Aracataca, Colombia

To reach Aracataca signals that you have reached the heart of Gabriel Garcia Marquez country and entered what could be considered as a parallel and Macondian universe. Literature enthusiasts will immediately place the town as being the inspiration for the Macondo of 100 Years of Solitude but just about every small town that the literary traveller encounters in the region could bear some form of Macondian expression.

The Nobel Prize winning author returned to Aracataca to throngs of jubilant crowds this year for the first time in 24 years to inaugurate the new Tren Amarilla de Macondo. The tourist train is set to begin in late 2007 to shuttle tourists along this mythical track from the coast some 80km inland from Santa Marta in the Magdalena Department and move some of the coastal tourism inland.

Aracataca itself is a truly unassuming place. It has the feel of a town that gets by and very little more. Mothers and children stroll through the streets, a lottery vendor goes from door to door and the train station guard slumbers. With a population nearing 50,000 it has far surpassed the population numbers when Gabo was growing up here.

In Gabo’s day Aracataca was a banana town in the clutches of the United Fruit Company, now the company has gone and a new period of agricultural exploitation is taking place in the form of African Palm being cultivated for its oil.

A brief stroll through Aracataca will bring one into contact with all types of Cataceros – residents of Aracataca – ready to stop and share a word with the stranger. Disarmingly polite and friendly a native Catacero will chat about anything from the town’s most famous son to their hopes for the future. In short, Aracataca is charming.

Before the year is out the new museum put together with money from the Colombian Ministry of Culture will be up and ready to receive visitors. The Government purchased the site of Gabo’s childhood home and have been delicately and meticulously restoring it to its original state. Whether this will draw the hordes to Aracataca remains to be seen, but it will bring some more curiosity to a place that oozes superstition and literary intrigue.

Hostels...
At present there is one guesthouse in Aracataca Hospedaje El Porvenir.
Don't miss...
A dip in the river Aracataca. Jaime Garcia Marquez, the self proclaimed less intelligent brother to Gabriel, informed me that every day in his childhood in Aracataca he would bathe in the cool waters from the snowmelt of the Sierra Nevada as they are said to increase one’s intelligence.
The Casa Natal de Gabo – The new Museum set to be finished within months and full of the family’s history and details about the writer himself. Gabo has been consulted considerably on the project and feels that if can bring commerce and some wealth to Aracataca it is a good thing.






photos
Report & Photography by: Richard McColl
You might need...
Banks - You would be advised to stock up on Pesos prior to arriving in Aracataca.
How 2 get there...
When the train is up and running this will be the principal and most desirable route.
Otherwise there are collective buses that trundle down Highway 45 from Santa Marta.