Colombia's New Dawn by Jini Reddy
Featured Hotel in Cartagena
La Passion Hotel
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OK, I’m exaggerating, but after nearly half a century of conflict, Colombia still grapples with its image as an unsafe destination. Undeservedly so, say a handful of UK tour operators, who believe the South American country – the only one to face both Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean – is on the cusp of a tourism-fuelled renaissance .
President Alvaro Uribe’s government has improved security and stability in the main cities and more accessible natural reserves, and even the FCO, not given to idle assurances, declares on its website: “Around 11,000 British nationals visit Colombia every year. Most are trouble-free.” The message is clear: don’t stray off the beaten track, and you’ll be fine.
Now that I’ve spent time in Cartagena, a UNESCO world heritage site (it’s the tasty bait used to lure visitors out here) and travelled along the Caribbean coast, I feel almost disloyal for alluding to the ‘mad, bad, dangerous’ stuff. The truth is any nervousness I harboured swiftly melted away in a blaze of tropical sunshine and Latin charm. I felt perfectly safe – apart from the one occasion when I was nearly mowed down by a conga of cruise-ship passengers in the Plaza Bolivar.
But then I don’t look like a gringo myself. I’m of Indian descent and, in fact, I blended in so well that everyone thought I was the local and that my (bottle) blonde Colombian guide was the journalist. It got to be something of a running joke between us – but in fact, Colombians are a rainbow nation, owing to a mixture of Indigenous, European and African ancestry.
The tourist board loves to trot out the “Cartagena, jewel in Colombia’s crown” cliché. But it has a point as booty certainly put the city on the map: in the 16th-century, the Spaniards used it as a storehouse for the gold treasures they’d looted from the Indians. Pirates from far and wide got wind, and turned up for the bonanza – including one Sir Francis Drake, who plundered the city. The Spaniards learned their lesson and up went the walls and turrets, encircling what is today known as the Old Town, a warren of cobbled streets, lively plazas, lofty churches – and home to some of the world’s most brightly, sexily dressed, bosomy grandmothers. (Size zero nymphs get short shrift in these parts.)
I awoke, on my first morning, to blinding sunlight, the strains of Vallenato music (the reedy accordion is a give away), and the clip clop of horses’ hooves. From the balcony of my hotel, I had a clear view of the limestone dome of the landmark cathedral, useful should you lose your bearings. A word about the streets in the Old Town – they suck you in with their fairytale prettiness and colour. The old homes of the slave owners on the Calle Santo Domingo are particularly striking, with their macho iron-studded doors and quirky bronze doorknockers.
I’d checked into one of the restored colonial houses that make up Cartagena’s fledgling boutique hotel scene. Hotel Agua, owned and run by architect Sergio Castano and interior designer Gustavo Pinto, dates back to the 17th-century: “People often admire the façades of the colonial houses, but have no idea what it is like to experience living in one, and we wanted to offer that,” says Castano. True enough, you can almost feel the ghost of Don Quixote whooshing past in the corridor.
The six bedrooms overlook a courtyard filled with flamboyant foliage and the communal areas are stuffed with antiques that the owners have collected on their travels. “We also commission local artisans to make furniture,” adds Castano. The lamps carved from totumo fruit, cushions in banana leaf fibre, bamboo tables, and sisal carpets are all for sale, should they grab your fancy.
If cosy and intimate doesn’t appeal, there’s always the lofty Santa Clara Sofitel, housed in a magnificent 17th-century convent. The latter famously puts in an appearance in Of Love and Other Demons, the novella by Colombian Nobel prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Marquez is 80 now, and though he spends most of the year in Mexico,he still keeps a home in Cartagena – you can see a bit of his back garden from one of the hotel’s suites. A slick new spa has just opened at the Santa Clara, a real incentive to stay given that most hotels in old Cartagena lack any sort of full-on pampering element.
There is plenty to stimulate the mind, though, and locals are abuzz with talk of the city’s cultural offerings. In its second year, the Hay Festival of Literature has already attracted an impressive roster of writers – Vikram Seth, Asne Seierstad and Wole Soyinke, for starters. Together with international music and film festivals it represents the sunny, vital face of Cartagena. Unlike the Palacio de la Inquisición, filled with gruesome torture instruments or the San Felipe Castle, a military fortification set high above the city.
I much prefer my impromptu snacking tour: stopping in a café to sip a Lulo (one of a long list of fruit juices, so exotic there is no English translation), eating arepas, little cornmeal cakes, off a roadside cart and sniffing the butifarras (smoked meatballs). I buy a hunk of watermelon, from a plump woman of Creole ancestry – a palanquera – in a flowery flock in the Plaza San Pedro Claver, named after a Spanish monk who spent his life caring for African slaves. And in the Plaza de Santa Domingo, I admire the voluptuous nude ‘Gertrude’, a marble statue sculpted by artist Fernando Botero, famous for his fabulous, fleshy figures.
No one comes to Cartagena for the shopping, but there are still treasures to be found. The Galerie Cano opposite Bolivar Square, has exquisite gold reproductions of ancient jewellery, while the boutique owned by Sylvia Tcherassi, Colombia’s top fashion designer, on the Calle San Juan de Dios, is brimming with covetable evening wear. It took all my willpower to resist a halter-necked silk dress retailing for about £250.
Street stalls aside, the food scene in Cartagena was a revelation: I’d arrivedexpecting glorified versions of pork and beans; what I got was sophisticated fine dining. At Club de Pesca, on the waterfront next to the yacht club, I supped on mussels in whisky and crab gratinée. Vying with de Pesca for the title of the city’s finest restaurant is La Vitrola, an unofficial corridor of power, popular with gossiping politicians (hence the presence of armed police outside). Here I meet Teresita Roman, aged 82, and a local heroine. In 1963 she published a book called Cartagena de Indias en la Olla (translation: ‘Cartagena in the pot’), the first of its kind dedicated to foods from the region. Seeing me struggle with the menu Teresita helps me to order: ‘shrimps and fried plantain, and grouper with coconut risotto,’ she says, rapping a bejewelled knuckle on the table top.
After lunch, shewhisks me off to see her home. The Casa Roman in the Manga suburb near the yacht club is one of Cartagena’s hidden gems, a palacio modelled after Granada’s Alhambra. Built in 1919 for Roman’s pharmacist father ( the inventor of ‘Kola Roman’, a cherry-flavoured soft drink I’d sampled at lunch) its extravagant interior is fitting for a woman who has lived her life in a sort of cosmopolitan rapture.
Aside from the arabesque tilework and arches, there are rooms devoted to Napoleonic fans (‘given to me by an admirer, a French psychiatrist,’), brass hookahs, and the pièce de resistance, Roman’s breathtaking doll collection – Kathakali dancers, Bolivian peasants, Ugly Betty, they’re all here, glaring out from their glass display cabinets. As the servants polish silver in the porch, overlooking a garden filled with mango treesm a nephew, Pedro Mogollon, who works for the Colombian Trade Bureau in Cartagena, explains that it is his aunt’s wish that house be turned into a museum after her death.
The next day, keen to escape the heat of the city, I head to the Islas del Rosario, a coral reef archipelago, about an hour southwest of Cartagena. Many of the 30 or so islands here make an ideal base for snorkelling and water sports. I’m whisked off by speedboat to Barú Island, home to Agua’s sister hotel, Agua Barú, the only voguish retreat in the islands. (The Santa Clara Sofitel offers accommodation at San Pedro de Majagua resort on the Isla Grande, but this falls squarely into the mid-range bracket, catering to families and day-trippers).
In contrast, Agua Baru, with its three sleek split-level apartments, each with its own infinity pool, garden and panoramic views, almost flies under the radar. One gets the impression that Castano and his partner like it this way. Why bother with marketing, when lazy word-of-mouth does the job? Once the spa opens at the end of the year, it’s unlikely to remain an insider secret.
Colombians I’d spoken to in London had raved about the beaches, jungly forests, and hiking trails in Parque Tayrona. It’s a nature reserve on the Caribbean coast, four hours by car north of Cartagena – a bit of an effort to reach, but worth it if you’re after a slice of untamed (but safe) wilderness. En route, we make a pit stop in Barranquilla, an otherwise nondescript industrial town that hosts one of South America’s biggest carnivals (I miss it by a day). My guide and I lunch on tamarind glazed fish at La Cueva, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s old haunt. In the 1950s, the novelist, then a newspaper reporter, used to hang out here with his cabal of writers and artists. Today, the restaurant and cafe doubles as an art gallery and unofficial Marquez shrine.
Back on the road, the Sierra Nevada looms suddenly, its craggy peaks shrouded in clouds. There’s an air of mystery about the mountains, home to ruins of the fabled Lost City, dating back to 500 BC. (Currently, it’s on the FCO’s no-go list – a group of backpackers, including two British tourists were kidnapped here in 2003 by armed guerrillas.)
The hillsides on the final stretch are dotted with cacti so big and cartoonish I almost expect the Road Runner to appear on a curve of the road with a ‘beep, beep’. Once inside Tayrona National Park, we leave the car and make for the trails: they’re clearly signposted, and a forty-five minute hike under the forest canopy to the village of Arrecifes is relaxing rather than taxing – which is just as well in the sweltering heat.
Gorgeous bright blue butterflies called Morpho, flit past, as do hummingbirds, and I spot the odd iguana and some tiny lizards, but thankfully no snakes. Ants are another matter: whole armies march industriously across the forest floor. (Days later, as a parting gift, the guide gives me a large bag of the critters – ‘big-assed ants’ as she calls them – a crunchy delicacy that tastes faintly of peanuts.)
We emerge, blinking into the sunlight to the sight of a wild, windswept beach. Alas, the strong tides in Arrecifes mean swimming isn’t advisable. (The hippies who string their hammocks among the coconut trees don’t seem to mind.) Another 20- minute hike takes us to El Cabo de San Juan, and a sandy cove with calmer waters, perfect for a reviving dip.
Unless, you’re keen to revisit your backpacking days and camp, the best option if you want to spend a few days in Tayrona are the Ecohabs, a colony of smart thatched huts near the park entrance. Nestling in the hillside overlooking the shore, they’re made from natural materials. Otherwise, apart from a rubbish-recycling scheme, that’s as ‘Eco’ as the Ecohabs get.
On the flip side, all the mod cons are in place: double bed, sound system, gleaming shower and LCD widescreen TV – although you’re unlikely to spend much time in front of a screen when there are sublime views of a sapphire Caribbean sea, and waves crashing against the rocks. High on the hill is a couples Jacuzzi, and down below on tiny La Piscinita beach is a spotless spa ‘marquee’.
Guests here are given a walkie- talkie with which to communicate with the staff – a nice touch, but for the fact that few speak English. As elsewhere in the country, rudimentary Spanish is useful, and a little effort goes along way. The first word to master? That’d be chevere – ‘cool’. A bit of slang Colombians are hoping will be soon be tripping off the tips of British tongues.
When to go:
Cartagena and the coastal area have a tropical climate, with temperatures from 25-32 degrees centigrade all year round. December to March are the driest months.