Cartagena, Columbia October 2001

Airport
(flight out of Miami Avianca#5 Direct 2:20 hours, use those American Express miles guys thur Latinpass)
Arriving
Was pretty simple and quick
Fill out the declaration form on the plane
Wait in line
Answer a few basic questions like
Vacation or business?
How long will you stay?
Where will you be staying?
I would recommend picking up a Fodors Language for travelers or equivalent and learn enough Spanish to recognize and answer these questions. Fodors has a little section on going through the airport security.

Leaving
Be prepared to pay some taxes, before you get in the check-in line; first you must go to an unmarked window across from the Avianca check in. I don’t know what they are doing but they look at your passport and give you’re a paper. Get in the check-in line, go through the security check for baggage which is to be checked (they will check your carry-on also if you are carrying them. Then there is a women at a small table collected departure tax. For me it was 90.000 peso’s about $40. Check bags, get boarding pass and now your are ready to get in the next security line. The whole process took me about 1 ½ hours. The day I went through they check EVERY person bags very thoroughly so don’t take anything you shouldn’t have!

Hotels
I have physically located these hotels for my future reference. On some Hotels I got a little more info. If your Spanish is poor or very limited you might feel more comfortable staying at one of the higher end (4 or 5 star) hotels; including but not limited to the Almirante, Hilton or Hotel Caribe in Boca Grande. These hotels tend to have staff that speaks English at least at the front desk. When you look at pictures of Boca Grande you see many tall hotel looking buildings, however what I learned one there is that most of these buildings are actually apartments. I stayed at the Almirante so here it is.


Almirante
Location :Av St Martin Calle 6a, esquina Boca Grande.
: Tel from US 57-5-665-8811, 8261 Fax 57-5-665-9204

Cost :Quoted rate is $230.000 (about $115US ) Only with the assistance of a friend in the hotel business I was able to get a rate of $70 including service charge.

Service :I found all of the employees at the Almirante to be very helpful and cordial. Every evening the maid service would come in and turn down the bed, lie out the dirty laundry bag, and leave a cognac nightcap on the nightstand.

Guests :I befriended one of the guards out in the front of the hotel and asked him some questions about bringing in guests. He told me the unstated policy is:
Enter after 9 or 10PM
Cartagena, Columbia October 2001

- The lady must sign in at the front desk.
- The lady should leave the hotel by 8AM.
The actual is a little different. The first night we just walked straight thru no stop, but the rest of the nights I was redirected to the front desk. I was stopped one day midday after doing a little shopping with my friends assistance - as we returned to drop the stuff in the room the guard at the front door stopped us and said the girl may not come in at this time of the day. I think you might be able get away with midday visits if you AND the lady walk straight thru and assuming the lady is dressed in un-imposing way. Lets face it guys, these guys at the door know what going on when you Mr 35 to 60 years old come waltzing in with Miss little 21 year old.
I did go to breakfast one day with one of the ladies and I am probably just being paranoid. But I felt like the employees sort of gave use a weird "what are you doing here " look. Any way I was not comfortable so I didn't do breakfast anymore.

Hotel Caribe
Location : Right at the end of Ave San Martin Calle 1
Cost :I was told this place can be very expensive. It is a old hotel which looks like it would be nice to bring a family or date to.
Service : ??
Guest :I would guess the rules on girls here would the same or even tighter than the Almirante
Other :This hotel also has a good scuba dive shop is if you are interested in that. More in a separate section.

Hotel Charlotte
Location: :St Martin No. 7-126, Boca Grande, Co (between Calle 7 & 8)
Tel from US 57-5-665-9298, 9365, 9201, 4080
Cost $150.000 pesos negotiate for $90.000
Service : ??
Guest : Other Monger reports state no problem.
Other :This is where I will stay next time I want to be in Boca Grande, however I am strongly considering staying at one of the hotels in the central city on my next trip.


On the Street


Tout’s
I only met one guy named Juan Carlos. He speaks a little English, I used him on and off during the whole week and never had any problems. My sense is that he is OK and any one of you guys should be OK with him, In fact he brought his wife to the disco one night and hung out. He knows the casa’s and better yet which girls in the casa’s are known to be a good selection. Find this guy near the corner of Av San Martin and Calle 5.


Music
Champeta – Local Cartagena music; good dirty grinding kind of dancing music. A couple minute of this and the chicas where saying lets go NOW.
Cartagena, Columbia October 2001

Salsa / Cumbia / Mambo
Merengue
Rock (Spanish)
HipHop (Spanish)
Techno/House (Spanish)

Disco's
La Escollera - I walked to this place the first night. It was actually almost empty and this is Saturday. When you walk in the door the bar is to the right. It was only 11PM so I decided to get a beer and see if things heat up. It did get a little better. About 10 girls came in and sat down right next to where I was having my beer and watching a few people dance. After a couple of minutes one cute girl (She saw me check her out when she came in) turns to me and says, " Don't you dance". Sure I do, she says " well come on then". Dialogue in Spanish by the way. We dance for a while a then she says, " Oh, my sister is here, I have to leave" and all 10 girls get up and split. I also decided to leave; there was no one else of interest there anyway. I did not return.

Ibiza – Also pretty empty, I did come back here one night with a girl from Casa ‘Muneca’ buy a bottle rum and coke for 40,000 pesos (this is a much better deal than buying drinks individually). Danced talked and eventually retired to the hotel.

Tu Candela – In ‘El Centro’, I went to this place twice with one lady I met. This place really gets hopping after 11 or 12PM. I am talking about hot Columbian women dancing on the tables and bar kinda hopping. IMO a good selection. Again here I bought a bottle of Tres Esquinas.


Restaurants

El Carbon de Palo
In the Plaza Santo Domingo. Based on previous postings, I took two of my new friends to dinner here my last night in Cartagena. The food was in my opinion top notch, I would have no problem comparing to good places in San Francisco, New York or Paris. The touts are a bit of a pain in the ass but the atmosphere is overall very nice. I even had one of the three man singing group do some romantic pieces for us, the girls where all mine when we left this place. My total bill for dinner for three was about $30USD.


Café de Columbia
Also on the Plaza de Santo Domingo the food here was good at lunch time, However you should check each receipt very carefully. I was paying more attention to my date then the bill and when I got home and did my normal credit card once over I discovered that these guys charged me $38USD for lunch. Not that it will kill me but this is a outrageous price for lunch in Cartagena so just beware.
.
Pizza Piccolo
Cartagena, Columbia October 2001

I ate pizza at this place the first night I arrived. Previous posting indicated that the pizza here was good but I can not agree (maybe it is because I spent too much time eating pizza in New York). I equated the pizza hear to the cardboard like stuff you get in the frozen food section of the supermarket.

Pizza Faro
On the corner of Ave San Martin and Calle 5. I thought he pizza here was a little better than Piccolo but not much. It is good if you just want to sit and watch the girls walk by though. Get a beer and kick back for awhile. Upstairs there is a little restaurant as well, I ate lunch up there one day and watch the Columbia vs Uruguay soccer match with about a dozen Columbiano’s – it was a blast!

Dany el Churrasco Argentino
One block down from Ave. San Martin on the corner Carrera 3A, No 2-104 and Calle 5. I had the steak Brocheta (on a skewer) and it was excellent. A good place to go if you want a good meal and are ready for an air conditioned environment (there are not many).

Café espresso /Internet
This place has very good coffee and is right in the same building as the Almirante hotel. The internet access here as well as others is pretty slow but it works. There is a trick you must know for the @ symbol in email addresses – hols down ALT and press 6 then 4 on the number pad.


Diving
Isla del Rosario
Scuba diving is available thru a few sources. I hooked up with the Caribe Dive shop in the Hotel Caribe. Real nice people, they speak both Spanish and English, on the dive they actually repeated all of the instructions in both languages – pretty nice. Apparently all of their diving is done at Isla del Rosario’s, they meet at the shop at around 7:15AM and take a speed boat out – about one hour, do the dives, eat lunch on the island kick back awhile and return at about 3:00PM.

Casa's
I went to Casa ‘Manila’ and Casa ‘Muneca’ and Casa ‘International’
Manila – A fairly small selection with few lookers. I met the owner Enrique and Italian guy – he seemed nice enough but his bartender was a real asshole. The bartender tried to pad my bill 40K pesos for himself and we had to argue a bit about it. I actually ended up with a daytime keeper out of this place. She was waiting for me outside the hotel when I
Cartagena, Columbia October 2001

arrived one night, I will never forget that night. She is currently planning our activities for my next trip.
International – This place was very trashy and crowded with what seemed like mostly Columbian guys. I would not recommend going to this place alone!
Muneca – I kept returning to this place because they had the largest and best selection of young, pretty girls. In fact there where some I still wanted to try when I had to leave – there has to be a reason to come back RIGHT. The first night I saw a girl from here named Tatianna – she is fairly tall (5’8”), morena and is in my recollection the best lay I can remember ever, complete GFE in my opinion – she even offer to stay and take me shopping the next day. If you get a chance check her out and treat her right she is a gem. She even put in a good word for me with the other girls at the casa, so when I went back I the girls where just coming up to me a pleading for me to take them tonight – I did a few at the casa and took a few home but jeez guys there is a limit. One of the girls I saw in the casa was ‘Maria Maribel’, she didn’t possess the GFE qualities but Oh my what a body and an energy level to match it – if you just want a girl who will screw your brains out seek her out. A cute blonde name Lina is on my list for the next visit, she wrote a love note and stuck it in my pocket before I left one evening – so I find it in the hotel later, based on the note there is real promise in a union with her.

YOOSIN, you aneemal!!!!!!!
You left the crew behind. Cartagena is a spot that I must visit.
I know you had fun. Hope to see you on the next TJ trip or convention.

I am absolutely hooked. I think the women are prettier then anywhere else I have been.

A great report Yoosin.. However I was wondering,, should you put a copy of this under this section?? ClubHombre.com: TripReports: South America: Columbia
when i first joined this is where i went to see Colombia reports and this area is real lacking..
Now if i can just make my report as info filled as yours.. sigh
treeshark