Unforgettable town is a rising star of South American tourism

Mark Chipperfield

October 31, 2026 — 5:00am

A gentle night rain falls on our ship, as soft as a tropical caress. Small waves slap politely against the bow and I drift into the land of nod.

On waking, I find Colombia’s Magdalena River as brooding as ever, weighed down by centuries of myth, torment and wonder.

Our little cruise ship, AmaMelodia, is docked against a riverbank wharf that belongs to a local farm. Farmhands in big hats coax a small white cow up a muddy pathway. The rich agricultural smells of wet fodder drift up as we lean over the guardrails.

There’s a buzz of excitement aboard AmaMelodia this morning as the 50 or so passengers, including myself, prepare for an excursion to the fabled river port of Mompox, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the rising superstar of Colombia’s Caribbean coast.

Founded in 1537 by Spanish conquistadors and named after a local chieftain, Santa Cruz de Mompox quickly became a major trading centre on the Magdalena, its wealth fed by Colombia’s capacious gold and silver mines.

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Prosperity drew wealthy merchants who built impressive villas. To save their souls, the Catholic Church commissioned the construction of fantastical cathedrals in bold colours; from the river they look like a child’s crayon drawings.

Jose Hernandez, a history graduate who now works as a river guide with AmaWaterways, says that Mompox exercises a powerful influence on the Colombian imagination – a living link to its turbulent, dramatic and opulent days long before independence in 1819.

“Mompox is associated with a lot of magic in our local traditions,” he says. “It is an idyllic destination, a city that has been trapped in time. And it just happens to be one of the most beautiful towns in Colombia.”

Despite its modest size (fewer than 50,000 people live here), few attractions and brusque locals, the legend of Mompox continues to grow.

As a university student, Jose spent six hours travelling by bus from Cartagena to Mompox, a journey that he remembers with fondness and an obvious sense of nostalgia.

“Six hours on a bus with nothing to see but trees, small houses and dogs,” he smiles. “Arriving by ship is much better, I can assure you!”

By the early 20th century, the river had silted up and the old paddle steamers had gone into retirement. Mompox’s glory days were over and the town, “the city of churches”, was little more than a historical curio.

Stepping ashore at the renovated wharf at Mompox, with its backdrop of candy-coloured villas, cobbled streets and whimsical church spires, proves to be as thrilling as I’d hoped, but with an unexpected twist.

Our visit coincides with the town’s annual jazz festival, so the river-facing streets are packed with small bands blasting out the rhythms of Colombia – everything from cumbia to salsa and blues.

The musicians play through the intense tropical heat that seems to press down on our heads like molasses, inducing a trance-like state that enhances the strangeness and brilliance of this idiosyncratic town.

In a cobbled backstreet, I find a donkey with a sad face and peek into the lush, green courtyard of a grand colonial villa. Later, I stumble on a sight so peculiar that it could only happen in Mompox: a man feeding a gaggle of iguanas as playful and inquisitive as puppies.

Little wonder then that Mompox is so often associated with Gabriel Jose Garcia Marquez, Colombia’s Nobel-winning novelist and the godfather of magical realism, a literary genre that swept the world in the 1980s.

Like Jose, I’m fascinated by the sheer otherworldliness of Mompox, a place that belongs to another era and where life follows a vastly different pattern that is more sensual, instinctive and superstitious.

“I love this place. To me, it is deeply romantic,” he says. “Mompox is the perfect expression of magical realism.”

Sadly, there is no evidence that Mompox was the inspiration for the fictional city of Macondo in Marquez’s most famous work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, but the languid atmosphere, grandiose churches and sense of wonder are certainly Marquezian.

Mompox is unforgettable in a way that is impossible to define. In this Caribbean dreamworld everything, and I mean everything, is unfamiliar, exotic and intriguing.

DETAILS AmaWaterways’ seven-day Magic of Colombia and Wonders of Colombia cruises sail between Cartagena and Barranquilla along the Magdalena River.From $4968 a person. See amawaterways.com

The writer was a guest of AmaWaterways

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