Colombia in December...

Jen and I decided on Colombia for our trip between Christmas and New Years this year, and we’re REALLY excited about it - a bit of an adventure, but one we’re looking forward to. We’re staying 2 nights in Bogota, 2 nights in Medellin, and 4 nights in Cartagena. We’ve got the W booked for Bogota (Jen was looking forward to a familiar, comfortable bed after a long travel day), the Charlee in Medellin, and Bastión in Cartagena (which was difficult to book, as most 4-5 star hotels in Cartagena had 5-night minimums around the NYE holiday.

We’re going to explore each city/area, and when in Cartagena we’ll head to one of the islands, perhaps Isla Barú for a day. In Bogota we do plan to have a fancy dinner (recommendations welcome) but the rest of the time we’ll try to explore local cuisine, and from what I’ve seen, it’s going to be delicious.

Any recommendations of any sort are welcome.

Cool, very adventurous. Get yourselves in shape, Bogota is at 8600 feet, so you’ll feel it when you get off the plane (though not like La Paz, where the airport is like 13,000 feet).

Wish I had some suggestions for you, the last time I was there was 1975, and then I didn’t spend a lot of time in Bogota, but out in small villages in the mountains to the west. How will you get to Medellin? A bus ride would be the cool way to do it, if you really want to be adventurous.

Yeah, already warned Jen that we can’t drink like we normally do, at that altitude. Will be similar to the BerserkerFest in Telluride, though not much stopped us from imbibing there!

We’ll fly between cities - it’s cheap and fast. Will be doing tours with guides in Medellin and Cartagena, most likely - haven’t put together the full details yet

Excited for you, looking forward to the report when you return. The one thing I still remember is the gold museum (Museo del Oro), which was pretty amazing back then, and probably more so now.

Its been almost 14 years since I’ve been there, but do Mount Monserrate in the morning and then tour and have lunch in the La Candelaria district in Bogota as a day trip. I’m not sure how things are now, but we hired a driver/guide to get us around.

You probably won’t have time but a day trip to Fusa (Fusagasuga—my favorite city name) was awesome. It’s an hour drive each way with spectacular scenery. We visited a coffee plantation and an orchid gardens. (la clarita?) Fusa is the orchid capitol of the world.

Thanks, Ron and Alan - we haven’t created the itinerary yet but will refer back here when we do, absolutely

We went to Cartagena for a long weekend earlier this year:
Not sure about weather in December, but the best thing we did was a rent a private boat, swim in the ocean and eat lunch at one of the beach resorts (when on the boat, do get photos of the guys coming up to you and flashing some fresh lobster… missed that photo!). Second best thing was a mangrove canoe tour (don’t raise your expectations too much, but I got great photos) and a walking tour (but not too different than a walking tour through any other EM country). We enjoyed the restaurants as well, noted below, and to us I think we think of Cartagena as a place with (i) islands nearby and (ii) a lot of cool restaurants to try; there was perhaps only one art gallery we found, etc.

Restaurants we enjoyed: La Mulata (our favorite spot, a more casual locals/smaller menu, but very good), El Boliche (ceviche), Carmen (surprised us to meet expectations/our favorite fine dining spot we went to), Lobo Del Mar (good option). I would definitely visit the first three restaurants again if we visited again (and try an additional set)
Restaurants we did not: Alma (nice layout, but food was bland and caters to foreigners… form over substance place), and Que Bracho (total tourist trap that catered only to foreigners, offering U.S. beef!, with NYC prices on the relatively weak wine list - even localish Argentine wine!).

We used an email concierge service (https://www.ticartagena.com/) for making the boat and restaurant reservations. They are slightly more expensive than others, but they were very good and we would use them again. We also used a local nanny service (http://www.cartagenanny.com/) that came recommended to us by our U.S. branded hotel and they were good as well, and we would use them again.

Thank you! What a great post - we’ll be sure to look into all this.

As for weather, Colombia is pretty much the same weather year-round, it seems. Cartagena is a bit hotter than Bogota, but average nearly year round is low of 77 and high of 88

Bogota is not all that warm. It’s around 65-70 during the day and 50 at night year round. You do need a light weight coat.
The altitude is what takes an adjustment. It’s 8600 ft while Denver in comparison is 5200 feet. Going up to visit Monserrate will take you over 10000 feet.

There’s a Freakonomics eopisode on right now talking about traffic in Bogota.

It has been 14 years since I’ve been there, but I doubt it’s changed. Cars, buses, taxis, mopeds, and horse drawn wagons. At that time bus drivers got paid by the passenger, and to watch a bus on a busy thorough fare in the left lane cut right three lanes and come to a dead stop at a 45 degree angle to pick up two people was beyond comprehension. It was like watching the running of the bulls in a cattle stockyard.

For me it’s been much longer than 14 years, but nothing would surprise me. I can remember being driven through downtown streets of Asuncion at night, going the wrong way on a one-way street, with the car’s lights off. In Bogota I had to pull pick-pocket’s hands out of my pockets numerous times, particularly getting on a bus. It’s a different world.