Santa Cruz de Mompos is one of Colombia’s gems of a colonial city, has a beautiful consistency of old architecture and lazily sits alongside the fast flowing Magellan River. For much of its life it has been isolated from the rest of Colombia, with the principal way of getting there is by river. Today there is now a new bridge from El Banco, which connects Mompos to the Colombian road network, previously the only way by road was by ferry and some unmade roads. This isolation has helped to preserve Mompos’ architecture and today it can be likened to Cartagena without the crowds. Today there are now direct buses to Bucaramanga, Bogotá, Barranquilla and other major cities and many others with a change in El Banco which should really open up the tourism business as people begin to hear about Mompos.

We arrived at Mompos via the large city of Bucaramanga, which serves the burgeoning agricultural businesses of the fertile valleys that flow South from Bogotá to the coast. The city feels pretty safe and looks fairly prosperous too.

Mompos built up as a river port on the Magdalena River, some 300 or so kilometres from the sea at Barranquilla and is surrounded by large flood plains that are verdant green and support a wide variety of agriculture, livestock and fishing. The town is built along the river front and there is a very attractive path that separates the old colonial buildings from the river. Most of the buildings are whitewashed, with colour in their windows, shutters and doors. Many of the buildings are build round an internal courtyard complete with verandas and potted plants, with the odd internal tree. The inner courtyards provide a peaceful and cool escape from the heat and the activity outside.

A number of the old houses have been turned into boutique hotels, but there are still many that are normal residences and others that contain businesses that support the local community and not just the tourist trade. Thus Mompos has to date been spared the over commercialisation that have scared a number of other old colonial towns in South America, like Cartagena, Cusco and Arequipa. In some ways, albeit on a much smaller scale Mompos can be described as Cartagena without the crowds.

Mompos’ churches are all very beautiful, none more so than Santa Barbera church, which with a small square in front looks straight out onto the Magdalena River. The church is in an adobe orange colour and has an unusual hexagonal bell tower to its side. On its front are a number of carvings in the masonry, all picked out in contrasting colours to make it one of the most aesthetically attractive churches in Colombia.

There is also the usual San Franciscan church, but this one is painted a dark red colour in contrast to the other churches. Again it has a square in front of it with some trees and then looks straight down to the river front. The main church, the Church of the Imaculada Concepcion, sits along side the square of the same name, is another attractive adobe orange and white affair, with a bell tower ver similar to Saint Andrews Cathedral in Cartagena.

At night time the river front and the main squares all fill up with bars and tables from the surrounding restaurants. Also uniquely many of the bars put out rocking chairs instead of normal chairs. Rocking chairs are a feature in pretty much all the houses and hotels and are a perfect chair to relax in with a cold drink after the heat of the day. The temperature regularly gets into the mid 30s and with the inevitable humidity from the river, alone can understand why they became popular.

In addition to tourism, one of Mompos’ specialisations is the manufacture of filigree silver jewellery. There are a number of shops, complete with small workshops in the back that manufacture this jewellery for very competitive prices.

In addition to simply wandering the attractive streets of Mompos, one of the other big things to do, is to take a river trip. The one we chose took us downstream and then off through the marshlands into a large lake. The riverbanks are full of birds, particularly white ibis and amazon kingfishers, all very active fishing. In addition the local community of fishermen were along the banks fishing for fish, largely for the pot rather than commercially. The creeks and channels fill up with water hyacinths and other green floating plants that rapidly grow and make it a challenge for the boat to cut through all the vegetation.

Mompos was famous for being one of the stops of Simon Bolívar in his fight for independence from Spain, and some of his time was depicted in Gabriel Marquez’s book The General in his Labyrinth. Also Marquez’s fictional town of Macondo in 100 Years of Solitude has many of the characteristics of Mompos and it is easy to see how he used the town for inspiration in his literary masterpiece.

Date: 09/12/2019 to 12/12/2018