Ábaco Libros y Café is a bookshop and coffee bar in the heart of Cartagena's old city, housed in a colonial building with a cool interior that provides welcome relief from the heat. The book collection focuses on Colombian and Latin American literature, with a good selection in Spanish and a smaller English section. It stocks García Márquez novels — including Love in the Time of Cholera, which is set in a city closely modelled on Cartagena — alongside poetry, history, and travel writing.
The café serves good coffee and light snacks. It's a calm, civilised spot in a city that can feel overwhelming, and a good place to buy something to read on the beach at the Islas del Rosario.