GM Daniel Dolatre, left, and two colleagues
Cartagena is, simply put, full of colour (yes, Bogota might have its famous gold museum but this beautiful Caribbean city is a riot of an entire palette of shades). When its most modern luxury hotel, Hyatt Regency Cartagena, opened December 7th, 2016, its highly motivated Filipino-German GM, Daniel Dolatre, wanted even more colour, so he commissioned the mural, shown above, that covers one whole wall of Kokau Bar – it is by Luis Eduardo Mogollon, who also did a mural in the hotel’s quite extensive Precor gym.
Looking past one of the hotel’s four pools, to the old town, in the distance
Daniel Dolatre, with two colleagues, was there to greet me and I was immediately struck by what the 261 team members wear. Thanks to designer Diana Loaiza, guys wear chirpy hats, braces (suspenders), and brown Converse-type trainers: some women, depending on the department, have brightest scarlet trousers (room maids have scarlet turbans) The main building, interestingly, is pretty colour-free. The 261-room hotel occupies floors 11-32 of a 42-floor block, with offices and shops below, and what will be 90 residences above; the owners, who are known for non-hospitality development, also have a block of residence next door.
Another of the terrace pools
The heart of the hotel is the airy sides-free two-floor enjoyment terrace, Amacagua – ‘hammock’ + ‘water’ – on the 11th floor, with a grill restaurant, and four cabanas by one of the pools (from here you can also climb up to pools on the 12th and 14th floor, with the number 13 omitted for good-luck reasons). Amacagua is so airy, with such a welcome breeze, that even though the hotel is so new the area has become immediately popular, and all 400-or-so seating places, or lounging places, seemed to be taken. From one of the pools I looked along to Cartagena’s old town.
Looking down from corner suite 2722
I had a day room, corner suite 2722, and looked down at the ocean. The room is so attractive – see the video below – with soft taupe colouring, and a Colombian woven wall hanging, and a small mola embroidery from the San Blas islands. This would be a lovely base for doing business in Cartagena (I would have a room service dinner, perhaps with a Kokau salad, a reminder that the word means the crunchy burned bottom when you deliberately let rice go dry in the pan – the salad comes with avocado and a cilantro dressing). I would also be reminded of the locale by having colourful Novaflex flipflops in place of the industry-standard terry towel slippers, and the espresso machine is Juan Valdez, from Bogota. This is indeed a global luxury hotel in Colombia.
AND NOW SEE THE PANORAMA FROM SUITE 2722, BELOW
