The Colombian city of Cartagena has long “fueled the fiction” of Gabriel García Márquez, said Anand Giridharadas in The New York Times. Dickens had London, Balzac had Paris, but the old, walled city of Cartagena belongs to García Márquez. “One of the most imaginative writers of the modern era,” the author was born in Bogotá, but in 1948 arrived in this former trading port on Colombia’s northern coast, where he “cut his teeth” as a reporter for a small newspaper. He found inspiration in the city’s “real-life blend of seediness and charm,” and eventually would turn its “local tales into literature.”
Since then, the Nobel winner has remained only a “fleeting presence” here, but the city itself has recently found a second life as “Latin America’s hippest secret.” The city García Márquez richly depicted in his novels still exists—it’s just tucked between boutique hotels and fusion restaurants. With its tropical breezes and “lanes lined with flower-filled balconies,” Cartagena has always been a “city for lovers.” García Márquez made it the setting for Love in the Time of Cholera: Under the almond trees of Plaza Fernández de Madrid, the book’s tormented protagonist, Florentino, would sit hoping to catch a glimpse of his love, Fermina. Her white house, accented with a vine-covered overhanging balcony, is said to sit on the square’s east side.
Another spot that inspired García Márquez is Plaza Bolívar, located in the heart of the old city. On one side of the square lies a colonnaded arcade, which in Cholera is called the Arcade of Scribes. Here, where friends now catch up and lovers sneak kisses, Florentino would write love letters on behalf of others, as a “way to redeploy” his unrequited love. A García Márquez tour isn’t complete, however, without a visit outside the pages of his novels. The author’s home—a “modernist dwelling” that resembles a “straight-edged castle with orange-red walls”—stands on the edge of the old city facing the sea. Though García Márquez spends only a few weeks a year here, the author and his books will always remain an integral part of Cartagena’s rich, colorful history.
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