HISTORY

The tradition of taking a carriage ride dates back to colonial times when the lords and the social highlight used this type of luxury transportation. These carriages known with different names around the world; chariot, coach, gig, in Cartagena simply evolved to the demands of the tourists and became an asset for the city, creating a sense of belonging and inspiring great composers which in odes of joy sang to the city of Cartagena while traveling on a carriage through its colonial streets. The now famous artist Jesus David Quintana captured in his lyric verses the essence of the feeling a carriage ride through Cartagena gives, when he says a Cambaculero (from Chambacú) coachman will take us among balconies, streets and colonial corners of your life, right here in the enchanted city where under the dim light of an ancestral lantern, the love kiss in a carriage ride leads to happiness, and joy seizes your soul when a Cartagenero cries out “hooray for the bride and groom” and the joy of being in Cartagena.

The carriages in Cartagena began providing tourist services at the begining of the twentieth century when cars entered the walled area, loosing the colonial environment and romanticism that characterizes it, but one day a tourist rented a carriage owned by Juan Rios Vásquez (pioneer of the carriage ride) that had been given to him by Soledad Román, wife of the president Rafael Nuñez, and toured with infinite pleasure the colonial environment listening to the coachman's stories about the old city. This is how the carriage was requested each day more for sightseeing, promoting this services to grow and the organization of this guild. Today the coachmen are highly trained so that the tourists and natives who use this means of transportation know not only the architectural landscape of the city but also the history of Cartagena, to listen to it riding a carriage seems like a mythic tale, and if you don't belive it, come and we will tell.

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In Cartagena there are two streets that make reference to the carriages: Calle Cochera del Hobo and Calle Cochera del Gobernador. According to writers of the time, those were the places where the carriages of Mr. Hobo and The Governor were kept, this supports the theory that in Cartagena de Indias, since the colonial times, the powerful gentlemen had a carriage for their own personal use or to honor illustrious visitors with a carriage ride.

Other world known characters that have visited Cartagena and make part of our contemporary history as well as the honorable gentlemen of the colonial times that rode through the city in a carriage are: Yasser Arafat, Nelson Mandela, Gabriel García Márquez, Fidel Castro, Susana Caldas (Miss Colombia), Julio Iglesias, Maelo Ruíz. I hope some day your name will also appear as a happy tourist who visited Cartagena and left a smile or a picture while riding a carriage through the enchanted streets of Cartagena de Indias.

Today, carriages and coachmen make part of the cultural heritage of our city, and in one way or another have contributed to forming another way of seeing and knowing Cartagena, creating work spaces and contributing to the overall development of the tourism management. This allowed that in 2010 – 2011 the cuise ships that visit Cartagena graded the carriage ride as the best tour in the city.

The illustrious and distinguished historian and philologist from Cartagena, Eduardo Lemaitre said in the reality of the soul: I firmly believe that the carriages of Cartagena make part of the intangible heritage of our country, and is the noblest expression of the custom and usage, which they give to the Corralito de Piedra (Cartagena). To paraphrase, I'll say that a carriage ride is to exalt the city, to enjoy life, and above all to save the custom of the city that though it is ours, we all own it.