The Endearing City of Cartagena: Afro Colombian Culture Alive and Well on the Caribbean Coast

South entrance to the walled city of Cartagena

The relationship of the Catholic Church and the
Atlantic Slave Trade went hand and hand. 

The colonial walled city of Cartagena on the Caribbean coast of Colombia has been on my radar to visit for a while.  Like many many port cities here in the West Indies, the culture and people reflect the estimated one million enslaved Africans brought here during colonial times.  Their legacy has had a profound impact on the living history one discovers while exploring the endearing city of Cartagena. 

This building on Quero street were places where Negro Councils or associations that congregated the enslaved black population belonging to the same cultural group.  These councils served as places of solidarity, celebration, conservation of their own African languages, memory, and cultural resistance. By the late 18th century a Council of Blacks from Loango or Luanda, consisting of slaves from the Portuguese factories in Angola, the Congo, and Gabon region was located on this street 

Many of the residents of Cartagena have African ancestry.  Africans escaped bondage  and created the first African "Free town" of Palenque de San Brasilio of 1691.  It was recognized by Spanish decree.  They speak a language that is a mix of Bantu and Spanish.  

Afro Colombian women are known for their flavorful dresses and headwraps

Just outside the South Gate when the hot ass sun goes down, Afro Colombian women set up their food stalls and mostly sell homemade sweats.

Life imitates Botero's Art

It's common in many of the parks throughout the old town for Afro Colombians to perform traditional African dance and drumming for tourists.

Cartagena’s streets are like any grand colonial old town from the Old World to the New World… a feeling of walking through a time portal, and experiencing it in awesome color.  To see colonial mansions transformed into hotels, storefronts, sidewalk cafes, and restaurants are a unique experience for most American suburbanites who are use to the cookie cutter architecture of outlet malls.

A caravel just outside the walls of Cartagena.

founder of Cartagena, Pedro de Heredia 1533

Dinner time in the Parque Santo Domingo

The evenings are full of tourists heading out for dinner or just strolling through streets, from one plaza to the next.

Take notice the great door knockers in Cartagena

Parque de Simon Bolivar

Cartagena was one of three Spanish colonial cities that held tribunals during the Inquisition. The other two were Lima and Mexico City. There is a museum there that you can roam through and see the different methods of torture.  This one was quite simple but gruesomely effective in delivering the pain.  The biggest offense was which-craft.  

Cartagena’s parks and squares transform into stages for street performances and food carts.  A space where tourists gawk and locals hustle.  The best place to experience this is actually outside the walled city, in the barrio of Getsemani, which is a working class neighborhood that is experiencing gentrification.  During colonial times, it was the segregated quarters for those who served the elites living behind the walls of Cartagena.  Today, it is a rich mix of mostly Afro-Colombians, Mulattos, and Mestizo, and businesspersons looking to capitalize on the cheaper properties. 

Breakers in da house!!!

The Church at the Plaza de la Trinidad

The best place to kick it in or outside the walled city.  Getsemani is where it's at!

Best venue for Salsa

food carts to get you eat on

Today, it’s crumbling buildings are being restored and walls transformed into walking galleries of urban street murals.  Hostels, sidewalk cafes, and small bars reproducing like they ain’t got no condom on.

It’s a motley crew of hipsters, street artists, backpackers, traditional tourists, and locals of every age and shade congregated in Parque de Trinidad, surrounded by street cafes and food carts.  Every night there are street performers breaking, dancing salsa, musicians performing popular covers, and rappers free styling over hard-hitting reggaeton beats. The most captivating performance was a crowd of about two-hundred tourists and locals synchronized in step with an aerobic instructor to Rumba. 

Afro-Colombians are highly concentrated along the Caribbean coast and their culture is visible in many facets of everyday life.   Music, crafts, and food are the easiest ways to experience their unique flavors.  Especially, Champeta music, which originated along the Colombian coast.  Similar to Cumbia, Champeta is quick tempo and high energy, with a lot of voice, percussion, bass, and horn elements.

Bazurto Social Club might be one of the best venues for live music in Cartagena

I met a Black man from Texas during a set with the well-known band Bazurto All Stars who was telling me how trippy it was to see people that looked like him making funk music but “sounding like Mexicans.” It was amusing to hear him tell me how he always sticks out as a black American traveling abroad, but on this trip to Cartagena, people just saw him as a local.  I imagine, rarely, does what one learn from a guidebook or an online article prepare you for the experience you will have as a black American abroad.

Lucky enough to hear and see the Bazurto All Stars.  Apparently, they are one of the more popular Champeta Band. Champeta music mixes rap like vocals, over fast percussions, bass, and horns

The city’s bars that play live music are the best spaces to meet locals, because before there were smart phones, alcohol and music were the only apps to meet folks.  And still alcohol and music reign supreme as the best ever apps to lose that front or one’s inhibition about dancing.

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Overall, Cartagena is a real gem: historic, romantic, clean, safe, artistic, foodie paradise, with enough to stimulate for two or three days. 

 Happen to meet up with three old friends while I was in Cartagena.