day adventure”. So I
day adventure”. So I checked out the cities I know best – Medellín, Bogotá, Cartagena – revisited new travel destinations like the coffee country and took in exciting first-time sights like the Caribbean coastal range. Though Bogotá has the most foreign travellers, Cartagena is surely Colombia’s greatest attraction, constantly hosting cultural festivals and opening small hotels, one outdoing another in the artful use of haute Spanish colonial: stone, stucco, wrought iron and gargantuan flamboyant floral arrangements. The city began 500 years ago as a gold and slave market protected by harbour fortresses erected by the Spaniards and later attacked by the English, notably Sir Francis Drake. In my youth, a great part of Cartagena’s charm was its languor. The city lay mostly decaying and neglected, known for long, hot afternoons and rummy nights near the ocean, but its beaches were never as good as its nightlife, and that still holds true today, where so many mojitos and dinners of fresh fish with coconut rice are served on dramatically lit rooftop terraces under the stars. Cartagena really began to rouse itself a bit only in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when, according to locals, it became known as a safe zone and quick exit point for rich Colombians who did not want to abandon their country entirely. In 1995, when a former convent that once housed the city penitentiary was transformed into the beautiful Hotel Sofitel Santa Clara and García Márquez built a modern house next door, luxury tourism began. But there is also another noteworthy change happening, not only in Cartagena but throughout the country: the return of the young diaspora, many sent out of the country by their families to grow up away from the violence, others leaving simply to study and live abroad. Now they are coming home to put their own stamp on Colombia. One of the most picturesque small hotels in Cartagena, Hotel Tcherassi, is owned by the comely Colombian fashion designer Silvia Tcherassi. Its restaurant, Vera, is Italian, and the setting could not be more artful: a thin indoor waterfall is pressed between two panes of glass and forms the backdrop of the cocktail area, where there is an intimate seat for two on a small stone island in the water. Though the service can be spotty, the carpaccio is delicious, and I had fun chatting with the 33-year-old chef, Andrés Fernando Hoyos. Born in Bogotá, he spent seven years in Europe, during which he attended school and apprenticed in two three-star restaurants in Spain. His approach is nothing if not sustainable. “I buy fish from small local fishermen, not just big distribution centres,” he tells me. And his vegetables come from local gardens of the poor seeded by funds from the Clinton Global Initiative. Maybe that’s why Hillary Clinton kicked up her heels and danced the night away at Café Havana when she was in town. Near Vera is Casa Chiqui, an interior-design store carefully curated for the big houses of the rich. 44 departures-international.com CONTACT PLATINUM CARD SERVICE FOR BOOKINGS
Colombia manages to be lush and verdant, traditional and historic, and metropolitan and modern, all at the same time departures-international.com 45
