Chapter 01
The walls held. Everything else changed.
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Destination · Colombia
Cartagena, Colombia
The walls held. The city kept changing.
A Spanish colonial port built on African labor, sustained by Caribbean heat, and still arguing with its own beauty.
12 chapters ahead
Climate
Hot, humid, and unapologetic about it — thirty-two degrees is the baseline, and the Caribbean doesn't negotiate.
Best season
December through March, when the rains ease and the Hay Festival arrives — though the heat never fully relents.
Atmosphere
- coastal
- tropical
- urban-midsize
- colonial-layered
- cosmopolitan
- nocturnal
- walkable
- culinary
- artsy
- literary
- maritime
- intense
The chapters
12 ways to get lost here
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Chapter 02
Ceviche came from elsewhere. Cartagena made it coastal.
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Chapter 03
Getsemaní before the murals found it
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Chapter 04
The heat is the point, not the problem
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Chapter 05
Restored for whom is the real question
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Chapter 06
García Márquez left. The city kept writing.
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Chapter 07
The Hay Festival arrives and the city listens
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Chapter 08
The bay is working water, not backdrop
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Chapter 09
Cumbia started here. It went everywhere else.
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Chapter 10
Mompox stopped when the river moved
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Chapter 11
New Orleans learned the same three lessons
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Chapter 12
Barranquilla doesn't care if you come
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Keep wandering
You’ve finished Cartagena. Where next?
Pull a thread at random, fall into the world map, or step back to the front door for the latest dispatches.