Gabriel García Márquez’s Cartagena, Colombia
May 2, 2010

Cartagena, Colombia, the city that fueled the fiction of Gabriel García Márquez, is reawakening — embracing its most famous author and spinning its surreal mystique into a modern destination. At left, dancers in Plaza Bolívar, which is situated within the old city.
Credit: Robert Caplin for The New York Times

Plaza Fernández de Madrid was the setting for Mr. Márquez’s novel “Love in the Time of Cholera,” but it was called the Park of the Evangels in the book. The book has been regarded by critics as one of the 20th century’s great love stories in literature.
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A boy feeds pigeons in the Plaza de San Pedro.
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The author was inspired by the city’s real-life blend of seediness and charm.
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The Basurto market is a short taxi ride from the walled city. It has a reputation
for housing thieves and pickpockets, as such markets invariably do, but cautious and
prudent travelers should have no trouble.
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The fortress walls around Cartagena, built in the 1600s, are a magnet for tourists.
Credit: Robert Caplin for The New York Times

The author’s home stands on the edge of the old city, in the San Diego quarter,
facing the sea. With its outward gaze and high walls, it has an aloofness suggestive
of Mr. Márquez’s relationship to the city.
Credit: Robert Caplin for The New York Times

Whenever he is in Cartagena, Mr. Márquez has been known to dine at La Vitrola, among the finest restaurants in town, which evokes Old World Havana with its gently swirling ceiling fans, dishes like spiced shredded beef over fried plantains and live Cuban son music.
Credit: Robert Caplin for The New York Times

A horse-drawn carriage ride.
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The city’s midnight ambiance.
Credit: Robert Caplin for The New York Times

Part of Cartagena’s after-dark culture includes salsa dancing to raw rhythms.
Credit: Robert Caplin for The New York Times

The walled old city fell into shambles in recent decades.
Travelers now call it Latin America’s hippest secret.
Credit: Robert Caplin for The New York Times