Cartagena, My Love: The City by Someone Who Lives Here

Updated: 21 September 2026 · Written by Marta Fernández, founder of CABÚ Viajes, local operator in Cartagena de Indias (RNT 215668). Rated 5.0 out of 5 on Google across 14 reviews.

In short: Cartagena is not a resort with a city attached. It is a walled colonial port on the Colombian Caribbean, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where the old town is small enough to cross on foot in twenty minutes and the night ends at three. This is what it is actually like to be here, written by someone who lives and works in it rather than someone selling a package from elsewhere.

The walled city: a legacy in stone and colour

The historic centre is enclosed by stone walls built over more than a century to defend a port that Spain could not afford to lose. Inside, the streets are narrow, shaded and short: balconies spilling bougainvillea, doors painted in colours that would look absurd anywhere with less light, plazas that fill at dusk. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the important practical consequence of that is scale — everything inside the walls is walkable, so an evening can move from a rooftop to dinner to a bar without anyone getting into a car.

This is why a group that stays inside the walls has a different trip from a group that stays in a hotel strip. The city does the work.

Getsemaní: the bohemian soul next door

Immediately outside the walls, Getsemaní was where the city's workers lived and is now where much of its night happens: painted streets, murals, plaza life that starts late, small bars, and the clubs on Calle del Arsenal. It is less polished than the walled city and more alive. Most groups end up spending time in both, and the two are ten minutes apart on foot.

The Caribbean contrast: heritage and modernity

Across the bay, Bocagrande is towers and beachfront; a twenty-minute boat ride from the marina are Cholón and the Rosario Islands, which is where the water actually turns the colour people come for. Cartagena works as a base precisely because of this contrast: a colonial city you sleep in, open sea within half an hour, and a bay that separates the two.

About the author

Marta Fernández founded CABÚ Viajes in 2021 and runs it from Cartagena de Indias. She is the person who contracts the houses, the boats, the chefs and the transport directly with their owners, and the person who answers when a group writes — in Spanish or English, at any hour.

That matters for what you are reading. The guides on this site are not compiled from other people's articles: the prices are the ones CABÚ pays, the closing times are the ones the doors actually keep, and the warnings are the ones that come from having sent groups out on the water every week. Where Cartagena is the wrong answer — a group of four, a two-night weekend, someone without a passport — the comparisons on this site say so.

CABÚ Viajes is registered on the Colombian National Tourism Register under RNT 215668, a public register anyone can check for free. The full company profile is here.

Why experience Cartagena with a local operator

• No agency fee. You pay what the house, the boat and the van actually cost; the organising is its own line in the quote.
• Direct contracting. We can refuse a boat without the right licence or a house that photographs better than it lives, because we see them.
• One person responsible. Not a call centre in another country and not a chain of intermediaries at eleven at night.
• Written before it is booked. An itemised quote in under 24 hours, a deposit that holds the house, and a company invoice for every payment.

Frequently asked questions about Cartagena

Keep reading

• Cartagena nightclubs, rooftops and bars: zones, the dress code that turns groups away, and what a night costs.
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• Bachelor party and bachelorette party in Cartagena: the house, the boat and the prices.
• Nonstop flights from the US, every route verified.
• Who we are: the company profile, the RNT and how we work.