To be set in a country once deemed the 'most violent in the world' can be both a blessing and a curse. For Cartagena, the rebel crackdown of the past four years has led to a tremendous resurgence of interest as the outside world has been re-introduced to the sensational beauty of this seaport city found on the Northeastern Caribbean coast of Colombia, an easy flight away from Peru.

Scott Steindorff, producer of the soon-to-be-released Mike Newell film, 'Love in the Time of Cholera', based on the book by the Colombian Nobel prize winning author and Cartagena resident Gabriel Garcia Marquez, was blown away by the beauty of the Colonial old town. "When I got here, I fell in love with the place and realized I couldn't film anywhere else."

Founded by the Spanish in 1533, the city was the jewel in their crown as one of only two slave trade ports in the empire and the gateway for gold, precious stones and shipping cargo. News of its incredible riches quickly spread and the Spanish spent the rest of the 16 th and 17 th centuries fending off European pirates such as John Hawkins, Sir Frances Drake and Jean-Baptisse Ducasse. In response, they consulted top European engineers and constructed a formidable walled city with 8km (5 miles) of walled defenses topped with the strongest fortresses on the continent.