Las Mercedes: The Neighborhood Where Cartagena Breathes
In Cartagena, while Getsemaní fills with cameras and the Walled City dresses in colors for tourists, there's a neighborhood that remains true to itself. Las Mercedes is not a stage, it's life itself. Here you won't find souvenir shops with vueltiao hats, but rather Doña Rosa's bakery that bakes bread since five in the morning, Don José's hardware store that has been serving with the same patience for thirty years, and the plastic chairs on the sidewalk where neighbors chat as evening falls. This is the neighborhood that welcomes you without pretense, with the authenticity of someone who doesn't need to dress up for anyone.
History Woven Between Streets and Memories
Las Mercedes was born like many popular neighborhoods of Cartagena: from the need for a home. In the 1960s and 70s, working families began building their houses here, far from the historic center but close to the sea. It wasn't planned by urban planners, but grew organically, like a tree grows. Its narrow streets and pastel-colored houses tell stories of fishermen, artisans, and laborers who built this neighborhood with their own hands. "My grandfather arrived here when there was only wilderness," Carlos, a 65-year-old neighbor, tells me while repairing a chair in his workshop. "He and others like him made the streets, put up the first light poles. This was built by everyone." That collective memory remains alive on every corner, in the street names that honor deceased neighbors, in the traditions passed down from generation to generation.
Everyday Life as the Main Attraction
Walking through Las Mercedes is immersing yourself in the true rhythm of Cartagena. In the morning, the smell of freshly brewed coffee mixes with the sound of mototaxis taking people to work. In the central plaza, elders play dominoes under the shade of a mango tree, while children run on their way to school. There are no declared heritage monuments, but every corner has its charm: the San José church, small and always open; the mural painted by neighborhood youth showing scenes of local life; the clotheslines where laundry dries in the sun like flags of everyday life.
Security here is measured in familiar faces. "We all look out for each other," explains María, owner of a grocery store. "If you see someone you don't know, you ask. But the truth is that few strangers come here. Those who come are because they want to truly know the neighborhood." For getting around, mototaxis are the soul of transportation. For 2,000 pesos they take you to any point in the neighborhood, and if you're new, the driver will probably tell you something about the place's history. Buses also pass by connecting with downtown and other neighborhoods, but the pace is slow, like everything here.
Flavors and Culture That Nourish the Soul
In Las Mercedes, eating is an act of community. At El Fogón de Mercedes, a family restaurant that occupies the living room of a house, they serve the most authentic fish sancocho in Cartagena. It doesn't have a tourist menu, but the same one the neighbors eat: coconut rice, fried fish, patacones. On Fridays, Doña Luisa prepares egg empanadas that sell out in minutes. "I make them as my mother taught me, and she as hers taught her," she says while kneading the dough. At La Esquina del Sabor, a street stall, corozo juice is the favorite drink to combat the heat.
Culture here isn't in museums, but in the people. On Saturday afternoons, in the neighborhood's cultural house (an old mansion restored by neighbors), there are folk dance workshops for children. Grandfathers teach drumming, keeping alive the African heritage that arrived on these shores. In December, the entire neighborhood comes together for the Aguinaldos novenas, and during carnivals, they parade with comparsas they create themselves. "Here, art isn't something you see, it's something you live," Jorge, a music teacher who gives free classes to youth, tells me. "We don't have many resources, but we have the desire to create."
A Neighborhood That Invites You to Stay
Visiting Las Mercedes isn't about checking it off a list of attractions. It's about sitting on a bench in the plaza and observing. It's about buying a soda at the corner store and chatting with whoever is there. It's about understanding that the real Cartagena isn't just in its colonial stones, but in the warmth of its people. This neighborhood reminds you that the most memorable journeys aren't the ones photographed, but the ones felt. When you leave, you won't take a refrigerator magnet, but the memory of a genuine smile, the flavor of a meal made with love, and the certainty that, in some corner of Cartagena, life continues its course, authentic and beautiful in its simplicity.
Las Mercedes isn't a destination, it's an experience. And like all true experiences, it changes you a little inside.