Getsemaní: Culture, History, and Street Art

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http://www.heygo.com 27th February - Getsemaní: Culture, History, and Street Art

Usually on these virtual trips you can connect with the guide around 10 minutes before the start time, that’s when people are logging in, saying hi to one another, stating where they are from and gives the opportunity for the guide to introduc themselves. Today the start time had passed & no sign of Jorge, our guide.

These are live tours so anything can happen!

Eventually Jorge arrived, all very apologetic because for some reason his phone was unable to connect to the VT App. Whilst trying to sort the problem a passerby offered to help and landed up lending Jorge his phone to enable the tour to continue.

The guy then enjoyed our tour too, as I said all these tours are live & anything can happen.

Cartagena's Old Town is a Unesco World Heritage Site – a maze of cobbled alleys, balconies covered in bougainvillea but today we were in the neighbourhood of Getsemani, just outside the fabled walls of Cartagena's historic Old City, thus was formerly a haven of prostitution and drugs. But the once-seedy neighborhood is now the coolest, most invigorating and authentic, up-and-coming talk of the town.



In the square dedicated to the Nine Martyrs of Independence is the Nol Me Tangere Monument, carved from white Carrara marble, it was erected in 1911 on the centennial of Cartagena de Indias declaration of independence. The name translates to the warning, “Touch Me Not.” This means Cartagenans always stand ready to defend their freedom.

We took a slow stroll down Calle de la Sierpe, peppered with bright graffiti, colorful stories on a canvas of well-worn buildings.

We heard of how one mural based on a local legend. According to the story, there were once colorful birds called Maria Mulatas that loved to sing in Cartagena. One day a horrible fire broke out and engulfed the city in flames. The colorful birds flew into the fire ravaged area and with their long beaks scooped up the locals and flew them to safety. Sadly, by flying back and forth through the smoke and soot, the Maria Mulatas lost their colorful feathers and were blackened forever.





Before the Spanish invasion of what is now Cartagena the area was originally inhabited by the Calamari people that dominated the Caribbean coast, there are a number of murals that pay tribute to the original indigenous inhabitants.

GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ, affectionately remembered by Colombians as “Gabo,” won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982 for his mystical novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, he too is featured on this outdoor art gallery.

Not sure if by chance or intentional but we saw a man reclining on the pavement below a mural of an old man reclining in the same pose.



I remember visiting Carthagena on our Panama Canal cruise some years back but had never been to this area.

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