I must admit it, I do enjoy the name and the alliteration of the town of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but the house museum is disappointing.

I passed through Aracataca on my way from Mompox and to Minca and my expectations were very high! I expected a pretty town, maybe as pretty as Mompox, I expected a museum/house with original memorabilia and an overall “Gabo presence” that would go over the dozens of posters with his ‘quotes’.

I didn’t come all the way to read his quotes on a few boards on the walls, I came to see the house he was born in.

Funny enough the guy at the entrance is not hiding the ‘fraud’, it will tell you right at the entrance that there’s no original furniture, none of the objects belonged to Gabo and that the rooms and the walls are all be redone. There’s only one room, at the end that has the original flooring…so sad!

The museum and using its bathroom is free, good reasons to stop if Aracataca is on the way, but would’t make a detour for it, no I wouldn’t!