Colonial doors and knockers in Old Cartagena, Colombia

For a fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the ancient wooden doors of Old Cartagena are each as exciting as a book cover – each awaiting to be opened to reveal the secrets and stories within. The heavy meal knockers would be satisfying to use, before the doors swing aside, leading onto tiled patios, turquoise pools, tropical foliage, tables and chairs. Rich and poor have lived between these thick panels of wood; immigrants from Europe and Africa and the Caribbean Islands; traders and writers, aristocrats and drug barons.

I was reading Love in the Time of Cholera while I wandered through Cartagena, and each time a door opened in that book, love blossomed between the characters. Though the book is surely as much of a love story dedicated to the old city of Cartagena de Indias as it is to its characters.