CARTAGENA, Colombia – The admonitions were forbidding. “Never go out of your hotel alone,” a friend with a serious expression said. “Be sure to have someone with you at all times.  And never, ever walk around the city at night.”

With his warnings ringing in our ears, we headed to Cartagena -- a city with a reputation, like many others in Colombia, for drug trafficking, kidnapping and violence. What we discovered, instead, was a city that was breathtakingly beautiful -- part old, part modern, and no more dangerous than the South End of Boston where we have a pied-à-terre.

Notwithstanding the well-publicized transgressions of his Secret Service contingent, President Barack Obama almost certainly found the city similarly dazzling during his recent visit.

We came for the Sixth Annual Cartagena Music Festival, most of which took place in the historic walled part of Cartagena, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Center in 1984.  Before we heard our first concert, we had fallen in love with the narrow streets, the over-hanging wooden balconies dripping with bougainvillea; the horse-drawn carriages that compete for street space with the fruit vendors, pedestrians and occasional tourists on Segways; and especially the brilliantly colored stucco buildings, stained in bright blues and greens and yellows -- occasionally even pink.

The old section of Cartagena is a lively swirl of colors. Even the street sweepers (and there are many) wear bright orange uniforms.

Cartagena is actually three different cities in one: the historic old walled town, where the eleven-day music festival took place; the new modern section, which features stunning glass-and-cement high-rise hotels and condos situated directly on the Caribbean beach front:  and a quiet residential neighborhood of large private homes, many of which reflect the colonial architecture of a bygone era.

You’re never far from the sea in Cartagena. Colombia is the only South American country that has coasts on both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

And you’re never far away from world-class hotels, either. The hotel Sofitel Santa Clara, a former convent, modernized just enough to have up-to-date bathrooms, a huge swimming pool and glass-walled fitness center, was our home for six days. Its center courtyard, filled with greenery, was the private preserve of long-beaked toucan birds that attempted to steal pieces of fruit from our breakfast table every morning.

The hotel’s chapel housed some of the smaller chamber music concerts of the festival, but the city’s beautiful 700-seat restored opera house served as the main venue for the music, which brought internationally renowned violinists, cellists and pianists to town. (Three concerts a day were held for nine straight days, all largely sold out. We wondered if Boston, an American city proud of its culture, could draw such an audience.) 

Late in the evening, when a concert let out, did we dare walk back to our hotel through the old city?  Okay, not the first night: We took a taxi.

But when you see hundreds of the residents of a town out enjoying the 77-degree night-time weather, along with their toddlers and babies in strollers, gathering to watch and smile at mimes performing on street corners or listening to groups of teenagers singing their “vallaneta” folk songs, well, it didn’t seem such a daring thing to do. The next night, and every one thereafter, we walked back to the hotel -- and no one paid us the least attention. It was a lot cheaper, too.

Most of Cartagena’s restaurants are still open at that hour, many with outdoor tables, and the variety and quality of the food they offer are exceptional. Fresh local fish are the specialty of the city, along with succulent native shrimp served both hot and cold. We also became hooked on the delicious coconut lemonade they serve with the meals.

So, where were all the drug lords roaming the street, selling cocaine to the residents and causing mayhem?  It’s true there were “drug wars” down here in years past, but unbeknownst to the American media they devolved to a bitter struggle between drug cartel members and the guerilla movement known as FARC, each vying for control of  the countryside. In time, with the help of the Colombian and U.S. governments, the bad guys did a good job of killing each other off, at least around Cartagena. Many of those who did not die are now said to be teaching salsa, if you can believe the rumors.

Fortunately, Colombia does not need drugs to support a vibrant economy. It exports a long list of its rich non-drug resource, including the world’s finest emeralds and the United States’ largest supply of cut flowers.

According to a study done by the UK-based New Economic Foundation, Colombians are the happiest people in the world, second only to those who live on Vanuatu, an archipelago in the Western Pacific. It’s hard to be bummed out or ill tempered, apparently, when you wake up every day to median 82-degree temperatures and beautiful beaches in two directions.

We would have been happy to stay inside the old walled city for our entire time in Cartagena, but a rather unusual attraction pulled us away from town.  About an hour’s drive south of the city lies an old volcano, the center of which is filled with cool, wet, volcanic mud that is supposed to be good for the skin, if you immerse yourself in it head to toe.

In bathing suits, we climbed up one side of the volcano and slipped into the grey oozy stuff with scores of other squirming, giggling people. The next few moments resembled a scene from Dante’s’ Inferno minus the smoke, as the volcano staff workers -- also submerged in the gooey slime -- attempted to give everyone slippery back massages.  We emerged from the muck a few minutes later, looking like grey versions of Boston’s  “Blue Man Group.” 

A quick dip in a nearby lake cleaned us off and then, with our skin glowing and soft as a baby’s bottom, we returned to Cartagena, one of the most charming cities we’ve ever visited. Thanks to years of misinformed media, it’s a vacation secret, still.

(Timothy Leland and Julie Hatfield-Leland are long-time residents of Duxbury.)