Santo Domingo Bastion

In front of you lies the Caribbean Sea. You are standing on Santo Domingo Bastion, one of the strongpoints of the wall that surrounds the historic centre. It is the perfect place to end the route.

1A walled city

After Francis Drake's attack in 1586, the Crown decided to fortify Cartagena. The work went on for almost two centuries, with engineers such as Bautista Antonelli, Cristóbal de Roda and Antonio de Arévalo. The result is some eleven kilometres of walls, bastions and forts that made Cartagena one of the best-defended strongholds in the Americas. In 1984 UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site.

The bastions are shaped like arrowheads so that the cannons could cover every angle. Look at the sentry boxes at the corners: that is where the lookouts kept watch.

For centuries this wall watched the sea, waiting for enemies. Today it mostly waits for the sunset.

2Golden hour

Find a spot on the parapet and wait. As the sun goes down, the sky turns orange and pink and the stone glows gold. There is a bar with a terrace on the bastion, but you can also enjoy it for free from the wall.

Drink water: even at sunset the heat is intense. And if you want to keep going, you can walk along the wall to the north.

3What to look for

• The cannons pointing out to sea.
• The sentry box at the corner of the bastion.
• The high-rises of Bocagrande, across the bay.