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Cartagena, that rare mystery by the sea. Its wide cultural, historical and eventful offer makes Cartagena one of the star cities in the Latin American touristic sector.

To walk across the plazas of Cartagena feels like making a long journey through 200 years of history. What is it about this city? Patricia, Colombian Traveler, asks himself holding his camera in front of the Clock Tower. A most: unusual mystery that cannot be attributed to its aged walls, nor to an ocean that is still returning scraps and treasures of ancient battles and sunken galleons; nor to its architectitre which dates back to more than four centuries, resplendent near the sea. What can it be? Patricia tries to decipher this mystery by looking at the faces of pedestrians who now cross the oíd entrance and exit to the city during colonial times, the Clock Tower’s Boca Bridge. And there he discovers a woman selling old books. In Cartagena de Indias, horseshoes were believed to bring good luck to those who carried them. Thus, a horseshoe is displayed on the wall as a talismán or serves as a paperweight. Patricia can see the horseshoe placed on old books. He remembers having read that the first inhabitants of Cartagena de Indias had named their water kingdom Calamari: the land of crabs. No doubt these Indians were visionary when they gave it that name, because that is what Cartagena de Indias looks like when seen from the air: pieces of land that resemble tongs that bristle the water, crayfish and crabs wading in the immensity of the sea. The faces of passers-by may be the key to the strange mystery that Patricia is trying to decipher. The unique blend of indigenous, African and European origins that shaped the city’s fate.

San Felipe de Barajas Castle is one of Cartagena's most iconic landmarks; a place visited by almost all tourists who travel to the city.

Framed by its stunning bay, Cartagena de Indias is one of the most beautiful, well-preserved cities in the Americas; a treasure that is currently one of the most heavily frequented tourist destinations in Colombia.

Patricia now knows that he is not in the Plaza de los Coches, but in an oíd bazaar of enslaved Africans when Cartagena was the seventeenth century’s main slave trade port. The hot iron marked the back of the African, who was then checked and looked over like an animal for sale. Some of them could not resist such humiliation during the long journey on board the galleons and decided to die before reaching the port. The Africans who died were thrown overboard into the jaws of sharks. Some others, the more resilient, managed to continué to communicate with their relatives left behind in Africa, by way of rituals belonging to their religions of origin. The drum, shaped with wood and local animal leather, became more than a musical instrument. It was an encrypted communication code, a celebration, a rebellion and a way to invócate deities. Thus, the drum was banned in Cartagena de Indias.