Meet the founder

I grew up between Colombia and everywhere else, and for years I watched friends arrive in Cartagena with a hotel booking and leave having seen almost none of what makes this coast worth the flight. The city gives itself up slowly, and only to people who have someone to show them.

ALZUR started as a favour. A friend wanted a house for a birthday — somewhere everyone could stay together, with a pool and a kitchen and no front desk. I knew the house. I knew the family who ran it. I made two calls and it was arranged, and the week that followed is one they still talk about.

That is still how this works. I do not run a booking platform. I know these houses personally, I know who cooks in them and who opens the door, and I know which one suits ten people and which one suits forty. When you write to me I will ask you real questions — how many of you, what you actually want the days to feel like — and then I will tell you honestly which house is right, even when the answer is that none of them are.

The island is the part I am proudest of. Forty-five minutes out of Cartagena, the last one in the chain, and for the length of your stay there is nobody on it but you.