Walking through the old colonial walled city and fortress of Cartagena de Indias, I felt as though I was moving through two different worlds simultaneously. Both occupied the same space and yet they were separated by hundreds of years. The sun was low in the sky and cast a gold light on the bricks that Spaniards had laid in the 16th and 17th centuries to protect the city’s inhabitants against would-be intruders. Just as the sun set over the horizon, a bustling nightlife suddenly emerged, and I found myself in the middle of a modern city–Colombia’s fifth largest. Even though the modes of transportation might be faster and more advanced in today’s Cartagena, the city’s long history is still present everywhere you look.
