Santa Marta, Colombia

Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino

The 17th-century hacienda where Simón Bolívar spent his last days before dying from tuberculosis.

Before Simón Bolívar, liberator of Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela, was scheduled to make his first trip back to Europe after leading a series of revolutionary wars across Latin America, a sudden worsening of his fight against tuberculosis forced him to confine himself to this hacienda, where he ultimately died.

The hacienda, which was founded in 1608 and named after Pope Peter I of Alexandria, was just another example of a typical estate in colonial America where rum, honey, and panela were produced. This, however, changed after Bolívar was advised by Alejandro Próspero Révérend, a French field doctor who assisted in the fight against the Spanish, to intern himself at the quinta to recover. It was hoped the place’s serene atmosphere would help heal the ill revolutionary.

But Bolívar was unable to recover. He died in the hacienda on December 17, 1830. After his death, much of the hacienda was left unchanged as a form of respect for the former leader.

There are, however, a few newer additions to the site. Today, you’ll see new memorials in imposing white marble, a farm dedicated to demonstrating the production of sugarcane and spirits in a typical colonial-era hacienda, a botanical garden, and a museum.

You can also find Bolívar’s deathbed along with a few of his belongings and gifts donated by multiple governments, artists, and other individuals to commemorate his leadership and commitment to the liberty, and fraternal unity, of Latin America.