Isla Punta Arena

This guide to Isla Punta Arena in Cartagena opens on a striking fact: none of the fishing families who have worked this shore for generations hold legal title to the land beneath their homes. It follows how the Colombian Navy came to own the ground on paper, how an Afro-descendant raizal community kept building anyway, and how the recent arrival of beach clubs has raised the value of a shoreline nobody here can sell or defend. Look past the umbrella and the loudspeaker music toward the water, where the walled city's skyline still stands guard across the bay.