>>2815678
Before I even showed up in Cartagena, the hostel I booked messaged me saying that the nightly rate was a "mistake", and would I mind paying extra when I arrived? The new rate was double the rate I had paid. I gave them the choice of honoring the reservation or cancelling it and refunding my payment, and they chose to honor it.

At the Monteria bus station I was charged 70,000 COP ($21 USD at the time) for the 250 km bus ride to Cartagena. For that price I was expecting a first-class bus, but instead I got directed onto a dilapidated bus with no A/C and no luggage storage that stopped to pick up or drop off passengers about fifty times along the way, driving recklessly fast between stops. No bathroom break for the six hour ride either. The attendant demanded my payment receipt, but I suspected that they'd then try to charge me again when I got off the bus, so I refused to hand the receipt to him even when he tried to grab it out of my hand by force. Everyone else was paying when they stepped off the bus.

Cartagena city center is beautiful, and the Caribbean breeze makes the city a lot more comfortable than you'd expect. The motorcycle taxi driver was honest and friendly, but street touts and hustlers in the tourist districts are very insistent. I even had one grab my arm when I walked past ignoring him. I snapped "NO ME TOQUE" at him, to which he responded with a mocking comment that made the other touts start laughing. Typical caribeno behavior.

I was so disgusted by the humans of Cartagena that I abandoned my five-day hostel reservation three days in and headed on to Gaira (a suburb of Santa Marta).

The historical city center is a physically nice classic colonial town, really safe, but approximately every 30-45 seconds you are going to be harassed by the hustlers that either try to sell you knock-off cohiba cigars, tour packages and whatever.

As for the beach, don't even bother going to the Bocagrande hotel area but instead go somewhere like Tayrona or Palomino if you have time. The sea is nasty and just like in centro historico, the hustlers won't leave you alone for a minute if you are not in a hotel with its own secluded area, where the beggars and street vendors can't enter. And again if you would like to swim you will still have to walk through the public area and deal with those.

>>2815695
>"NO ME TOQUE"
you're supposed to just say "Ay, yay, yay"

>>2815723
>COCAINE MARIJUANA?
That's mostly what they tried to sell me

Listen to the others, Cartegena is awful. The only place in all my travels that ive had a negative experience of

Just got back from two weeks in Colombia, Cartagena was the worst place I stayed, constantly hassled by people trying to scam me. Spent one night there before heading to Santa Marta and Tayrona which was much better for beaches and being left alone. In the rest of the country nobody gave a fuck about me or bothered me like they did in Cartagena. However I did have an amazing dinner in Cartagena but comparable restaurants in Cali and Bogota were much cheaper.

>>2815723
>>2819152
is it still an open air brothel or did they take care of that problem? haven't heard about passport bros recently

>>2819216
>problem?

>>2819216
/trv/ has a huge problem with people who quit posting as soon as they board their flight, and never come back to share their experiences

Cartagena hookers are 10/10 hotties, but they are fucking ripoff tier expensive. Remember Obama's secret service agents who famously hired a hooker. She asked them for $700 USD, but they only paid her $50 and threw her out of the room. She complained to the police, and the Colombian government filed a complaint with the US embassy.

>>2819216
I didn't notice any streetwalkers anywhere I went, passport bros like Medellin but I didn't go there.

>>2819324
Looks like they cleaned it up then.

>>2815678
Now that the dotard in chief has closed the immigration route, the migrants are probably all backed up in Colombia I bet.

>>2815678
I didn’t enjoy Cartagena, I got annoyed by street vendors when heading to the beach. Then I got sick from drinking a lemonade. Beach is also trash, dark muddy and niggers everywhere.
Stick to the tourist areas, if you go off the beaten path you’ll see the poorest slums and may get robbed.

>>2819346
>dotard in chief
Biden's been out of office since January, guy.

>>2819324
The only place I saw the hookers congregate was near the Torre de Reloj (Clock Tower) monument right inside the old city wall.
>>2819402
San Agustin, Huila was my favorite town in Colombia. The ride across the paramo (a high-altitude cloud forest full of very strange plants) from Popayan was expensive and bumpy, but very scenic. Compared to Asia, intercity transport is so fucking expensive in Colombia. That 130 km trip cost something like $21 USD. Maybe I was getting the gringo price, IDK.

>>2820240
Everything in colombia is expensive these days.

I heard so many horrible things about Cartagena I didn't even bother to visit. I liked Bogotá, Medellín, Santa Marta. If you want to party, go to the first two cities or Palomino, Magdalena.
From what people (both locals, other travelers and Colombians I know outside of Colombia) told me it's just a tourist trap.

>>2820385
When I visited the south, you could get a decent lunch made to order for 9000 COP on average. That was about $3 USD at the time. The better lunches cost 13000, about $5. I stayed mainly in hostels, a few cheap hotel rooms as well. This was back during COVID, so most hostel dorms had very few guests. My lodging average was about $8/night, but I really skimped on food for the first few weeks there. Those cheap yellow empanadas that were sold for 500 pesos apiece fucked up my gut and ruined my energy levels.
>>2820986
Foreigners love the Guajira Peninsula for some reason. It's more expensive than the rest of Colombia, hot as hell, and has a blighted arid landscape. But muh beaches, muy Tayrona. The green cool highlands were much more pleasing to me.

what the hell is wrong with you guys
just get a hostel somewhere in getsemani between calle 24 - calle 32 ish, drink heavily and wander around, maybe over to the fort