With guidebooks gushing that it’s the “crown jewel of Colombia” and “the belle of the ball” and even “one of the greatest cultural treasures in America,” first-time visitors are apt to approach Colombia’s Caribbean seaport city with a skeptical eye — how could any place be worth such accolades? Not to worry. Cartagena lives up to its billing as one of the hottest, most vibrant, seductive and beautiful cities in South America.

An impeccably maintained Spanish colonial town of colorful domes and steeples on a sparkling sea, surrounded by an eight-mile ring of original 16th-century stone walls, Cartagena is a real-life “magic kingdom.” Horse-drawn carriages (huelepedos) pull visitors past impeccably restored 300-year-old mansions painted vivid pink, turquoise and ochre and festooned with iron gates and balconies overflowing with brilliant bougainvillea blossoms. Diners sit at outdoor cafés in leafy plazas sipping cappuccino or Club Colombia beer amid street performers, flower sellers and basket weavers.

The reliable tropical weather is stable through the year with an average temperature around 80 degrees and fresh night breezes neutralizing the average 90 percent humidity. With October the single-month rainy season, it’s a guaranteed pleasant climate for a “movie set” vacation.

Founded in 1533, Cartagena de Indias became the most important port in the New World, funneling plundered gold, silver and treasures back to the coffers in Spain. Stockpiled with loot, the city was a prime target of marauding pirates. After Sir Francis Drake’s buccaneers sacked the town in 1586, the city hired European military engineers to fortify the ramparts. The resulting wall, still intact, encloses palaces and convents all built in brick, stone and tile after a 1552 fire resulted in a decree banning wooden structures.

Always a trading center, the port’s prime position made it central to the slave trade. Today, the vibrant rhythms and culture of Africa mix with Catholic ritual and Islamic traditions of the mestizo, mulatto and Amerindian populations and blend with the energy of students in the four local colleges to generate the city’s vibrant spirit and rhythm.

De facto capital of the Viceroyalty of New Granada in the 18th century, Cartagena’s influence waned after independence when strategic importance shifted to Barranquilla down the coast. Cartagena underwent a century of stagnation until the opening of the Magdalena River Valley petroleum fields in 1917 and completion of the Barrancabermeja-to-Bahia pipeline in 1926 boosted the economy’s revival.

Starting in the 1960s, abandoned forts, bulwarks and mansions were conscientiously restored. With local officials keeping a vigilant eye on the once-notorious drug cartels, the city stabilized and blossomed into a prime tourist destination, now hosting dozens of annual events — a spring film festival, Independence Day celebrations, the national beauty pageant selecting Miss Colombia. In January, writers and artists gather at the city’s overseas spin-off of the Hay Literary Festival. Declared a National Monument in 1959, Cartagena’s historic district in 1984 was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Along with tourism, local industries are chemicals and petrochemicals, plastic product manufacturing and international commerce logistics. Facilities offering plastic surgery, dental treatments and bariatric weight loss operations attract medical tourists. Cartagena processes sugar and tobacco and exports petroleum, coal and coffee, with commercial activity focused in the newer part of town.

Technically, two different Cartagenas house the city’s 1.2 million residents. Outside the picturesque historic district, a 20-minute walk south, is the commercial center Bocagrande, a strip of land reclaimed for foreign oil workers and now a bustling locale of high-rise hotels and timeshares, fast-food restaurants, art galleries and traffic congestion, catering to vacationers, charter t
ours and conventioneers at the 320,000-square-foot Cartagena de Indias Convention Center.

But well-heeled Latin Americans and socialites concentrate on quaint, walled El Centro and its adjoining Getsemani locale just beside the city walls. A labyrinth of winding cobblestone streets, old-world plazas and gorgeous foliage, the old town lures travelers to relax and savor the heady Latin ambience.

Heading into town, the huge, stone clock tower gate, Puerta del Reloj, leads to the former slave market, Plaza de los Coches, where vendors sell confections and local sweets from carts in the shady arcade.

Three nearby museums are housed in significant structures: the fantastically reclaimed Customs House that is the Modern Art Museum (Plaza San Pedro Claver, tel 57 5 664 5815); the Gold Museum (Plaza de Bolivar, tel 57 5 660 0778) in a Baroque mansion; and the Inquisition Museum (Plaza de Bolivar, tel 57 5 664 7381), the site of bygone tribunals, which displays torture items and the tiny window through which heretics were denounced.

Around the corner in a former Jesuit College, the Naval Museum (Calle San Juan de Dios, tel 57 5 664 7381) displays scale model panoramas illustrating the remarkable evolution of the city’s bay, islands and layout through the centuries.

Along the cobblestone alleyways, palenqueras — women costumed in bright turbans with fruit baskets on their heads — peddle fresh bananas, mangos, papayas, guayabas and nispero, a kiwi-shaped fruit with the texture of a pear and the flavor of chocolate and caramelized sugar. All over town, in the squares and out the windows, drift strains of the characteristic vallenato music — accordion, wooden caja drums and wire brush guacharacas.

Fans of Love in the Time of Cholera (the movie was filmed here) can make a pilgrimage down to the sea end of Calle Curato and gawk at the high exterior walls enclosing the home of Colombia’s renowned Nobel Laureate, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

But sightseeing isn’t really the point. Cartagena is best savored in strolls along the passageways, lulls in the outdoor cafés, meals in world-class restaurants — and all-night dancing in discos and clubs.

Diversions

To get your bearings, hop on a colorful, open-air chiva bus for a four-hour city tour. Afternoon excursions leave from Bocagrande at 2 p.m.; in the evening, all-you-can-drink rumba chivas depart at 8 p.m.

Also in Bocagrande, Casino La Perla (2–5 Laguito Parque Comercial Pierino Gallo L., tel 57 5 665 0573) has 60 gaming machines open daily 3–6 p.m.; and Rio Casino (5–145 San Martin Av., tel 57 5 655 1197) serves up shows and events along with blackjack and roulette.

To avoid urban crowds, beach lovers go down to the Muelle de los Pegasos dock just to the left of the clock tower and catch a boat to one of the harbor islands for a day of basking, beachcombing and a fish fry lunch on the beach. Baru Island’s Playa Blanca and the Islas del Rosario are favorites. Alternatively, head north to Marbella for swimming or beyond the airport to the fishing village of La Boquilla with a quiet beach and seaside fish restaurants.

Cartagena really comes to life after dark with clubs all over town swinging to merengue, salsa, Cuban, champeta and reggaeton. Diehards call it rumbeando: Party all night, wake up early to go to the beach, then do it all over again. Rum and Cokes, piña coladas or mojitos are often included in the cover charge at night spots, which open late and rock until daybreak. Be sure to sample aguardiente, the sugar cane-based, local “firewater” that is 29 percent alcohol. Big band salsa is the attraction at Getsemani’s Café Havana (Calle Media Luna and Calle del Guerrero, tel 57 310 610 2324), where high ceiling fans don’t begin to counteract the heat generated by gyrating patrons of this self-proclaimed esquina del movimiento. Chartreuse, ochre and turquoise club chairs embrace dancers resting from the crossover beats at Babar (3–37 Centro Calle San Juan de Dios, tel 57 5 664 4083). And at Tu Candela (32–25 Portal de Los Dulces, tel 57 5 664 8787), cocktails are served 365 days a year.

Locals concede that one not-to-be-missed experience is watching the sunset while sipping a drink on the patio of Café del Mar (Baluarte de Santo Domingo, tel 57 5 664 6513) atop the fortress wall — just beside the rusty cannons that helped the city survive to become a modern paradise.

Info To Go

Rafael Nuñez International Airport (CTG), two miles northeast of Cartagena, handles domestic and international flights. Taxis into town charge $5–10. Returning for departure, avoid the $3 airport surcharge: Have the driver let you off at Green Church and walk across the street to the terminal. Visit www.colombia.travel/en/.