Cartagena Colombia

President Bush flew here for his much-heralded summit with three Latin American presidents Thursday and proclaimed after about three hours of meetings that the four nations have formed "the first anti-drug cartel." An 11-page "Declaration of Cartagena" signed by Bush and the presidents of Colombia, Bolivia and Peru said that fighting drug traffic requires effective efforts to reduce demand for drugs in consuming countries and to stimulate economic development in producing countries.

Karmairi Hotel Spa is an outstanding boutique property on the beach outside of Cartagena, Colombia. It's a good place to escape the hustle and bustle of the city but close enough to see the sights. A shuttle takes you into town. The staff is very attentive. Rooms from about $170. Karmairi Hotel Spa, Via Manzanillo del Mar, Cartagena, Colombia; 011-57-1-7040654, http://www.karmairi.com Judy Gordon Los Angeles

The effect of climate change is anything but hypothetical to retired Colombian naval officer German Alfonso. Just ask him about the time his neighborhood in this historic coastal city became an island. For five years, Alfonso, 74, has watched tides rise higher and higher in the Boca Grande section of Cartagena. This month, tides briefly inundated the only mainland connection to his neighborhood, a converted sandbar where about 60 high-rise condo and hotel towers have been built in the last decade or so. "Before, people thought it a normal phenomenon.

THE BEST WAY TO CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA From LAX, Spirit Airlines and COPA offer connecting service (change of plane) to Cartagena . Restricted round-trip fares begin at $762, excluding taxes and fees. TELEPHONES To call the numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (the international dialing code), 57 (the country code for Colombia), then the number listed below. THE TOUR "The Cartagena of Gabriel García Márquez" audio tour is available through the Tierra Magna tourist office, http://www.tierramagna.com , with a branch in Plaza Santo Domingo, where the tour begins.

Just over a year ago, this walled bastion of colonial architecture was playing out its historical role as a city under siege. During past centuries, the foes outside Cartagena's fortress walls were English pirates and other foreigners seeking to sack the city's riches. The more recent enemies--drug traffickers and their terrorist allies--attacked from positions within Cartagena's walls.

The Cartagena summit marked important progress toward harmonizing the once-disparate drug policies of the United States and the three cocaine-producing countries of South America, as well as reinforcing their resolve to fight cocaine traffic together, Latin American officials said Friday. "The results were precisely what we needed, a more aggressive commitment by all of the countries here," said Gen. Miguel Maza Marquez, the commander of Colombia's intelligence police.

Last fall, as a wave of narco-terrorism swept Colombia, this historic city of Spanish colonial stonework and sunny Caribbean beaches vanished from the international tourist map. The seasonal tide of American and Canadian travelers never came in, and Cartagena's main business withered in despair. Adalberto Jimenez, an English-speaking tourist guide, said recently that without foreign customers, he is having a hard time feeding his 11 children. "They aren't getting enough to eat.

IN the old days, this was a swell place to be a pirate and a terrible place to be a witch. That was back when this wind-scoured Caribbean port was a hub of the Inquisition and the Spanish Empire's gold trade in the New World. Between 1610 and 1811, hundreds of sorcerers, blasphemers and other hapless heretics met gruesome fates here.

Miles from the sordid lives and gruesome revenge killings that his movie depicts, Jose Antonio Dorado was trying to explain how a mild-mannered college professor like himself could become obsessed with a ruthless drug lord. Actually, as Dorado describes it, in his native city of Cali, practically everyone was fixated by the powerful and charismatic narco-trafficking capo who is the subject of Dorado's fact-based feature film "El Rey" ("The King").

A few years ago, impoverished fisherman Marcial Ortega could barely afford to feed his 14 children, much less buy them shoes. But now his worries are over. A beneficiary of this region's building boom, he is selling his half-acre beachfront lot and cabanas this month for a cool $1 million. The 63-year-old Ortega held out for years, impassively listening to fast-talking developers bid up the price of his seaside plot.

I paused on a steamy February afternoon in Cartagena's Plaza Santo Domingo. In the square's center, tourists dined on fresh seafood and coconut rice at umbrella-shaded tables. At its edge was the 16th century Santo Domingo Church, whose twisted tower is — local legend has it — the result of the devil's failed attempt to demolish the sanctuary. Touts beckoned passersby into gleaming boutiques, while stray dogs, hoping for table scraps, competed with street musicians for the diners' attention.

The effect of climate change is anything but hypothetical to retired Colombian naval officer German Alfonso. Just ask him about the time his neighborhood in this historic coastal city became an island. For five years, Alfonso, 74, has watched tides rise higher and higher in the Boca Grande section of Cartagena. This month, tides briefly inundated the only mainland connection to his neighborhood, a converted sandbar where about 60 high-rise condo and hotel towers have been built in the last decade or so. "Before, people thought it a normal phenomenon.

It was a place that "stood unchanging at the edge of time . . . where flowers rusted and salt corroded, where nothing had happened for four centuries except a slow aging among withered laurels." That was Gabriel Garcia Marquez's rich description of a town very much like this Caribbean port in "Love in the Time of Cholera," the Nobel laureate's sultry saga of lust and decay.

A few years ago, impoverished fisherman Marcial Ortega could barely afford to feed his 14 children, much less buy them shoes. But now his worries are over. A beneficiary of this region's building boom, he is selling his half-acre beachfront lot and cabanas this month for a cool $1 million. The 63-year-old Ortega held out for years, impassively listening to fast-talking developers bid up the price of his seaside plot.

IN the old days, this was a swell place to be a pirate and a terrible place to be a witch. That was back when this wind-scoured Caribbean port was a hub of the Inquisition and the Spanish Empire's gold trade in the New World. Between 1610 and 1811, hundreds of sorcerers, blasphemers and other hapless heretics met gruesome fates here.

Miles from the sordid lives and gruesome revenge killings that his movie depicts, Jose Antonio Dorado was trying to explain how a mild-mannered college professor like himself could become obsessed with a ruthless drug lord. Actually, as Dorado describes it, in his native city of Cali, practically everyone was fixated by the powerful and charismatic narco-trafficking capo who is the subject of Dorado's fact-based feature film "El Rey" ("The King").

It was a place that "stood unchanging at the edge of time . . . where flowers rusted and salt corroded, where nothing had happened for four centuries except a slow aging among withered laurels." That was Gabriel Garcia Marquez's rich description of a town very much like this Caribbean port in "Love in the Time of Cholera," the Nobel laureate's sultry saga of lust and decay.

THE BEST WAY TO CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA From LAX, Spirit Airlines and COPA offer connecting service (change of plane) to Cartagena . Restricted round-trip fares begin at $762, excluding taxes and fees. TELEPHONES To call the numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (the international dialing code), 57 (the country code for Colombia), then the number listed below. THE TOUR "The Cartagena of Gabriel García Márquez" audio tour is available through the Tierra Magna tourist office, http://www.tierramagna.com , with a branch in Plaza Santo Domingo, where the tour begins.

As the world's kidnapping capital and site of a four-decade civil war, Colombia is not a tourist mecca. But there's a notable exception -- Cartagena, a sparkling colonial city on the coast that Colombians call "the jewel of the Caribbean." Cartagena's history as a Spanish bastion against English invasion, its cobblestone streets, quaint plazas, colonial churches, art museums and seafood restaurants attract many visitors.

Just over a year ago, this walled bastion of colonial architecture was playing out its historical role as a city under siege. During past centuries, the foes outside Cartagena's fortress walls were English pirates and other foreigners seeking to sack the city's riches. The more recent enemies--drug traffickers and their terrorist allies--attacked from positions within Cartagena's walls.