I Spent Three Days Looking for a Cartagena Street That Doesn’t Exist
While checking in for my flight to Colombia, an image on the airline’s website immediately caught my attention.
As both a travel photographer and watercolor artist, I’m constantly looking for interesting locations to photograph. The colorful colonial buildings, stone fortress walls, and perfectly centered gateway looked like the kind of scene I would gladly wake up at 4:30 a.m. to photograph.
So when I arrived in Cartagena, I went looking for it.
For three days I wandered the UNESCO World Heritage city before sunrise and again before sunset. I photographed the old streets in the soft blue light before dawn, explored the plazas during the day, and returned each evening hoping to stumble across the location from the airline’s photograph.
I never found it.
Eventually I realized why.
It doesn’t exist.
What the Real Cartagena Looks Like
The image wasn’t a photograph of a real location. Instead, it appears to be a composite created from several different places around Cartagena.
Once you know the city, the clues become surprisingly obvious.
The massive stone wall on the left resembles sections of Cartagena’s famous defensive walls.
The colorful colonial buildings certainly look authentic.
The gateway in the distance resembles the entrance near Plaza de los Coches.
Individually, each element exists.
Together?
Not even close.
The Missing Clock Tower
The biggest giveaway is the famous Torre del Reloj.
In the AI image, the tower has disappeared completely.
When I visited Cartagena the tower was surrounded by scaffolding for restoration, but the tower itself was still there. In the AI image it has simply vanished, leaving only an archway where one of Cartagena’s most recognizable landmarks should be.
Streets That Were Never Built
The wide boulevard shown in the AI image exists to the west of the entrance to Plaza de los Coches, but it is a pedestrian only walk area with statues and waterfountains.
To the southwest lies the marina and the skyline of Bocagrande across the bay.
At the right, to the northeast is Parque Centenario.
The colonial buildings lining this “street” do not exist. Not there…
The large Spanish fortress wall on the left of the image? Not located there…
The AI image combines viewpoints from multiple directions into one seamless—but fictional—scene.
The Skyline Is in the Wrong Place
The modern high-rises are another clue.
Cartagena certainly has skyscrapers.
They’re simply not located behind that section of the Old City.
The buildings appear to have been borrowed from the Bocagrande skyline and repositioned for a more dramatic composition.
It creates a beautiful image.
It just isn’t Cartagena.
Why This Matters
I don’t have any issue with AI-generated artwork.
As a watercolor artist, I constantly simplify, rearrange, exaggerate, and edit my compositions. Sometimes I’ll move an entire mountain or remove a distracting building if it improves the painting.
The difference is that a watercolor painting is clearly an interpretation.
Photographs carry a different expectation.
When people see a travel photograph—especially on the website of a national airline—they naturally assume they’re looking at a real place.
As someone who chooses travel destinations based largely on photography, I would have been disappointed if I had traveled specifically to photograph this scene only to discover it never existed in the first place.
Fortunately, the real Cartagena doesn’t need artificial improvements.
Its colorful streets, centuries-old fortifications, lively plazas, and Caribbean light are more than enough inspiration for both my camera and my watercolor paintings.
Artificial Intelligence Image vs Reality
| AI Image | Reality |
|---|---|
| Clock tower removed | Clock tower still exists |
| Fortress wall repositioned | Different location |
| Wide boulevard | Pedestrian walk area south of Parque |
| Skyline relocated | Actually across the bay |
| Composite of several locations | Real Cartagena is spread across many viewpoints |
How many separate photographs do you think AI used to build this scene? My guess is at least five or six. What do you think?
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Ryan Fox Painting
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