Casa Museo Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Magdalena Department, Colombia

51055francisco 5:00 PM Aug 9, 2014

Magic Realism
My wife and I recently visited Aracataca and found it to be a surreal experience. The whole town appears to be suspended in time as if contained in a bubble, especially because of the late July heat. having read most of Gabo's works, lends to the feeling of having been there, having traversed into this little magical place. The house, a must visit and also the telegraph station. The whole town is a jewel.

4katy p 5:00 PM Dec 2, 2015

I would have done it for the journey
I was in Cartagena for a short stay, but I wanted to do something unique. I go out on road trips during my travels when the conditions allow and is safe (I've driven Romania, Jordan, Australia, etc). I checked several times with the rental car agency about road conditions (fully paved the entire way) and crime (safe esp along the Caribbean coast .. but I still avoided driving at night). It cost me around $90 for a 24 hour rental (cabs were charging $300-800 USD for the daytrip), and I knew the drive was around 4 hours each way, so off I went. It's true when they say it's not about the destination, but the journey. Along the way I was able to see villages of wood post houses over a swamp (near Cienaga), chatted with banana farmers, got lost in Barranquilla... Generally speaking, Colombians are very, VERY nice. If you look like you're in trouble, they are more than happy to chat with you and guide you in the right direction, or just chat with you about where you're from and what you're doing (helps if you speak Spanish). The residents of Cartagena are a bit more jaded to tourists, but the ones that I met on the road trip were very much refreshing. I felt like I was seeing a more authentic Colombia. The people of Aracataca were friendly as well and shocked I'd driven all the way just to see the museum. When I pulled up, the GGM Museum was closed (closed on Mondays), but the kind man on the street called a security guard who was able to let me in to take a peek for a good 25 minutes. The house itself smelled of cat urine, and the rooms, while incredibly informative, were all replicas. The actual house was sold by GGM's mother to a buyer, then purchased by the GGM Foundation, rebuilt, burned down, then rebuilt again five years ago. So this building is a relatively new building. GGM himself had not been back to Aracataca until way later in his years they told me. Still it was interesting to see how GGM lived out his youth - and more interesting to see how the kids in the town live - running into rivers, eating fruit off the trees, being rambunctious; during my drive I even saw four kids run up behind a slowing semi and stow away on the back. Talk about Huck Finn. The street vendor outside the museum is very knowledgeable about GGM (in Spanish) and shared quite a bit of information about him. The drive can be very dangerous - there are fuel trucks overtaking monster buses overtaking other monster buses. And motorcycles and mopeds weaving in and out, driving in the center divider, off the side of the roads, trying not to be clipped. I saw a truck almost run a moped off the side of the road carrying a father and a seven-year-old boy clinging for his life. Just absolutely nuts. There are also automatic radar check points for speeding but the GPS system had an alert to warn me of those.