Another category of street vendor appeared loud and clear every day we spent in Cartagena. These are the Afro-Colombian women from the town of Palenque, not far from the city.

This community is said to have been established in the early 1600s by a group of runaway slaves. Palenque is credited online to be the first ‘free town’ in the Americas that has been preserved intact. There, a unique culture formed of African traditions in the forest of South America emerged. Their descendants keep up many of the traditions from the past, or are they newly constructed traditions?

These women in their brightly colored, multi-tiered dresses sell tropical fruits around town. They meander the streets, or station themselves in the central plazas, seeking customers. They also sometimes insistently offer to pose for the tourists for picturesque photos with a bowl of fruits balanced on their heads. Interesting, all the bowls are the same aluminum issue which led me to wonder is some mastermind was running this group of women.

As well as being found everywhere around colonial Cartagena, these ladies congregate at the Portal de las Dulces (the candy market) by the Puerta del Reloj (the clock tower). Under the archways of the Portal, sweetsellers sell a rich array of typical Colombia sweets.

What a difficult to choice from the great variety displayed in glass jars. I asked two things of our tour guide: are these sweets especially associated with the women of Palenque? Do each of the sellers make their own sweets or are they purchased from a central point? No answer was forthcoming!

What a surprise to find our ladies from Palenque featured on candies sold at the airport duty free store!

Several times during our own meandering, Constant Companion and I crossed paths with probably the same group of young dancers and musicians who also seemed to be from Palenque. At the Plaza de Bolivar we took the time to enjoy their performance, along with many others.

The colorful dresses worn by the fruit vendors and the women dancers brought to mind a favorite set of illustrations of nineteeth century life in Jamaica by Isaac Mendes Belissario. See what you think.