San Diego is the classiest and most sophisticated part of Cartagena. Here, there are plenty of picturesque buildings and narrow streets, just like El Centro, but there is a high concentration of fancy restaurants and luxury hotels. The pace of life in San Diego is slower and one can more easily find seclusion and privacy here. It was, after all, this part of the city that inspired Gabriel García Márquez’s writing of “Love in the Time of Cholera.” It is also here that you will likely brush arms with the city’s elite. Residents and visitors of San Diego are a bit more pampered and are given a little more respect and special treatment.