COLOMBIAJULY 2019 | NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER INDIA 91KAROL KOZLOWSKI/ROBERTHARDING/COLLECTION MIX: SUBJECTS/GETTY IMAGES
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ANTHONY ASAEL/ALAMY/INDIAPICTURE
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hen Gabriel García
Márquez wrote, his
stories were dusted with
magic and dripping with
fantasy—yet he would look you dead in
the eyes, and say, this is real. That was
his truth; the same way his grandmother
would tell him ghost stories with a
stoic face and deadpan tone; the way
life slithered from the absurd to the
abnormal, always anchored in reality.
His style not only championed his
native Colombia’s spirit, but bolstered
the narrative of life in Central and
South America, which many struggle to
explain, and very few managed to depict.
The sleepy, northern Mompós,
officially Santa Cruz de Mompox,
served as a backdrop for One Hundred
Years of Solitude, which fetched Gabo
a Nobel Prize. Bearing resemblance to
the fictional Macondo, this UNESCO
site is but a crumbling colonial town
situated amid swamps with mango
trees and secluded wooden huts on
stilts. It is where blue Caribbean waters
meet the murky Magdalena River, the
longest in the country. It is a portal to
the late writer’s lifelong obsession with
the river dating back to 1943, when he
embarked on a luxury steamboat—the
David Arango—at 15. A walk down the
nearly 500-year-old cobbled streets of
Mompóscatches sights of mouldering
facades, mansions, and colourful
churches. In the evenings, the plaza in
front of Santo Domingo Church fills with
food stalls and recordings of classical
music. Owing to boutique hotels and
restaurants, this gem is slowly finding its
way into limelight.
A further 240 kilometres northward,
tucked in the Sierra Nevada, lies
Gabo’s birthplace, Aracataca, generally
hailed as a more popular contender for
Macondo. Murals of the author and
Remedios, a character of beauty so
enchanting that she ascended to heaven,
sprawl across the quarters. A tour of
Casa Museo Gabriel García Márquez,
a remarkable reconstruction of Gabo’s
childhood home, holds his typewriter
and dictionary. A walk through El
Carmen where yellow butterflies flutter,
reveals a tombstone erected to honour
Melquiades, the visionary gypsy of the
novel. Aesthetically, there isn’t much to
see, but it is a one-stop destination for
diehard Márquez fans as the essence of
Gabo awaits visitors at every turn.Yet, perhaps Cartagena remains
the most fantastical destination on
this trail, rich in history and ripe with
romanticism. It is the stuff of Caribbean
fantasies as well as the city that
launched Gabo’s trajectory as a writer.
Having arrived as a penniless student
from Bogotá, he later maintained a sea-
facing house in the San Diego quarter to
which he returned every year. Opposite
his abode sits the famed Sofitel Santa
Clara hotel, which the writer frequented
for a drink. Back in the day when he
was a journalist and the hotel was a
hospital, the author learnt about the
discovery of a skeleton of a young girl
with long copper hair. Fiction swirled
with truth and she became a 12-year-
old Marquis’ daughter sent for exorcismCOLOMBIA
The colourful setting of Cartagena (top) launched Márquez's writing stint; The movie-set-like
Mompós (b ot to m) served as a backdrop for the setting of One Hundred Years of Solitude.in the acclaimed Of Love and Other
Demons. At Plaza Fernández de Madrid,
lanes are festooned with flower-speckled
balconies. This setting of a bench-filled
park of young lovers entwined in each
other’s arms took shape of Park of the
Evangels in Love in the Time of Cholera.
In any city that brims with life and
character, Gabo would have had no
trouble seeking stories.CartagenaMompósArataca