Dona Blanca - Dr. Juvenal UrbinoÂ’s mother, who devotes herself to the widowÂ’s life after her husband dies of cholera. She makes life hell for her daughter-in-law, Fermina Daza, because she is from a lower class. Her death comes as a relief to Fermina.

Dr. Marco Aurelio Urbino - Dr. Juvenal UrbinoÂ’s father. Although a doctor, he has not been trained in modern medicine. He dies during the cholera epidemic, and his death inspires his son to study cholera with a passion for eliminating it.

Romeo Lussich - famous pianist whom Dr. Juvenal Urbino hires to play a serenade to Fermina Daza.

Sister Franca de la Luz - Superior of the Academy of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, who Dr. Juvenal Urbino commissions to mediate between himself and Fermina Daza in his request to court her.

Lisimaco Sanchez - Hildebranda SanchezÂ’s father.

Don Leo XII Loayza - the last living brother of brother of a three-brother team that started the River Company of the Caribbean. He is the brother of Florentino ArizaÂ’s father. He gives Florentino a job in Villa de Leyva as a favor to Transito Ariza to help him get over the loss of Fermina Daza. When Florentino Ariza comes back to him, he employs him in his company and lets him rise to the top. Finally, after establishing that Florentino is not gay, he gives him the company. He is a masterful, though untrained, singer whose goal is to shatter crystal, as Caruso was said to have done.

Rosalba - the young mother Florentino Ariza obsesses about during his journey to Villa de Leyva. She is traveling with two other women and her infant child. Florentino Ariza thinks it is she who pulls him into her stateroom and has sex with him, taking his virginity. This event makes him think he can replace Fermina Daza in his heart with sex.

Ausencia Santander - a fifty-year old widow who is Florentino ArizaÂ’s lover for seven years.

Rosendo de la Rosa - the riverboat captain who brings Florentino Ariza to meet Ausencia Santander. Later, when he comes upon them in bed together, he strips her house of all the gifts he has brought to her over the years.

Leona Cassiani - a black woman Florentino meets on the trolley. She comes to work for his company and serves as his personal career slave. She fights all his battles for him and gives him all his successful ideas. She also nurtures him in his old age.

Sara Noriega - another of Florentino ArizaÂ’s long-term lovers, who is an older woman. It is his only affair to end in bitterness.

Olimpia Zuleta - one of Florentino ArizaÂ’s lovers who is a pigeon fancier. Her husband slits her throat when he finds a message that Florentino Ariza has written on her stomach.

Ofelia Urbino - the daughter of Fermina Daza and Juvenal Urbino. There is a significant contradiction in the character portraiture of Ofelia Urbino. In one chapter she is exactly like Fermina Daza. In the last chapter she is exactly like Dona Blanca. She is banished from her motherÂ’s house when she puts down Florentino Ariza and calls love between elderly people disgusting.

Miss Barbara Lynch - a woman with whom Dr. Juvenal Urbino has a four-month affair while he is married. She is a mulatto and a doctor of theology.

America Vicuna - a fourteen year old girl whom Florentino Ariza seduces when he is an old man. She commits suicide when he stops the affair.

Prudencia Pitre -a widow who is one of Florentino ArizaÂ’s lovers. He goes and finds her when he has been rejected a second time by Fermina Daza.

Lucretia del Real del Obispo - one of Fermina DazaÂ’s good friends during her married life and after. When a scandalous newspaper falsely alleges that she has an affair with Dr. Juvenal Urbino, Fermina Daza cuts off the friendship.

Captain Samaritano - a riverboat captain who loves manatees. He steers the riverboat that Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza take at the end of the novel.

Zenaida Neves - lover to Captain Samaritano, who boards the "cholera" ship at the end of the novel.

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