Getsemani used to be Cartagena de Indias’ impoverished slum area…this is where epidemics of cholera started in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ book, Love inThe Time of Cholera. The city’s blacks lived here—slaves, servants, fishermen—in the low, marshy area next to the river, on the outskirts of the main walled city.
These days, Getsemani has risen from the ashes and fish offal to become Cartagena’s bohemian neighbourhood. Youth hostels, thumping bars and hip ethnic restaurants, the church plaza (Plaza de La Trinidad)  where locals and backpackers gather and mix in the evenings to make music, kick a ball around, stroll, ogle, smoke, eat, drink, discuss politics…the place hums with the activities of everyday neighborhood life, unwinding on streets flanked by colourful houses at least a hundred years old…