I’ve received a bunch of emails from various members requesting more information on Cali, so instead of writing the same things over and over again I guess I’ll just write it in a report and post it here. I didn’t feel like much of this would be relevant but I thank those of you who’ve asked and appreciate that you value my opinions enough to want to hear more.

I understand the intrigue and appeal about Colombia, especially Cali. Maybe you’ve seen the beautiful Colombianas in San Jose or Panama and thought to yourself that it has to be even better to just go directly to the source of all that beauty. Maybe you’ve seen all the beautiful Colombianas in a city like Miami, where in a city of many beautiful women they probably stand out as the best. Or maybe it’s just Shakira or Sofia Veragara, or those beauty pagents on TV. It is certainly my opinion that Colombianas are, on average, the most beautiful women in the world, and that Caleñas might be the most beautiful of all Colombianas. On top of that, Colombia is inexpensive.

But there are reasons why we don’t have the army of Colombia reporters like we do for Rio, BA, San Jose, etc., and it’s not just because of the travel warnings and bad news we hear about from that country. Personally I didn’t feel threatened at all when I was there. I think that the reason most mongers just wouldn’t enjoy Cali as a whole is that there is no real infrastructure for the lifestyle. I’ve seen a lot of gentlemen in San Jose who enjoy wearing their khaki shorts with their white tube socks pulled halfway up their claves, along with their “pura vida” t-shirts and fisherman’s hats, smoking a Habanero and loudly babbling in English about the last piece of ass they had. In San Jose this will make people think you’re an obnoxious gringo, but there are plenty of places in which you can safely do it with the company of other like-minded individuals. In Colombia, this would clearly make you a target, but it probably wouldn’t even happen in the first place since the gringo bars, gringo hotels and gringo infrastructure does not exist. If that’s the kind of thing you like to do, stay in places like San Jose where they’re ready to accommodate you. By the way, I do not speak against any guys out there who are into that sort of thing. I respect everyone’s freedom to conduct themselves as they see fit (so long as they’re not hurting anyone else in the process).

In Colombia, if you want the “GFE,” you’d better be ready to provide the “BFE” (boyfriend experience). You gotta speak Spanish, dance well and put on the charm. Most mongers I know really don’t want to do that, which again I think is totally fine. It just eliminates Colombia as a viable destination. A guy I know from my San Jose travels made an excellent point to me once. He told me that he loves Costa Rica because of everything else it offers outside of the brothels and chica bars. He told me that in a 24 hour day, he’s probably getting laid for about one hour per day. If you were in a country that didn’t offer many other things, what the hell would you do for the other 23 hours? My mongering time per day spent might be as high as 4 hours, but the point is still very clear. The mongering scene in Cali might be great, but I don't think most mongers I know would enjoy the rest of the time.

All that said, I really didn’t check out the mongering scene in Cali, as I was there for a short time and had plenty of luck with non-pro’s. In that vein, Cali is an interesting place but I’ll give you a few more things to think about.

First, I speak Spanish, and do not know how I would have done without it. I met a total of one person who spoke fluent English during my stay in Cali, and it was a guy who’d lived in Miami before. In about five minutes he was asking me if I’d bring some stuff back to Miami for his mom who is still here (I also live in Miami). This, obviously, is a very bad idea so I more or less avoided the topic and got myself away from that guy as fast as I could. In a place like San Jose, Costa Rica, where they are used to tourists who don’t speak Spanish, you don’t stick out like a sore thumb and the taxi drivers, hotel receptionists, etc. are used to struggling to communicate with gringos. This is not the case at all in Cali. I don’t think I could have even made it to the mall in a taxi in Cali without the ability to ask in Spanish.

It might even go beyond just speaking Spanish. One night a guy came up to me and asked me “what I needed.” He greeted me with “Amigo, qué más” I responded with “¿Qui’ubo pues?,” which is a slang-ish Colombian greeting. He may or may not have realized that I was not from there, but I think it made me appear to know what I was doing down there and I shall speculate that it made me less than the ideal target. Speaking Spanish and giving the appearance of knowing what you’re doing is very important, even though I felt pretty safe in public in Cali.

I also cannot see how I would have developed anything with a non-pro without the ability to communicate beyond “Hola” and “¿Cómo estás?” There are something like 38 million people in Colombia, and most of them have a moral structure and upbringing which inhibits them from doing things like hooking up with guys they barely know and cannot communicate with, regardless of how appealing they find your blue passport. It’s easy to forget this, especially if pretty much every single Colombiana you’ve met was a working girl in another country, but it is true. This is not to say they cannot be seduced, but seduction of a non-pro requires charm and effort, and I imagine it would be difficult to do without having conversations about their families, their jobs, their life ambitions…normal stuff that you talk to people about. I might be wrong about that since I do speak Spanish and don’t have the experience of a person in Cali who does not.

The question was asked of me as to how the girls might feel about being with an older gentleman. I saw a lot of older gentleman with younger girls, and I think that significant age differences (like, at least 20 years of difference) between men and women is not such a big deal. I am 29 years old and have been told that I don’t even look that, so again I do not know first-hand if being older makes it harder to meet with non-pro’s.

I loved Cali for all of the fantastic salsa dance clubs. I have been dancing salsa for a long time and really just enjoyed being in a place where it was always at my fingertips. I could have gone to Cali, not gotten laid once and still had a good time just for that. For many guys, salsa dancing is something they want to learn because they have to do it to get Latinas. For me it is something I actually love doing, and if I meet a girl who doesn’t like to dance I typically move on and look for another. So again, I cannot say what Cali would have been like if I were not interested in dance, but as an expert like Gator says “no dancie no pussie” is probably right on.

If nothing I’ve said so far deters you from the idea of a trip to Cali, then it might be an excellent destination. Like I said, the women there are absolutely breathtaking. I think that a beautiful woman in the US is beautiful, but a beautiful woman in Cali is really just average. The women in Cali are also very friendly. The style of dress is very trendy and tends to show a lot of skin, and in the US a girl who dresses like that usually has quite a high opinion of herself (even though most girls here should really spare us all the sight of their bare stomach or whatever else they’re showing). In Cali, a woman who dresses like that is still very approachable and down to earth.

I met my first non-pro about 45 minutes after having checked into my hotel. I went to check my email, and when I came out was walking down Avenida Sexta. I stopped at an intersection when a woman who was walking behind me caught up to me and started talking to me. Apparently she’d been in the internet café as well and followed me out. She invited me for a drink and I ended up spending the evening with her. She, like most women there, was very beautiful and fun to be with.

I found this to be pretty standard in Cali. I met girls on Avenida Sexta, in the shops at a semi-outdoor mall called “Chipichapi” (for those of you from Miami, it is very much like The Falls), in restaurants, etc. I did most of the approaching, but in pretty much all cases the girls were very happy to talk to me and I was not rejected once for a date.

I stayed in the Windsor Plaza hotel, which is a block and a half away from the heart of Avenida Sexta. Avenida Sexta is a major district with bars, dance clubs and restaurants, and was pretty cool place to hang out and meet people. I walked back and forth in between the Avenida and my hotel at all times of the day without incident. I would recommend this hotel as it is clean, safe and the staff is friendly. Their telephone number is 660-63-90 (from the us, dial 011-57-660-63-90).

I also checked out the bar area near the Plaza del Toros. This is also very close to an amusement park and a shopping center called Cosmo Centro. Again, many nice looking and friendly girls in Cosmo Centro, but I didn’t think much of the area for it’s nightlife. It was extremely small, lacked variety and also lacked females in the absence of male counterparts.

One thing to take note of in Cali is that the police were very, very strict about closing everything by midnight. At midnight one evening when everything was closing, I was without company and decided to walk over to Flores Frescas, the famous brothel in Cali. This was also two blocks down away from Avenida Sexta, and although the street was dark I walked it. Well, Flores Frescas was also closing down. So pretty much everything in Cali closes by midnight, which is very contrary to everything else that I’d read before making the trip. That makes me think that there is some sort of recent enforcement of a law that may or may not last. Anyway, it was about 12:30 at night, I was wide awake and everything was closing down in Cali, so I decided to check out Juanchito. Juanchito is an area with dance clubs and bars (many of which are reportedly dangerous) that stays open until about 6am. It was okay there, but again I found that most of the girls were there accompanied by guys. So that night was decent overall but I did go back solo to my hotel and from then on decided it was better to secure a date for the evening at an earlier time, and taking her out and providing the “BFE.” Like I said, in Cali that was very easy to do.

Here is one other point of significance. I had an extremely difficult time in the airport in Bogotá. Beyond the standard luggage search, I was also subject to a strip search and a stomach x-ray. They took a bottle of vitamins that I had, emptied it, and crushed two of them to examine what was they were. They took a pair of computer speakers that I had with me and disassembled them to see if I was hiding anything. The police asked me very detailed questions, and kept repeating the same questions to see if my answers would change. I eventually asked them why I was being profiled, and they told me that it was all standard. At the very end, one of the officers told me that as a single male traveler under thirty years old who’d been in a non-tourist area of Colombia for only five days, I fit a profile. The whole thing took well over two hours and again, I really don’t know how it would have gone if I hadn’t spoken Spanish.

So I personally had a very good time and would go back, although I am sure I will return to San Jose and will maybe even check out Rio or Medellín sometime sooner. Right now I am finishing graduate school and am writing a thesis, so it may be a couple of months before I do anything.

Let me know if I failed to cover anything else that you would like to know.

La Muerte

La Muerte

You may well be the Colombian Milkman
this info and yours is for people that have extended stays or will be living in these other countries
Here is my short Get laid on that date cheat sheet for both pros and real women

1. Dress well
2. Talk the talk
3. Dance or learn how to dance - most chicas compare dancing to foreplay
4. Be yourself unless your a typical monger
5. Make the chica laugh and make her feel that she needs to pay you for your time.
6. Take her to the local joints and stay away from the gringo areas

1. Dress well - I have spent thousands in the last few years on fine Italian threads that I can wear at nightclubs and look like a million fucks.
At the same time I can switch up and hit the younger bars Hip-hop and reggae flavored clubs with my Karl kani, Rocafella wear etc...
I can blend into any scene weather its the hard local crowd and more rico crowd.

2. Whatever country you are in learn the language and do your best to speak it. Don't worry about messing up. I do that on purpose to make the girls laugh and they thinks its cute they way I talk (baby talk)

3. Again chicas like to be entertained they love dancing almost as much as fucking. Each country has their particular dance styles. Salsa is one of the hardest to learn but in the end will pay off. How many of you tuff guys have seen a 50+ local dancing his ass off and having a line of chicas waiting to dance with him ?? There are tons of schools and clubs that teach salsa and some for free find them and learn

4. I pride myself on be an individualist -- I do nothing like the next monger and have my own style and way of meating chicas and it works try it. If you were to get 100 of us together in 1 room you will be able to pick me out within 5 minutes.

5. Make sure your chica is entertained from the start of the date to the very end! Never get into the dreaded problem talks with the working chicas. I pull the same shit on them if they start this. I always tell them my mother is sick and I spend most of my money on my mothers medical bills and the rest of it goes for building a new home for her. For (non-pros) real chicas this is never a problem. Stand your ground and call the shots. Act a little crazy and live it up they don't want to hang with a stick in the mud.

6. Find out before the date from a taxi driver or some locals on where the happening spots are for having a goodtime -- sin whitey. Stay out of the touristy areas go where the locals go and act like you have been there before and do this all the time.

Most importantly never assume from a non -pro that you will get laid that night. The end of the date is the most important part of you getting a freebie

Be respectful and ask if she would like to watch a late night movie with you at your hotel if she says yes than 91.4 percent of them time you are in
Whenever I end the date I always ask that and has only failed 3 times in countless encounters

If you fail no problem there are millions of fish in the see. And for your whore-mongers if you fail you can always hit the Zona after your date to cure your blueballs or whatever color they are

Good Luck
Milkman

All excellent advice for picking up girls and they are right on. I haven't visited Columbia yet but it is on my list. I can tell you that when I was on Amigos.com it was the country I got the most emails from. Some of the girls were hot and it was amazing how quickly they wanted to throw their phone number out there for you to call. These girls all seem like they are looking for an American husband.

Out of all the girls I talked to I never had much serious interest in chatting with these Columbian girls because they are so serious about finding a serious man. This probably isn't the country to fool around with girls unless you plan on getting serious with them.

These guys are right about learning some of the language of the country you are going to. My Spanish is getting better day by day and I study Portuguese when I can but they both still suck I'm sure. But you know what? The girls in the countries I'm going really seem impressed that I am making the effort to try. It makes my sessions and my time with them so much better.

I definitely love to give these girls the BFE (boy friend experience) and they can tell. Also, have some respect for yourself and look good. When you go out at night dress up and don't be a slob. I take great care in my personal appearance and it doesn't go unnoticed. The girls always comment things to me.

Scoring with these latin chics is no real mystery. I've seen guys of all races, shapes, ages, etc. score these hotties. Yeah, the girls care about our money but other things matter to them sometimes even more.

Good luck.

LM, I flew into BOG the day after the last big bombing. What Feb 6th? Anyway, the nice migracion senorita just asked me a few questions and we corresponded in Spanish, and was sent on my way. Without even having my roll-along x-rayed.

Guess I don't fit the profile?

LM, I hope you got to keep the stomach x-ray to show your radiologist? Hope no irregular spots were seen!

Buena salud y vida, mi amigo!

sf4dfish

LM
You are so "on" with your report! I just got back from a 4 city Colombian tour, and I now know that-
1 I need to improve my Spanish
2 I need to learn to salsa- I lerned merengue easily from a chica- but you don't learn salsa in 5 minutes!
3 Cali is great to find novias (I got one last week)
Cali has some of the most beautiful, sexy, and well-built women in the world!

The point that Godfather makes ("This probably isn't the country to fool around with girls unless you plan on getting serious with them.") is one I agree with very much. Without getting preachy, I don't think it is right to give a good girl (i.e., a non-pro) the impression that you are interested in a long-term relationship just for the sake of getting some non-pro action for free. Colombia is a good place to meet a girl for a long-term relationship, and if you're not into that then I say stick with the brothels, be up-front about your intentions with non-pro's and consider not even going to Colombia in the first place. It's definetely not for everyone. I actually was very up front with the girls that I met, and none of them became angry with me. In fact four of them went back to my hotel with me regardless, and none asked for more than taxi fare home.

One other thing I forgot to metion was that in Cali, there are not the abundance of money exchange houses like there are in Cartagena. There are plenty of ATM's and the exchange rate my bank gave me was 2932 pesos per dollar. For comparison's sake, the one exchange house I did fiond was 2700 to a dollar, and my hotel front desk was 2450 per dollar. ATM machines were the best option for sure.

LM

I do not know how I missed this wonderful post until now! Sr. Lamurte nailed this one with an article that should be read by any "fellow traveler" before launching on the adventure.
I really could not have said it beter myself.

Gator

P.S. This advice applies to almost ANY country in South or Central America. San José was particularly insightful and accurate.

Well guys.

I went down to Bogota and Cartagena for a mongering vacation. I decided to have dinner with a women I had met on Amigo.com and had been corresponding with. Although I have only intermediate Spanish, the experience has changed my life. This wonderful women and I had a glorious week - Two days in Isles de Rosario, Cartagena and Bogota. Yes, I slipped in some mongering in Cartagena and Bogota but this lady understands old fashioned romance that a spoiled American women would laugh at. I am now seriously questioning whether there will be any mongering at all on my next Colombia trip.

MONGERS BEWARE!!! A good Colombian women may make you change your evil ways.

Lamuerte; All i have to say is a damn well written report on Cali & Colombian girls. your advice and points are well taken.
long live Mongering!!!!

Lamuerte - I just noticed your report. - Very well said.

Me too! Great report on Colombia! I have actually thought about going to Colombia to teach English. So far, I've learned that Colombia needs a lot of ESL teachers and I wouldn't pass up an opportunity to get to know that beautiful country filled with beautiful women. What a wonderful world!

Moreover, while I'm at it, I might as well ask if anyone here has any experiences LIVING in Colombia? I have always wanted to learn Salsa, but life in the US is busy enough and I don't have the time to seriously start doing it. La Muerte? Any advice?

LaMuerte,

I forgot that I read this last year. I'm reading it again as I plan my Cali trip in a few weeks. Very good advice and tips. I'm basically just looking for more adventures on my trips. I'm sure Cali will be yet another fun adventure. Thanks again.

Great trip reports guys and I so agree. Each and every one of my Cali trips get better and better with my increasing knowledge of speaking spanish. My last trip (#5) worked out to be my first un-planned 3 some with non-pro's and dam I wish I had the pictures to prove it. Anyway I'll be headed back for trip 6 feb 25 to march 8 and may stay longer as I have not been able to go for almost a year due to a car accident. Unfortunately I won't be able to salsa with the pain but I can always get them on top! This will also be my first time trying the New 3 day Vigra pill call "Cialis" I guess I'll only need 4 for the whole trip! Nice! I have a cell phone there (recommended ) 310-539-6695 call me up and I'd love to meet some new trip buddies.. I'm a fun guy and you can see a picture of me on my profile so you know who I am on the streets. I will probably stay at Windsor hotel for a few days then go to an apartment. I want to be able to relax.. hotels are stuffy! but windsor has been great to me and the brothers that own that.. "hook me up too".. In fact I have 3 guys that I let do my woman hunts for me and I sit back and enjoy ther ride.. Let's Talk.. .see ya guys.. !