Cartagena’s Locals Brace for High-End Hotel Invasion

Unshaven, smiling and reed-like in the Caribbean breeze, Andrés Montaño takes his newfound Colombian wealth in stride.

"At the beginning everyone told me I was crazy for buying here. There was so much prostitution and drugs, it was very dangerous," says the 32-year-old who, together with four partners, opened a backpacker's hostel in Getsemaní, Cartagena for $1 million in 2009. It is now worth $5 million. Four months after opening, seven thieves with guns and machetes broke in and robbed 21 of the hostel's guests, Montaño recalls. But that was then: "Now, everything has changed." Today, his Media Luna Hostel, named after the up-and-coming street it inhabits, is making Montaño and his Getsemaní neighbors unlikely characters in the dramatic development of Colombia's sultriest city.