Santa Marta One vote was for birds. Done. One was for fish. They were on their way. Another vote was for our classic visit to a botanical garden. Mi companera and I pushed off for Jardín Botánico de Cartagena “Guillermo Piñeres”, a bit more than an hour away, it seemed from Google Maps, in the neighboring area of Turbaco in the province of Bolivar.
Having been inundated by tour buses and wild-in-the-street hawkers at the Aviario, we braced ourselves for what it might be like to get into the botanical garden. To say the hawkers in Cartagena are aggressive is an understatement. They block streets, chase you on motorcycles, and do whatever is necessary to get you to stop, whether you are walking or driving. We learned later talking to locals that several new laws had been past after the pandemic to regulate them, but not sure how that’s going.
Regardless, once we turned off the highway, we were on a partially paved road that made New Orleans’ streets, nationally known as notoriously bad, seem like a freshly paved interstate highway. We got to where we thought we needed to be, and there was a huge locked gate. Had we misread? Was it closed? No, a guard unlocked and waved us in. We virtually had the whole 18-acre hillside expanse to ourselves, and it was a treat. Before we even got past the giant Cuban king palms, we couldn’t get our eyes off the ground because there was a well-organized army of ants carrying bits of green leaves from the top of one of the trees to parts unknown. Later we found a half-dozen mounds that seemed to be home, but we crossed the path of this army repeatedly as we walked between the stations of the garden.
The garden was organized based on climate and places of origin. We saw giant wild cashew trees, white figs, and Spanish cedar that were huge. We saw desert specimens, ornamentals, and of course fruit tees like papaya and mango. As it got closer to noon, despite the shade cover, the humidity was catching up with us, but we had pretty much traversed the entire walking area.
The Jardin Botanico was pushing fifty years old. The land was originally a gift from the family of Guillermo Pineres, from their holdings and given to protect native flora and fauna. Originally, it was supported by the Central Bank of Columbia for many years along with the family foundation. According to their history, “the Colombian constitution of 1991 limited the role of the Central Bank of Colombia as benefactor of nonprofit organizations, and after a transition period, in 2004 the Central Bank was eliminated from its involvement in the Cartagena Botanical Garden. In 2004, the installations of the Cartagena Botanical Garden were left …with COMFENALCO, a family welfare fund, which to date manages the ticket office, events, gardening, and general maintenance of the Garden.” Once again, not a public institution, but it is understandable that having the Central Bank handle it doesn’t seem right either. Imagine if the Federal Reserve was distracted from its mission of dealing with inflation and decreasing joblessness, because it was managing parks around the USA; it wouldn’t work. Not being public though explains how forbidding the access to the garden and its splendor have become.
Aboslutely worth the climb!
