Universidad de Cartagena Claustro de la Merced
Colonial cloister of stone and brick, rebuilt for centuries after repeated storm damage, now housing a writer's mausoleum.
This guide to the Universidad de Cartagena's Claustro de la Merced follows a Mercedarian convent that took over a century to actually stay standing after its 1617 royal license, as storms in 1664, 1671, 1713 and 1714 kept knocking it back down. It traces the norte, the hard northern gale locals still name, and the quarrymen, carpenters and enslaved laborers pressed into rebuilding stone and brick walls again and again, until engineers finally added a breakwater. It follows the cloister into a later life too, when architect Pedro Malabet reworked its facade in 1912 for a very different purpose.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.