on a regular basis. According to an article in the New York Times*,
Marquez was inspired by everything he found in Cartagena and he noted “All of my books have loose
threads of Cartagena in them and, with time, when I have to call up memories, I always bring back an
incident from Cartagena, a place in Cartagena, a character in Cartagena.”
Humbly stated, I can now relate.
*http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/travel/02cartagena.html?pagewanted=all