Hi there,
Initially we planned to spend 3 months in Colombia, which is the most that you can spend there as a tourist and in fact we entered the country with the departure flight to Peru in 3 months.
Here you have my general experience by points:
Pollution
General trash and filth aside, the air pollution is horrible, and I had a sore throat all my stay in Colombia. I felt like I was breathing smoke all day. Neither the pollution of Mexico City nor that of Vietnam can be compared to what is in Colombia.
In any place, whether it was touristic or not, you would find everything full of garbage and, in addition, everything smells like urine. It seems that the streets are public toilets. You can see drunk men peeing on street corners in broad daylight.
Unsafety
I had never felt so insecure in any destination.
Public transport cannot be used, and you cannot be walking down the street, even if it’s broad daylight. So you are limited to traveling by taxi only.
You can’t do things on your own either. Exploring doesn’t exist unless you want to get killed.
We had a thousand plans to do hiking trails since Bogotá is surrounded by mountains and we realized that there are no hiking trails and that you cannot climb the mountain without police escort. The only thing that can be done is to walk up Monserrate (as long as there are police escort) and it is a cement road full of vendors and garbage.
Going out into the street was feeling that at any moment we were going to get robbed.
A friend who lived in Bogotá told us that many bike lanes were built in an attempt to get people to use bicycles more and lower pollution levels, but people couldn’t use bikes anyway because they were soon robbed. Locals only go out on bikes on Sundays because there are police everywhere. The only ones you see calmly on a bicycle every day are the thugs.
In fact, in Cartagena, to be able to walk up to a monastery for 20 minutes, we had to ask the police to escort us after the sixth local told us that we were going to get robbed.
I talked to a lot of people inside and outside of Colombia and they all knew tourists who had been robbed. You could say then that we were lucky.
Indigence
I had never seen so many “ugly people” in my life. Thugs, homeless, beggars, crazy, drunk, etc. There were more thugs than normal people.
Also, there were a lot of crazy, drunk, or drugged people who started screaming and fighting and we had to run away. Nowhere do you stop seeing poverty, not even in the good areas.
Decline
In all cities you have good areas and less good areas, but in Colombia almost everything was ugly and dirty. Even in the “good area” you found the streets and sidewalks broken. It was overwhelming how many holes there were, there was neither a street nor a normal sidewalk.
The center of Medellin was an impressive shock in that respect. After everyone filled their mouths saying that Medellin is the best in the country, and we found that Dantesque spectacle.
Disorganization
The whole country is an absolute mess.
The airport itself is disgustingly dirty and you realize that there isn’t any control, neither luggage, nor passport, nor covid certificate, nor anything. You get on the plane without them seeing your identity document.
On the flight from Bogotá to Lima we saw that the person next to Diego had a lighter in his bag. So, imagine the security that exists in airports and in the country in general.
In addition, to board they don’t even tell you which gate you should go through, and the airport staff themselves don’t know.
On airplanes, the stewardesses play the wrong audio and people go into the bathrooms as soon as they get on the plane when that is not allowed.
Neither in the airports nor on the planes do they put the information in English, only in Spanish.
Wingo’s plane was disgustingly dirty, and they did not have the system to pay by card.
There are queues for everything: in banks, in supermarkets, etc. Private medical centers always had queues of kilometers; Imagine what the public hospitals will be like.
Lousy tourism management
In Colombia there is a wasteful and marginal management of tourism. Everything is focused on partying, alcohol, and drugs.
The biggest tourist attractions have only restaurants and souvenir shops. In fact, the Salt Cathedral lost all its charm because even inside the mine it was full of shops and jewelers.
Even Comuna 13 in Medellín was an amusement park and a mockery of poor people. Imagine seeing the slum converted into souvenir shops.
To this we must add the music at full volume in each place.
Finally, in Colombia there is still tourism with animals, and it is a very serious problem that is destroying many ecosystems.
Prices and Qualities
We have never paid such expensive and poor-quality accommodations.
First, I highlight the poor quality of the buildings and the lack of insulation of the accommodations.
Tourist rentals are much more expensive than in Europe. In Portugal, for example, with $800 a month you can find a decent, well-equipped, and clean apartment, not to mention a wonderful hospitality.
In Colombia a shack costs $1000 a month and I am not exaggerating, shacks in Guatapé had that price. The Medellin loft was $2,000 a month and didn’t even have a washing machine, the Cartagena apartment was $3,200 a month. We are not talking about luxury, but about dirty, poorly equipped and poor-quality accommodations.
With that money in Europe, you rent way better accommodations.
People
Colombians at first glance seem friendly because they are very cordial when greeting, but after a month there in different cities, I tell you that they are not such thing.
I allow myself to generalize and I hope that not everyone is like that.
They are obsessed with money and only talk about it. The foreigner is only good for leaving tips and everyone who provides you with a service or sells you something will do everything to get your money.
They are very classists. The one who has some money or a certain social class, despises and denigrates those who “are not at their level”.
I also realized that they are hypocrites.
When we had the problem at the Affinity Aparta Hotel, the manager called me and spent one hour on the phone asking for forgiveness and to give them another chance. Then when I left the negative review, instead of posting a generic reply apologizing, the guy denied everything in the worst manners.
In both Airbnb rentals, I was treated poorly by both hostesses as if they were superior to me because they had an apartment that they rent on Airbnb. They then left me a lousy review with hate and with every intention that I wouldn’t be able to make any more reservations in the future.
I asked the one from Medellin for a normal-sized pot and a blanket, and I told the one from Cartagena that the apartment was dirty. As you can see, we are talking about basic things: cleaning and kitchenware. There was no conflict in which it was understood that both parties were going to write a negative review; not at all.
Another thing is that now in Colombia it has become fashionable to “hate and blame Venezuelans” for the country’s problems, when unfortunately, they have spent their entire lives immersed in crime and insecurity, drug problems, paramilitaries, guerrillas, etc.
The lack of education and historical memory is regrettable. In Venezuela we had a massive immigration of Colombians when in Colombia they had the whole situation with Pablo Escobar. Good people and bad people arrived; in fact, there were entire slums where there were only Colombian criminals. Even so, I have never heard a bad word from a Venezuelan towards a Colombian or towards any immigrant.
You can’t imagine the number of offensive comments I’ve received on YouTube just for showing the reality of the sites I visited. “Venezuelans only come to commit crimes”, “Damn miserable Venezuelan, go back to your country”, “Your country is shit”, “You live in misery, damn Venezuelans” …
I also heard many saying “we sheltered Venezuelans” as if they had them in their houses for free, supporting them.
When one emigrates, nobody shelters you; either you have money, or you work, or you starve.
In almost all the countries I have been to, the locals have the ability to see the good and bad things about their country and are quite critical about it. But in Colombia they take offense and insult you if you dare to say something they don’t like. In fact, a taxi driver filled his mouth talking about the corruption in Mexico and when Diego replied that in Colombia it was the same, he pouted and didn’t speak any more.
Whenever I tell you about the destinations, I try to mention the good and the bad in the most objective way possible, but unfortunately, I have nothing good to say about Colombia.
The general situation in that country and conformism above all else is very sad. It seems that with a restaurant and a souvenir shop they are already happy and do not see the disaster and misery that surrounds them.
We went with the idea of spending 3 months, and I regretted thinking that it was not going to be enough for us to see everything because we are talking about one of the countries with the greatest diversity in the world. In the end we only stayed a month, and it was too much.