Playa De Bocagrande

This guide to Playa de Bocagrande in Cartagena opens with a warning about the free oyster or crab samples vendors hand you before naming their price, then widens into how this stretch of sand became a walking market. It traces Bocagrande from empty mangrove coastline to a wall of hotels built almost overnight in the 1940s, and the fishing families who moved onto the beach itself to keep selling directly to sunbathers. Expect vendors offering salted mango, shrimp cocktail and coconut drinks on your towel.