Does a picture paint a thousand words?

Earlier in the week Abs and I spoke about how hard it is to capture the feel of a place on camera and it really is. 

Not one of my photo's adequately captures the beautifully sunlit narrow streets (calle) with their array of wonderfully coloured buildings of rose pink, sage green, primrose yellow and aqua, with bougainvillea covered balconies; some of them really looking their age with flakey paintwork and others having succomed to the draw of cosmetic surgery that is so popular  in Latin America, making them look so much younger than their years and taking away a little of their charm. 

But this is a unesco world heritage site and it's heavily dependant on tourism so what harm can the odd 'filler' do?