Untouched by time

CARTAGENA sits at the northwestern tip of Colombia like an old jewel that has lost its shine. A maritime stronghold of Spain's overseas empire, its reputation as the best preserved of Spanish colonial destinations has been diminishing in value as a tourist attraction. For all its offerings, including an enchanting beach, a walled old city and a bewildering array of torture equipment that are a grim reminder of the colonial past and all the feverish spending in the last decade that saw the construction of facilities, it has ceased attracting tourists.

Few international flights connect it these days since the country's record as a drug haven with its three-decade long violent guerrilla war have driven away the few thousand tourists who would otherwise seek it out. Drug trafficking, guerrilla warfare, kidnappings, the images that Colombia conjures up are certainly not a tourist's dream of an entertaining holiday. Today, with the Government in Bogota presenting Cartagena as its best face and promoting it as a convention centre, the city gets a steady stream of foreign delegates come to attend international conferences. With neither the time nor inclination to hop around and spend their foreign currency, these visitors can bring little succour to the ailing tourism industry, the country's sole bread winner.

Cartagena, (pronounced Car-ta-hey-na), carries all the scars of the economic and political turmoil of the past decade. Nevertheless, being far removed from the guerrilla playground, it has managed to preserve its native attractions that can instantly transport you back in time.

With its typical Latin ambience and equally typical people, the city bears an air of friendly unreality that must entice even an inveterate traveller. The old world charm, if you have the time to explore, can be intoxicating: the cathedral in the heart of the old city, the Spanish architecture that has survived the ravages of time and the tourist tide, the cobbled dark alleyways that have remained untouched by modernisation, the Spanish balconies similar to those in Lima, Peru, that have been declared a UNESCO heritage, the show piece convention centre that sits on the edge of the water, the carnival atmosphere that creeps in as the day wears on, the colourful outdoor cafes and their well cobbled plazas, the unboisterous night life, the horse drawn coaches and paddle boats bobbing on the water as they wait for the odd tourist. The Latin mystique in full play.

The old city, enclosed in parapet walls to keep out the invader in the early decades of colonisation, reminds you of Old Delhi minus the teeming, jostling crowd. There are few reminders of the flourishing old days except dilapidated, crumbling buildings whose occupants apparently have no means of repairing them. It was not surprising that the only jewellery shop offering emeralds - Colombia's precious export - was boarded up and guarded like a fortress.

In basic detail, Cartagena is much like any steamy port town in India with its hot climate and plentiful signs of deprivation, the most evident of which are the tourist-savvy touts and souvenir hawkers who can drive you to desperation with their persistence. For an Indian, this was no great distraction. That sunny Sunday in early April, when a group of Indians was in Cartagena for a ministerial meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement was no different: we had a nasty taste of the vendor menace. With their aggressive, intrusive attempts to sell T-shirts, chains, lockets and curios, they nearly prevented us from getting out of our hotel on the seafront.

The biggest surprise, of course, awaited us on the beaches. The vast stretches of sands in an old city area called Bocagrande where most high rise tourist hotels are located had begun to get bathers at the stroke of dawn. The waters gleaming in the absence of big waves and the bright early morning sun added to the mysterious glamour even as Latin life as we had not seen in the earlier two days began to unfold itself. In a few hours, the beaches were swarming with fun loving locals, men and women of all ages stretched out on the sands or under tents that lined the shore in a bewildering maze of shades and shapes.

The temperate climate ensured that you did not get burnt in the sun or on the sands. Stone breakers, built at distances of 100 metres and jutting into the water, made it safe for children to splash around without fear. As the day wore on, the unhurried pace on the sands continued. There were the hawkers - and the occasional masseurs and hairbraiders - whose numbers increased as evening approaches and the bathers filled the sands to overflowing. At sundown,which was quite late in the evening, there was not the slightest hint that the bathers were inclined to return home or that the children were tired of frolicking. There was more than enough light - and adequate security from gun toting soldiers and security men.

A poor man's Rio de Janeiro it was, appropriately on the wrong side of the South American continent. If at Rio you were warned of muggers on the prowl on the beaches and advised to carry the minimum of clothing and cash, here in Cartagena the threat appeared to come mainly from the swarms of vendors.

Of course, we had a foretaste of the need for caution as we prepared to take the Colombian national airline, Avianca's direct flight to Cartagena from Miami in the United States. A sleek machine wrapped the checked-in luggage in plastic sheathing apparently as a measure of abundant caution. That this was no excessive American security obsession became clear when we reached our destination in less than two hours: the suitcases of one of our colleagues was missing at the baggage counter at Cartagena, never to be traced despite the assurances of apologetic officials. The shocking aspect was that there were more gun-wielding security men on the bleak wind-swept tarmac at Cartagena's airport than officials at the reception to guide us at the unknown, unfamiliar land. It was an unpleasant introduction to an otherwise warm and friendly city considered a living museum of the 16th and 17th century Spanish architecture.

K.V. KRISHNASWAMY

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