Check out this new rental in Cartagena.

www.cartagenapenthouse.com/apartment.html

This can be rented through Juan Ventura. His email address is: itts@excite.com

You know what they say are the three most imporatnt things about real estate? Location, location, location! So what's the location?

When renting an apartment in Cartagena, which is the best way to go IMHO, you need to know what neighborhood you're in. Laquito is great and in the middle of all the action, and so is Boca Grande, though not as luxurious. Then there is the Old City (aka downtown)- decidely different vibe than the previous two neighborhoods which revolve around the beach to a certain extent.

Then there are a lot of other neighborhoods with good apartments and private beaches (and less populated public beaches) but they are fairly isolated. Some may like that, but I think most won't. On one trip I stayed at an apartment building called Los Morros next to the Las Americas Resort. This is good if you want a private beach with no touts, but the flip side is there is nothing else around. So you have to taxi everywhere. All depends what you are looking for.

Here's a site and agent I highly recommend:

www.cartagenaapartments.com

The agent I used was Isela (cell phone: 011-57-315-704-9229) She speaks great English and responds immediately to emails (email: infoapartment@aol.com)

One more thing about apartments. Get daily maid service. It is not expensive and well worth it. I had a great housekeeper named Elsol Sierra (cell: 315-509-4327) who I got through Isela. The price was CP22,000 or $10 a day. For this Elsol will shop, cook, clean and do laundry. She was also surprised that I wasn't with kids - she thought that she was to watch children all day. All of this for $10. She unpacked and put away all my clothes and then packed my suitcase on departure day. And I simply gave her a list of things I wanted for the apartment, (beverages, paper towels, snacks) and she shopped for everything and brought back change and a receipt. 100% honest. Speaks zero English, but what would you expect.

WS

Am I reading this correctly? The apartment is $400,000 pesos per month? Thats only $180 a month!

Wow, I want to move there!

Sniper, you would only get an apartment for that price if you were living there long term, on yearly lets.

The apt would be adequate for that price nothing special.

Hunter