They look up — at the colonial balconies spilling bougainvillea in colors that seem too vivid to be real, at the cathedral, the sky at golden hour. They look across — at the bay, the horizon, the...

The first thing you notice is the silence that isn’t silence. Anchored off the coast of Cartagena, the city is still visible — the ancient murallas, the cathedral dome, the green hill of La Popa with...

The plate arrives and the city is right there. Not through a window, not in a photograph on the wall — actually there, on the horizon, the ancient murallas catching the afternoon light while a dish of...

Forty-five minutes from Cartagena, the crossing ends and something else begins. The water changes color first — from the darker blue of the open bay to a turquoise so specific it seems artificial...

There is a moment, sometime between 5 and 6 in the afternoon, when Cartagena stops being a city and becomes a question. The light does it. The afternoon sun, dropping toward the peninsula, hits the...