After 7 trips to Colombia, I have an opinion about getting to CTG and staying there.

AIRLINES

COPA is far and away the best way to fly to Central and South America. Copa has a pitstop in the hub city of Panama City, which has a great lounge and an efficient airport. You can do a stayover and visit Goldentime and the casinos. I found it a helluva lot better than flying into Bogota. Avoid Bogota at all cost as itīs inefficient and one messed up airport IMO. COPA won numerous awards and Iīve been extremely happy with their service. As a demoted CO Plat, now a Gold Elite on Onepass, I have always gotten courtesy upgrades on COPA. Moreover, they are very good about upgrading a companion when there is availability. One thing Iīve been noticing the past few trips is that when boarding they bring in these guys in handcuffs (probably deportees). Have had no issues with this, but it is something travelers should know.

Also, CO has daily flights to Panama via Houston. Rack up those miles and get free upgrades as they jam pack those 737-700s like Iīve never seen.

LODGING

I tried out most of the monger friendly hotels in CTG and finally tried an Apartment at TorreMarina this trip offered up by Juan Ventura. Hunter recommended Mr. Ventura, see below. Smitopher and I got a nice 2 bed, 3 bath apartment on the 9th floor for $70 a night. Very nice apartment with all the amenities and a great view of the Ocean. Itīs in between Hilton and LDV, and 5 minutes to each of the foregoing. No hassles with the girls. They check the IDs and the guards actually started giving me a thumbs up because of all the traffic generated by me and Smitopher with the gals. Juan Ventura is an excellent host and really went out of his way for us. Only issue is that the aircon could be stronger, but it may be all the body heat thatīs being generated by us 24-7. We have a daily maid service for $10 a day extra, which is fantastic as she shops, cooks us breakfast, does the laundry and keeps the place nice and spiffy.

Hunter actually recommends two apartment contacts as follows:

Mery Salence:

http://www.travelnet.cx/cartagena/

Also Juan Ventura:

http://www.zepelion.com/apartamentos/index.htm

After trying the apartment, I will definitely be a repeat customers. Many of the hotels are nice, but some of them are small and the front desk can be a hassle. Be aware some guys have complained about some apartments having leaks during the rain and security harassing the girls.

Hilton hotel is one of the nicest places to stay, but itīs kind of touristy and although I didnīt have trouble taking girls in, I did get stares from the guests and guards and some guys have said they frown on bringing girls in after 5pm. You get Hilton points for staying here.

Merlin
Does the maid do anal ?? I'm asking for Epi of course.

LOL, KM and EPI, our maid is built like a middle linebacker and doubles as our bodyguard. In fact, Smitty and I have been deathly fearful of our own safety if she decided to turn on us.

Ah, better stop poking fun at her, she does diligently clean my sheets each day without complaints and makes one mean ham and eggs breakfast.

thanks for the all-important travel tips. One of the barriers for me making a hop down there has always been the somewhat expensive and circuitous flights from the east coast to CTG.

It's looking like AA JFK-Panama, and then COPA panama- CTG is the way to go. What did you pay for tixs from the west coast? East coast is running around 600 or so.

Is Mery divorced from her hubby who was running the apartments? I was in contact with him about some real estate a few years ago.

Don Marco, yes Mery is now divorced from Eddy, be very very carefull about dealing with this guy.

He can't be trusted.

Hunter

Great report as usual. The aircon has always been my issue - I've not yet found an apartment in CTG that has A/C throughout the entire apartment that's strong enough. Yes, the bedrooms are usually fine, but what's the sense of having a living room if it's so hot as to be uncomfortable.

Maid service @ $10 a day is indispensible. I LOVED my housekeeper - so nice and pleasant and did everything. How nice it was to arrive from the airport, give her a list of things I wanted for the refrigerator and then be able to move onto the reason I was in CTG.

When I returned 3 hours later with my first amiga, the fridge was full and my suitcase was unpacked and everything put away! Now that's service.

DM -

Not sure why you would want to take AA from JFK-PTY and then COPA from PTY-CTG.

Unless it's because COPA leaves at 6am and you're originating from Boston.

Keep in mind that COPA's one daily flight from PTY-CTG leaves at 12:40pm. COPA form JFK-PTY gets in at 10:10am, leaving plenty of time to connect.

The good thing is PTY is one of the easiest airports to connect through. Just go from one gate to the next for connecting, no customs, no immigration.

And they have good duty-free shops. Cheap Veuve-Cliquet and one place has a nice humidor stocked with real cubano cigars if you're into that. I am.

Thanks WS. I actually saw the maid tear up a bit as I said my goodbyes (none of my novias teared up) and I will specifically request the same maid for future trips.

About the aircon, to Juan Ventura's credit, he did come out almost every day to get the thing jump started and it was actually working better the last few days we stayed there. But some of the other hotels like Pietro and Charolotte had similar problems with a weak aircon. Hilton's was the best, but kind of what you'd expect.

As for the our aircon, for some reason or another, they had to get some guy to put in some "gas" or something. The ceiling fans worked great and sometimes at night, the cool ocean breeze was very nice if you open the windows.

DM, from the Left Coast, the fares usually run $650-$800 if you book early. This trip I paid $800 because I made reservations less than a week before the flight.

Another important tidbit, if you fly into Panama from Colombia, and want to stay over? Expect innoculations at the PTY airport because you came from Colombia.

Once you clear passport control, they have people who ask for your documented innoculations.

I didn't have any, so I was sent to a nearby office to see the Doctor (U.S. trained). He looked at my passport, I told him you know I'm a gringo, I've got all my childhood innoculations. But to no avail, If I wanted to stay in Panama, I was given a free innoc. for "scarampion", I think? Luckily no side effects!

sfrdfish,

I wonder if they were f***ing with you or if you arrived during some type of test. Reason I say that is I arrived in Panama in late January from Colombia to find my flight to the States had been cancelled due to a blizzard.

An agent from COPA walked me through immigration and customs and put me in a cab to the Sheraton. They did a cursory check of my bag when they heard I was coming from Colombia, but nothing else. Maybe I got lucky or maybe it was the escort.

Also, they advertise in the airport that there is a free shuttle for those who have a long layover to go into Panama City for shopping. I doubt they offer a free shuttle and then turn you away because you don"t have innoculation papers.

Of course, maybe it doesn't effect "in transit" passengers. Anybody else out there have this experience?

Hrmmm...

Seems nearly all the flights I come up with are routed: bos-miami-bogota-ctg.

DM,

Avianca definately has non-stop flights from Miami to CTG (maybe not every day of the week), no need to go through BOG. BOG was probably the worst airport I've ever been in: maddening slow and totally disorganized on both inbound and outbound flights. Avoid at all costs.

COPA also flies from Miami and Orlando, but those flights are late afternoon and stop in Panama for connection to Colombia. I recommend that route for Medellin or Cali as COPA's connections for those cities leave in the evening.

COPA's one flight to CTG leaves at 12:40pm, so taking an afternoon flight from Florida means an overnight stay in Panama. There are worse places to spend a night, but it's a shame to have one less night in Colombia when you're only 233 miles away (yes, I take my FF miles too seriously).

Sf4dfish, I've heard about that happening to another amigo, but it didn't happen to me on my 2 trips to Panama. Perhaps you look "muy rico" whereas I'm usually in my slippers and t-shirt
:-)

DM: Panama isn't all that bad for a stayover. Goldentime boasts alot of Colombians (albeit at $94+ ST), excellent shopping, and they have lots of casinos with pretty cigarillo girls. I can think of alot of other worse places to do a stayover.

Merl, I'm not muy rico, I was was muy mala suerte!

Maybe there was an epidemic at the time?

Merlin,

I'm parting from Brazil to check out Colombia. I'm all set in Medellin but I'll be taking a side trip aswell to Cartagena. Avianca has a round trip on the days I want for $136usd so I'm set there as well.

I am interested in the 2 bedroom apartment you mention in the above post that you reneted from Juan Ventura. I went on the website but need some help to deterimine which one it is with there being a few two bedroom apartments.

1) Can you advise what number on the website it is and also if it was $70 a night both both of you or each of you?

2) Which e-mail is best to write to Juan, exite or hotmail & does he read English? I could write in Spanish but prefer english.

3) Is the apartment you stayed at is where you would stay again if you went back and it was available or would you choose any of his other 2 bedroom locations? Even though it's only two of us now I might be interested in renting a 3 bedroom or even the penthouse if need be.


Thanks in advance,


Cubanut

I have decided to hit Colombia this winter...what is the best way to get from LA to CTG? Anyone have an idea? Does AA fly there?

Hitting CTG is part of the plan but I wonder which other city (or two) I should include...I have 15 days.

TIA

Copa Air

Overnight from LA to Panama, then connects to CTG
10 hours each way. AA does not. Your choices are Copa and Avianca. Copa better. Did ya read the first post?

I did...for some reason I thought it referred to the east coast.

Thanks!

Cubanut: we stayed at the Torremarina 901 and it was $70 for two rooms or $50 for just one. The master bedroom was very large with an equally large bed and the furniture and appliances were all in working order. I thought the location was good and the building security guards were pretty cool about the chica policy.

Juan speaks good English and reads and writes it as well. He's very responsive with emails and I used the excite address. I heard good things about Mary as well, but wish she had an email like Juan.

I liked the apartment #901 and the building and will probably request the same room or a room in the same building again for future trips. Didn't really see the other rooms, but the building itself is nicely maintained and I would imagine the rooms are set up similarly. The penthouse sounds real cool as well.

Good luck. If you get any other rooms, I'd be curious what your experience was like.