Qualla: Convento de la Popa

Convento de la Popa: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 4.0. The legend goes like this: Friar Alonso de la Cruz Paredes, an Augustinian monk in the Colombian Andes, received a vision of the Blessed Virgin ordering him to build a church on the highest hill overlooking Cartagena. When he climbed to the summit, he found a cult worshipping a goat -- an evil spirit, according to the chronicles, venerated under the direction of a man named Luis Andrea. The friar did what friars in colonial chronicles tend to do. He threw the goat off the cliff. The Cartagenians still call the precipice the Salto del Cabron -- the Goat's Leap -- and the convent that replaced the pagan shrine has watched over the city for more than four centuries.

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Image: Bernard Gagnon | CC BY-SA 4.0

Convento de la Popa: A Ship on a Hilltop

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The convent takes its name from its shape. La Popa means "the stern" in Spanish, because the hilltop resembles the back end of a galley, with the church occupying the highest point where the stern would rise. Founded in 1607 when the Discalced Augustinian friar Vicente Mallol ere...

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Image: Public domain

Convento de la Popa: The Price of Being Visible

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Petruss, CC BY-SA 3.0. What makes La Popa a superb vantage point also makes it a target. Pirates recognized the hilltop convent as a fortified position worth capturing, and it suffered repeatedly during the raids that plagued Cartagena over the centuries after its founding in 1607. Unlike the walled ci...

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Image: Petruss | CC BY-SA 3.0

Convento de la Popa: Cannonballs and a Liberator

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz), CC BY-SA 4.0. During the wars of independence, La Popa became a battleground. On the night of November 11, 1815, the convent's defenders repelled a surprise assault by Spanish troops under Pablo Morillo, who was besieging Cartagena in a campaign to reclaim New Granada for the crown. After inde...

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Image: Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Convento de la Popa: Abandonment and Return

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. For over a century, the convent sat empty or repurposed. The Augustinians did not return until 1961, when the Colombian government restored the complex and its hermitage to the order. Today the convent houses the Religious Museum, and visitors can walk through the formidable cloi...

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Image: Public domain