It doesn’t take long to fall in love with the city within the wall; where the music echoes off of the old buildings with the same vibrance as the colors they’re painted in.  Where the cobbled streets casually arc their way around the city, each turn delivering a new splash of sight and sound.  And where the tables litter the small squares crowded with travelers like us who have discovered this city’s secret.  It doesn’t take long at all. 

The heat and humidity hang in the air with a weight and thickness that don’t impart the usual lethargy from this type of climate, but instead intoxicate us with a floaty feeling; where time and space slow down to an era before instant message and instant coffee.  Days are easily spent sipping micheladas and mojitos while picking at fresh lobster ceviches; followed by lazy strolls through cooler shaded streets and lingering at local street vendor’s stalls hawking hand woven bracelets and bags as bright as the paint on the houses.  When the afternoon heat peaks and the air begins to shimmer like the inside of a brick oven, cool pools start appear as if from nowhere, tucked into shaded courtyards in local hotels, or in the middle atriums of the local houses.  In the late afternoon as the sun slips down towards the water with a now familiar lazy pace, the collective population of the city gathers together on rooftops and the old city wall ramparts to thank the day and welcome the night. 

However much we may love this new destination of ours, it’s not without reminders that something is happening here that we are at the same time, responsible for and unsettled by.  Restaurant menus are for the first time in this country, in English.  Every ten meters is marred by another street hustler intentionally and persistently blocking the way.  Michael Jackson moonwalks past us on the sidewalk, street guitarists and sax players echo off the normally peaceful old church square where we eat, aspiring Monet’s sling the same watercolored canvas portfolios, and the ultimate flow artists are throwing down the same cliched rhymes at any tourist (everybody) they encounter.  Prices for everything, they start to go up too. 

We love Cartagena.  As often as we can we’ll tell anyone to absolutely visit the city. It’s breathtaking.  And then we’ll go ask for forgiveness, because at  the end of it we’re still left with this unreconcilable feeling.  We’re sorry Colombia, for overrunning this paradise, and only hope that somewhere else you’re hiding a city more beautiful.

Just so you know,  we’ll find that too.