Santa Cruz de Mompox is a remote and hidden town where time stands still. This town, that inspires tales of romance and nostalgia, is situated on an island of the same name on the western bank of the Magdalena River, 200km southeast from Cartagena.

The Colombian Nobel Prize author Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote in his novel, “The General in his Labyrinth”, a phrase he attributed to Liberator Simon Bolivar: “Mompox does not exist, sometimes we dream of it, but it does not exist”
It was founded by Alonso de Heredia in May 3, 1537 as Santa Cruz de Mompox after a ferocious confrontation with Kimbay tribe leader ‘Cacique – Chief Mompoj’. Mompox became a key commercial center for merchandise that traveled upstream from the interior en-route to Cartagena; since then the town has remained architecturally and traditionally intact and in 1995 it was declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The Central Cemetery is perhaps the most interesting place to visit. The white tombs are lined up one above the other and form walls of memories around a central chapel. Its San Francisco church built in 1564. The City Hall where on August 6, 1810 the Act of Independence from Spain was first signed under the cry “Freedom or Death”. The Church of Immaculate Conception built by Pedro Heredia in 1541.

A tradition in Mompox, that is passed down from generation to generation and is world famous, is filigree workshops, Local goldsmiths make from threads of silver and gold very intricate and delicate jewelry.