Isla Baru
Beach peninsula severed from the mainland by a colonial-era canal, now reached by bridge and boat.
Location
About this audio guide
Isla Baru near Cartagena is not naturally an island, three hundred and seventy years ago this stretch of coast was still attached to the mainland. The guide follows the Canal del Dique, a sixteenth-century shortcut dug by Spanish engineers and rebuilt in 1650 under Governor Pedro Zapata de Mendoza, which silted, worked, and eventually severed this peninsula for good. It traces what all that dredging did to Cartagena Bay's seagrass and coral over the following centuries, and raises one reef offshore that shouldn't have made it through.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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