Travel Guide Aracataca

Aracataca is a small town located 88 km south of Santa Marta, on the road to Bogotá. It is the birthplace of a certain Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014). The author was inspired by it for several of his works, especially for the fantasy of his Macondo in the extraordinary One Hundred Years of Solitude. Wanting to take advantage of this opportunity to attract tourists, the municipality organized a referendum in 2006 to change the name of the village to Macondo, but the inhabitants preferred to keep the original name of Aracataca... Another cultural personality was born here: Leo Matiz Espinoza (1917-1998), one of the greatest Colombian photographers of all times, great reporter and caricaturist. He is the author of the famous photo Pavo real del mar, from 1939, where we can see a fisherman throwing his net from his dugout in the Ciénaga Grande of Santa Marta. Aracataca is not a tourist town, but it does offer some attractions, such as the old train station from the beginning of the 20th century, the telegrapher's house-museum (where Gabo's father worked), frescoes telling the history of the town, the church of San Jose de Aracataca, and a museum dedicated to García Márquez.