Quote: (10-25-2012 07:06 PM)FlacoLoco Wrote:
Quote: (10-25-2012 06:45 PM)scotian Wrote:
I did 3 days in Cartagena, 10 days in Barranquilla (during carnaval) and 4 days in Santa Marta. Overall I wasn't a big fan of the Caribbean coast, I prefer the interior, but if I was you, I'd skip Barranquilla and focus on Santa Marta and also check out Taganga and parque Tayrona. I found the Costena girls to be harder to get into bed than in other areas of Colombia, so staying in one place longer should increase your chances of getting laid.
I stayed at hotel Caribe in Santa Marta, around calle 17 and carrera 3, a couple of blocks from the beach. There's a good strip club just around the corner and on the weekends, the bar "la puerta" is pretty good, mixed crowd of travelers and locals.
So you say skip Barranquilla for Santa Marta? I was actually thinking the opposite. Any reasons as to why?
I have travelled extensively in the DR and it is intriguing to me of the thought of a colombian/caribbean mix of culture. I did like Cartagena but as we all know it is a tourist destination. I am expecting Barranquilla to be that mix of what I am looking for. Plus I have pipelined on CC heavy and have some very good prospects lined up in BQN.
Where did you stay in BQN? I am negotiating an apartment in the Las Mercedes area for about $50 per night. Any thoughts?
Barranquilla has a couple of decent areas to party in, I stayed for a couple of days up at King George Suites, hotel is nice and about 80K/night, near centro comercial Buenavista (good for day game). Since it was during carnaval, they jacked up the prices so I left for hotel Marseille which is in centro (cl 44 con 43) it was cheap at 30K but a pretty sketchy area. Taxis were cheap all over the city. I forget the party areas but check the data sheets on here, I wrote one on carnaval and 20nation has an excellent sheet, he lived there for a few motnhs.
Barranquilla is big enough that you'll have fun there with the night life options and there's plenty of good looking women to chase around, but other than that, I don't think there's a hell of a lot to do around there.
That is why I recommended Santa Marta, although I don't want you think that I was all that pleased with that city either. If you mention Santa Marta to any Colombian person in say Bogota or Medellin, their eyes will light up and they'll go on about how nice it is there. Truth is that the beach is a bit of a dump; its small, the sand is grey, the water murky and best of all, there's a large container port right beside the beach where big cargo ships dock to unload containers. I've been to better beaches in Canada and my country isn't really known so much for its beaches.
The advantage Santa Marta has over Barranquilla is that its close to some really nice spots like Tayrona the place Tigre mentioned, Rodadero. You can do a lot of cool things around there like snorkeling, diving, hiking, etc. There's also a lot of back packers up there and some of the parties are pretty good, I went to one at a hostel and saw an Aussi guy put his entire face into a plate full of blow, he even had the shit in his eyebrows!
I didn't really get to know the area very well (didn't go to Tayrona, Taganga, Rodadero) because I partied so hard during the Carnaval, I lost motivation to do much there. I did manage to go bird watching in the Sierra Nevada mountains in a place called Minca, that was cool.
As for the chicas, overall I didn't have much luck on the coast, even during carnaval, I only managed to get one bang in my almost two weeks up there and that girl made me put in work. I had another one back at my hotel, in my bed but she wouldn't put out, I found the Costenas to be quite conservative. Also, compared to their counterparts in the interior, especially the Paisas, the girls on the coast aren't as attractive.
