Calle del Pozo

Calle del Pozo led to a small square that was not part of Getsemaní's original layout. It arose as a widening of the street around a shared well. Cartagena was built without a river and for three centuries depended on rainwater in cisterns and water from boreholes. In the colonial era, city officials ordered a well to be opened here for the neighborhood's residents.

It was not fit for drinking. In Getsemaní, such brackish water was called “thick”: it was used to wash floors and horses, water plants, and carry out everyday work. That is why people who maintained houses, courtyards, and stables came here again and again. Their work depended on water that wealthy homeowners could store in their own cisterns, while neighbors drew it from the shared well. So this water source determined both the shape of this place and its name: “pozo” means “well” in Spanish.

People continued to use the well until the end of eighteen sixty-four. Then local officials ordered it filled in. An old city register explains the decision by referring to “disorders and shameless acts” by people whom its author contemptuously calls the neighborhood rabble. It gives no specific incident, no names of the accused, and no trial. One consequence is reliably known: residents lost their shared source of water for household work.

The water source itself disappeared, but the neighbors adapted the remaining widening for festivities, processions, and children's games. Metal figures by Edgardo Carmona now stand here, and the tables of establishments are set out here. What remains of the well is the shape of the square itself and two names—Calle del Pozo and Plazuela del Pozo.