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So Caravan BS is starting to make me nervous for an upcoming trip. Family (3 adults, 3 kids) were going to stay in Tijuana for a week during christmas (Agua Caliente area) but it sounds like border crossings are already going to start getting dicey. For anyone who frequents Tijuana - its not too late to cancel the trip and try again a few months later. Thoughts?
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Nov 19, 2018 04:50
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I did the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border crossing twice when the Great Cuban Migrant Army of 2015 was storming the battlements, and it really wasn’t any issue. There were just a whole bunch of people sleeping in mattresses, primarily in a couple specific locations.YMMV but the media loves to exaggerate the impact on the ground of this kind of thing. There are like 3000 migrants there in a city of more than a million people. If you didn’t follow the news you’d probably barely notice while crossing and not notice at alll after.
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Nov 19, 2018 08:20
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Saladman posted:Has anyone been to San Blas and have specific thoughts about it? Thinking about going there for 3 days in Feb and weighing renting a boat, which is like $1000/day, or staying on huts on an island. Either way the cost is split 4 ways so the money isn’t a massive concern but I’d definitely want it to be “worth it”. It sounds like some of the islands are pretty dirty with plastic trash based on TripAdvisor reviews which a boat would avoid, but not sure how much of an issue that is. I did a 5 day boat trip from San Blas to Cartagena in Colombia that turned into 8 days because of bad weather. We hung around San Blas for 6 days and it's great if you enjoy doing stuff like sitting on a boat, swimming to islands, sitting on islands then swimming back to the boat, maybe have a drink or two. The trash is indeed horrible on the inhabited islands but further away it gets a lot better. A lot of islands still have a clean and trash side, not a massive inconvenience but it does take away some of the overall beauty. By all means get a boat, you can visit a landfill at home if you feel you've missed out on the huts. You're not doing this but I wouldn't recommend taking the trip to Cartagena unless it's much much cheaper than a flight and you're on a budget. 36 hours on a small boat with high waves is awful even if you don't suffer sea sickness.
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Nov 19, 2018 12:45
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Knitting Beetles posted:I did a 5 day boat trip from San Blas to Cartagena in Colombia that turned into 8 days because of bad weather. We hung around San Blas for 6 days and it's great if you enjoy doing stuff like sitting on a boat, swimming to islands, sitting on islands then swimming back to the boat, maybe have a drink or two. The trash is indeed horrible on the inhabited islands but further away it gets a lot better. A lot of islands still have a clean and trash side, not a massive inconvenience but it does take away some of the overall beauty. By all means get a boat, you can visit a landfill at home if you feel you've missed out on the huts. Genuinely thank you for validating all of my life's choices; I'm doing San Blas now in part because my wife and I went from Cartagena to Panama City 3 years ago and I was like "hell no i'm not doing that on a 40 foot boat". and it was the only major objection I made to any of our travel plans during 4 months of backpacking around Latin America. She always regretted not doing it, so at least now we can do the actually-nice part of it. I definitely like sitting on a boat and swimming to and from islands and having a drink or two, but probably only have about 3 days worth of that in me before I get sick of lobster and coconut. My wife is someone who would spend her entire vacation picking up plastic bottles if she were on a beach strewn with plastic, so I 100% have to avoid going anywhere with any trash larger than cigarette butts.
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Nov 19, 2018 14:36
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Coldrice posted:So Caravan BS is starting to make me nervous for an upcoming trip. Honestly curious, why Tijuana? I walked across the border in to TJ from San Diego, was not especially impressed
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Nov 20, 2018 02:40
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Hadlock posted:Honestly curious, why Tijuana? Its just half a days drive for me, accommodations are cheap, and if the kids do a good job (they're between 4-6) we can go on some bigger trips next year! It's also pretty close to the boarder so heading home if its not working out isn't that big a deal. We considered a Canada trip too but we have been thinking about a big trip to Mexico City next year so I figured it'd be a good start
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Nov 23, 2018 23:39
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Check out Rosarito, it is a nice beach resort town, only 45 min south of TJ, if only as a day trip
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Nov 24, 2018 08:58
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Cross-posting here in case people only check specific threads in the travel forum. Re: Overstaying FMM/Tourist Card due to crossing over into Mexico again via land and only getting 7 days on the card. Basically I flew into Mexico (Cancun) about 11 days ago. As part of the trip, we crossed over to Belize to do snorkelling and crossed over to Guatemala to see Tikal. Then we'd head back in to Mexico and fly out from Cancun. I had to surrender my original FMM when we crossed over to Belize and was scammed with an exit fee, but that's beside the point. When I crossed over into Mexico via Belize, the immigration officer only gave me 7 days on my FMM. I only realized this afterwards, which sucks. My flight out of Cancun won't be for another 1.5 weeks or so. Which means I'll be basically overstaying the FMM. Any idea on what happens when I try to fly out? Do I get fined or have to pay a fee? Everything I've read online has been so inconsistent or threads go into weird tangents. (Wtf TripAdvisor) Any insight would be much appreciated.
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Nov 26, 2018 13:22
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It's usually pretty straightforward to extend a tourist visa, but it's likely you'll lose at least a few hours in dealing with it. I've never done this in Mexico but normally you just go to an immigration office in Cancun and give them some basic paperwork. https://traveltips.usatoday.com/extend-mexico-vacation-im-already-there-30389.html Alternately sometimes you can just suck up the penalty of like $5/day or whatever, but this varies hugely depending on the country. Quite a few countries will give you some fine on exiting that's easier to deal with than getting the official paperwork. I have zero idea if this is the case for Mexico, so triple check that so you don't end up banned from Mexico for 5 years or whatever the equivalent penalty in Europe is.
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Nov 26, 2018 15:49
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Thanks, though I've heard the opposite about those immigration places. Apparently they don't really deal with these touristy kind of things and mostly deal with actual Central American immigration issues. Just wondering if anyone has come across this issue before and what happened to them. Hopefully it's a fairly common thing to have the "free" FMM given when re-crossing the border over land. Kinda lovely to have to worry about this on the tail end of my trip.
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Nov 27, 2018 01:11
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I'll be in Colombia until the middle of January, which will put me at 4 months here. After that, I want to go do some backpacking through Ecuador and Peru at the very least, and I have a friend in Santiago that I'd love to meet up with, if getting down to Chile is at all reasonable in terms of time / money. Goal is to be back in Colombia by mid March, so basically have a max of two months to work with. Broadly speaking, what kind of itinerary should I be looking at if I want to keep things as cheap as possible except when it's totally insane, like spending 48 hours on a bus to save $50 on a flight or something. I'm traveling with one other person if that makes any huge difference. Currently spitballing something like: - Bus from Medellin to the border of Ecuador over two days (I think that's still a super sketchy route at night?). Lets me check out Popayan and Ipiales. - Spend all day queuing for a visa, bus into Quito - Use Quito as a home base for a few days to do some day trips - thinking Mindo, Cotopaxi, Quilotoa Crater, and a bit of the tourist-y stuff like the middle of the world and the Otovalo market. -Bus to Cuenca, stopping at Banos and maybe Riobamba along the way? -Stay in Cuenca for a day - Bus to Lima, spend the day (are there any cool day trips from Lima? I haven't done any deep-jungle Amazon stuff yet, and I'd definitely like to, not sure if this is the best spot for it or not) - Fly to Cusco - Machu Picchu, Vinicunca And then back the way I came, maybe heading along the west coast of Ecuador instead of the inland route? So, a few questions: Does this look at all reasonable? Are there any major places I'm leaving off? Is it crazy to skip Bolivia? It's right there, but I met a few backpackers here that said it wasn't anything impressive compared to the rest of the places on my list, and had by far the most dire food on the entire continent, and I'm already chomping at the bit to hit Peru and get away from the endless sea of bland food here. What's the deal with needing health insurance to enter Ecuador? I'm currently uninsured, can I just buy some travel insurance for a week or two? How much booking in advance do I need to do for Machu Picchu? My schedule is pretty flexible right now and I hate having to make everything else revolve around being in a certain place on a certain day, but obviously going to Peru and missing Machu Picchu because I didn't book a tour in advance or something would suck rear end. I don't mind staying in Cusco for a few days if that expands my options, but if I absolutely have to reserve stuff weeks / months in advance, I guess I'll suck it up. Is there any reasonable way to fit a detour to Santiago in there without a huge bump in the costs? It really blows how expensive international flights are in SA even if the destinations are really close to each other, and I'm not sure how crazy of a bus route that would be. Also obviously if anyone wants to know about Colombia (well, Medellin and Cartagena, at least), ask away or feel free to shoot me a PM! Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Nov 28, 2018 |
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Nov 28, 2018 22:13
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VivaColombia flights are so cheap, there's essentially no way to get from Colombia to Ecuador or Peru where a plane isn't the correct answer for anyone who's not a starving Venezuelan refugee. Even Cali to Quito. Like yeah I guess you could check out Popayan, but you only have a limited amount of time given your goals, so spending it on some miserable series of 10 hour bus rides through the Andres could be better spent in Lima or Uyuni or Santiago. Like really what are you going to do with 8 hours between buses in Popayan besides walk around the center of the city and see "yep, it's another medium sized Colombian city! It's kinda cute and the weather sure is nice and they have a cathedral!" It seems like it's part of a checklist of "places I've been in Colombia" rather than an actual destination -- especially the way you're considering it with a short layover. I totally get that mindset but honestly after you've been to Cartagena and Cali and Bogota and Santa Marta and Bucaramanga it's unlikely you're going to have any distinct impression of Popayan two days after you've left it -- not that I've been, but I've been to enough Latin American cities to very strongly suspect it's not worth 30 hours of buses and sitting in bus stations. While you miss out on checking off Popayan on a list of Places You've Been, you also will get to level up your tourism rank by realizing that it's sometimes better to spend more time in fewer places to actually appreciate traveling. Lima is awesome but it does kind of need money to rally appreciate because it's all about the food scene, which is fantastic. If you're interested in that kind of thing the bar and nightlife scene is great and drugs do not carry at all close to the social stigma they carry in Colombia, since their country was never wrecked by cartels. For sightseeing, Lima has some cool pyramids that are ridiculously huge that I'd never heard of, but other than that there's nothing in the downtown that's not Generic Large Latin American City. You should look at a map for Lima; it's literally around 12 hours by bus to the closest point in the Amazon and it's far further to the main sites in Peru for Amazonian tourism (Iquitos--plane only--and Puerto Maldonado) The food scene in Bolivia is dire, even in La Paz at the highest rated places, of which I've been to most of and, goddamn. I've heard Santa Cruz is borderline passable but more for living there than for visiting. Tours do not need to be booked in advance for Machu Picchu, they need to be booked in advance specifically for the Inca Trail, which needs to be done months in advanced. Just going to the site just requires booking like a day in advance, unless the Peruvian government ever decides to limit their cash cow as UNESCO has recommended. For just Machu Picchu you can book it on the spot for the next day or the day after from Cusco, but the prices are fixed if you just want to take a train there and go to the ruins. Double check that nothing has changed recently but I can't imagine the Peruvian government limiting Machu Picchu entrance tickets since it's $$$$$$$$ for them. The Salar de Uyuni 3-day trek from Uyuni to San Pedro de Atacama is incredible and it's one of the most interesting trips I've ever done, and I've done a poo poo ton of traveling. Note that this covers way more than just the Salar -- that's only one of the three days. It's also pretty cheap, like IIRC $150 for 3d-3n. I would one billion times recommend doing this over spending those days at towns between Cali and Quito, not that I've ever been to that part of Colombia (or Ecuador at all). SPdA is very expensive and once you get there it's probably best to just get out on the first bus since if you don't have lots of money and can't rent your own car, it's like the highlands of Bolivia but more 10x more crowded and 5x more expensive. There are some weird flight companies that don't show up on Google Flights, like I know "LC Peru" did not show up on flight scanners before, but maybe it does now. Whatever you do, fly from Lima to Cusco. The bus is a long way and there's nothing between the two besides Ica and Nazca, but since you're on a budget, then there's no reason to stop in Nazca since you have to do a charter flight to actually see it. For Ica... up to you. It's still a long rear end way from there to Cusco by bus. You'd have to do at least 2 nights in Ica to make it worthwhile. Saladman fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Nov 28, 2018 |
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Nov 28, 2018 23:52
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You can sometimes find cheaper airfare to Santiago, but prices usually are higher around the holidays and January with people on vacation. Santiago sucks though. Especially in the summer. It really isn't worth a trip down here unless you have something else planned with your friend, like going to southern Chile, but high/tourist season is end of Dec until beginning of March, so prices go up quite a bit.
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Dec 1, 2018 03:38
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Saladman posted:VivaColombia flights are so cheap, there's essentially no way to get from Colombia to Ecuador or Peru where a plane isn't the correct answer for anyone who's not a starving Venezuelan refugee. Even Cali to Quito. Like yeah I guess you could check out Popayan, but you only have a limited amount of time given your goals, so spending it on some miserable series of 10 hour bus rides through the Andres could be better spent in Lima or Uyuni or Santiago. Like really what are you going to do with 8 hours between buses in Popayan besides walk around the center of the city and see "yep, it's another medium sized Colombian city! It's kinda cute and the weather sure is nice and they have a cathedral!" It seems like it's part of a checklist of "places I've been in Colombia" rather than an actual destination -- especially the way you're considering it with a short layover. I totally get that mindset but honestly after you've been to Cartagena and Cali and Bogota and Santa Marta and Bucaramanga it's unlikely you're going to have any distinct impression of Popayan two days after you've left it -- not that I've been, but I've been to enough Latin American cities to very strongly suspect it's not worth 30 hours of buses and sitting in bus stations. While you miss out on checking off Popayan on a list of Places You've Been, you also will get to level up your tourism rank by realizing that it's sometimes better to spend more time in fewer places to actually appreciate traveling. yo how you travel like... so much? Are you the anonymous author of Lonely Planet? Tell me the secret so that I can replicate it
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Dec 1, 2018 05:03
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Thesaurus posted:yo how you travel like... so much? Are you the anonymous author of Lonely Planet? Tell me the secret so that I can replicate it I'm a STEM academic and my wife is in international development. I probably am traveling for fun ±12 non-contiguous weeks per year but have a couple times in the past few years "home based" somewhere longer where my wife is working. When I go to a conference I also often stay a day or two on one side or the other to go somewhere I haven't been, or to go somewhere I like a lot if I have been there before. I can largely work on a laptop — well, connected into a cluster somewhere — and now that almost every podunk village in the world has at least 3G it's a lot easier to take time off while still working effectively. I wrote and largely coordinated the experiments for a paper that got published in Science while taking one of those self-declared sabbaticals a few years ago, and the paper was high-profile and everyone knew that I was "on vacation" while I wrote it and that I actually do poo poo when I'm not in the office, so now no one really cares where I am as long as I keep on top of scheduling and don't take too much contiguous time off without telling people. (For the two longer stays abroad I made sure to discuss it in advance with everyone I do work with in person.)
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Dec 1, 2018 10:31
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Juanito posted:You can sometimes find cheaper airfare to Santiago, but prices usually are higher around the holidays and January with people on vacation. Yeah, I'm not super excited about Santiago, and I don't have the time or money to make it down to the Patagonia region, as much as I'd love to. I would just feel pretty bad since I haven't seen my friend in years and being right next door is probably the best opportunity I'd have unless I win the lottery some day so I can afford a round-trip flight to Chile just to hang out. Salar de Uyuni looks super interesting, and it does end in Chile, but San Pedro to Santiago is still like a 30 hour bus ride and Chile seems to be the only South American country that doesn't have cheap national flights, so I might just have to accept that it isn't feasible. edit: Actually it looks like San Pedro to Santiago is only 40 bucks round trip, so I guess if I do go to Bolivia and do the Salar trip, it's probably worth doing that. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Dec 1, 2018 |
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Dec 1, 2018 20:04
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Saladman posted:I'm a STEM academic and my wife is in international development. I probably am traveling for fun ±12 non-contiguous weeks per year but have a couple times in the past few years "home based" somewhere longer where my wife is working. When I go to a conference I also often stay a day or two on one side or the other to go somewhere I haven't been, or to go somewhere I like a lot if I have been there before. I can largely work on a laptop — well, connected into a cluster somewhere — and now that almost every podunk village in the world has at least 3G it's a lot easier to take time off while still working effectively. That's awesome. Sounds like a nice arrangement. (Not sure I will be able to replicate it, though...)
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Dec 1, 2018 23:16
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I’m going to Santiago for 4 days and my only expectations are to party at the hostel and see Valparaiso for a day before hitting Patagonia, and even then I wish I could just be in BA partying instead. But, that would’ve cost me about $700 extra in airfare. So 🤷♂️ Low expectations!
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Dec 1, 2018 23:17
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Thesaurus posted:That's awesome. Sounds like a nice arrangement. (Not sure I will be able to replicate it, though...) I think the real secret is to not have any genuine in-person responsibilities like having children. I have a couple friends who also travel a lot on way lower budgets who do more or less the same travels I do but in hotels that aren't as nice. Latin America is cheap and if you don't have any specific career there's no reason to not take a few months off and travel around. Even if you can't sublet your apartment storage units are cheap or you can sell all your poo poo on local FB groups. I'm hoping to think "yep, seen it all, don't care anymore" before I have children. My wife is quite a bit younger than me, but still the world is a big goddamn place and I've never been to most of Asia so at some point I think I'm going to have to figure out traveling out with children, which seems fine with one child and then progressively more infeasible afterwards. I also try not to think about how terrible my carbon footprint is. Tourism is atrocious in terms of energy consumption if you do even a single trans-oceanic flight per yer.
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Dec 2, 2018 00:35
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I liked Santiago, not the most amazing place but I found it quite pleasant. When I went the weather was nice and I had good food. I was really interested in history so had a good tour and also visited the museum about the Pinochet era. Agree that BA is a much more interesting city though.
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Dec 2, 2018 00:51
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Yeah there isn't really much distinct in Santiago except their pre-Columbian art museum, but if you have friends there it can be fun. Also they have some good/interesting restaurants like Peumayen, although it's nowhere close to Lima in terms of food quality. I remember a year or two ago someone who posted in this thread about moving to Santiago for school ended up getting robbed and all his stuff stolen after getting out of the taxi on his way from the airport, somewhere downtown near Plaza de Armas, but I guess that could happen anywhere in Latin America.
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Dec 2, 2018 11:29
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Why am I getting such wild differences in temperature in Torres Del Paine, Chile? Weather app tells me it’s 37F, Google search Widget is telling me it’s 42F, ok sure... and Weather.com is telling me it’s 56F. AccuWeather says it’s 55F. Note that the Weather app and Google search widget are both pulling from Weather.com.
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Dec 6, 2018 00:25
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If I'm looking at going to Guadalajara, what sorts of areas should I be aiming for? Primary considerations are food, booze, cultural poo poo like museums or whatever, and hopefully walkability. Preliminary research suggests (depending on where you look and what they call the different areas): Chapultepec, Arcos, Ladron de Guevara, Fayette. I'm told Centro is a bit dodgier but I'm not sure if that's like the "be aware of your surroundings" kind of dodgy, or the "you stand a decent chance of being mugged after dark" kind of dodgy, one of which I'm significantly more okay with than the other.
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Dec 9, 2018 00:15
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Constellation I posted:Cross-posting here in case people only check specific threads in the travel forum. Update on this, but a brief summary on the FMM (tourist card) first: - I flew from Canada to Cancun, like all flights from the US/Canada to Mexico, the FMM is already paid for as part of the ticket (I'm assuming the return ticket portion) - When leaving Mexico into Belize, you're required to give up the FMM. What happens here though, is that the border officials will scam you into paying for the FMM even though it's already paid for. It'll cost 533 pesos. No amount of arguing will prevent this other than a detailed receipt from your airline indicating that the Mexico tourist tax was part of the ticket price. The example given to us by the border official was a price breakdown of a United Airlines ticket showing an itemized fee for the airport departure fee. Which means the whole thing is bullshit considering the departure fee is NOT the Tourist Tax fee. Assholes. - When entering Mexico via a land border, the border agent will give you a FMM card upon entry. What's supposed to happen here is that the border agent is supposed to ask you how long you're staying in Mexico and they'll put that number (up to 180 days) on the card. If you stay less than 7 days, then the FMM is free. If you stay more than 7 days, the FMM will cost 533 pesos and will have to be paid either at the bank or the immigration office. Both will have a receipt and a stamp that you'd need to keep with your FMM as proof after you've paid. In my case, since I was coming in with a group of people in a bus, the border agent didn't even bother asking how many days I was staying and just gave me the "free" FMM and put 7 days on it. This is so that the line goes smooth and less questioning and paperwork for the guy, I guess. You are forced to deal with the consequences at another border or at the airport - When flying out of Mexico, you're required to give up your FMM. Since I now have a new FMM that only had 7 days on it, and I overstayed those 7 days since my flight was much later, I had to first go through the immigration office before I could check in to my flight. At the immigration office, if you're at a major airport, they're pretty lenient. It seems that as long as your overstay isn't any longer than 180 days (original amount of time the original FMM is typically given for), then they'll just charge you the price of the FMM at 533 pesos. They'll stamp it and give you a receipt that indicates you paid and you're to fly out that very day. Overall, pretty lovely that I ended up paying for the FMM 3 times (one as part of the flight ticket, two as a border scam, and three when flying out) But I guess it's better than paying any other additional fine per day. This combined with Belize exit fees led to pretty expensive border crossings, but at least I had a great time.
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Dec 10, 2018 06:55
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can you get by visiting Cuba if you don't speak any Spanish or is it too much of a pain in the rear end
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Dec 14, 2018 23:16
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Yes. Just put that you are supporting the Cuban people on your app and you’re fine The new Cuban regulations are a joke. E: oh you mean practically? I thought you meant in terms of the pseudo travel embargo for Americans. Yeah getting around is fine, English is widely spoken in places like Trinidad and Vinales. We did a self drive tour last year and speak pretty mediocre Spanish and I think only once or twice did we need to use our poor Spanish for anything more complicated than ordering food or buying tickets for something. You’re probably not planning on going deep in the countryside anyway, presumably. Saladman fucked around with this message at 11:56 on Dec 15, 2018 |
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Dec 15, 2018 00:43
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indigi posted:can you get by visiting Cuba if you don't speak any Spanish or is it too much of a pain in the rear end Depends, what do you want to do? The resort areas will be fine with just English, the cities will be perfectly doable but perhaps a bit annoying, and the countryside will be difficult.
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Dec 15, 2018 01:00
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Two things I had forgotten about South America— Nightlife starts at midnight Start times (other than flights and poo poo like that) are soft Chile is aptly named. Super chill.
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Dec 24, 2018 05:17
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Some Swedish dude just got shot in Downtown Buenos Aires and lost his leg because he tried to fight off a mugger who wanted his cellphone. Guys, just give them the loving phone.
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Jan 3, 2019 22:05
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I fought off some dude in Cartagena who tried to steal my $25 Casio watch, screamed like a loving banshee, all the locals came running around the corner, tackled him, we waited for the cops. Cops took us in an alley and made him give me his shirt, shoes (nikes) and pants (he went home in his underwear). No idea what happened to him after that. gently caress muggers, come at me bro. Edit: oh and his phone too. I still have the phone, one of those old bullet proof nokia types, the battery is in a robotics project now.
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Jan 4, 2019 10:55
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:Some Swedish dude just got shot in Downtown Buenos Aires and lost his leg because he tried to fight off a mugger who wanted his cellphone. This is great to hear, considering I just booked 2 nights in BA for March 
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Jan 4, 2019 21:48
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Buenos Aires is weird where some areas that are perfectly fine at regular hours are just sketchy as gently caress in the off hours. From what I read this dude wandered off into a side street near the Obelisco during a weekend when there’s no one around which turns you into easy pickings. Just stick to the crowded places, there are no undiscovered jewels in BA so no benefit in going off the beaten path. If you do, be mindful of your surroundings and if it comes down to it, and you get mugged, just give them something and they’ll run off. BA is great, just use common sense and remember that you’re not in a European city, despite all the similarities.
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Jan 4, 2019 22:12
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Hey goons! How does this Colombian itinerary look to you: 27/02 - Flight to Bogota 28/02 - Bogota 01/03 - Bogota 02/03 - Flight to Cartagena 03/03 - Cartagena 04/03 - Cartagena & Travel to Santa Marta 05/03 - Santa Marta 06/03 - Snorkeling or Diving in Santa Marta & Travel to Minca 07/03 - Minca 08/03 - Travel to Tayrona 09/03 - Tayrona 10/03 - Tayrona 11/03 - Travel to Medellin 12/03 - Medellin 13/03 - Medellin & Guatape 14/03 - Travel to Salento 15/03 - Valle de Cocora 16/03 - Sightseeing around Salento 17/03 - Travel to Bogota 18/03 - Flight back to Europe As usual, I'm worried simultanously about missing out some cool stuff, and also overdoing it - it's our vacation after all. At least I'm trying to spend at least 2 nights anywhere, because changing beds every day sucks way more past 25. Thanks in advance guys, cheers!
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Jan 10, 2019 17:39
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Ur Getting Fatter posted:Buenos Aires is weird where some areas that are perfectly fine at regular hours are just sketchy as gently caress in the off hours. From what I read this dude wandered off into a side street near the Obelisco during a weekend when there’s no one around which turns you into easy pickings. Yeah it's strange. I stayed in Palermo (highly recommend this area for white folk) for a month and had zero issues at all but met some Americans who were staying downtown who both had been mugged in broad daylight. But yea, hand over your poo poo and call it a day.
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Jan 10, 2019 17:45
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^^^ Argentines are white as gently caress; substantially whiter than the average American. Iirc they’re whiter than France and Germany are today. Santa Marta is fine but really not even worth one day, unless you can’t get all the way to Tayrona or Minca in one day from there. Keep in mind the official bus station for Santa Marta is also in bumfuck nowhere. To a lesser extent, the Cartagena bus station is also pretty far from anything you’ll want. The tourist shuttles take you from downtown Cartagena to downtown Santa Marta. The diving in Santa Marta (Taganga) sucked and snorkeling would be pointless. Maybe this varies but the visibility was garbage when we were there in December a few years ago, and even not accounting for that the coral and fish were not that amazing. It was no Hawaii or Red Sea or even Bocas. Too much pollution in that bay maybe? They also have a poo poo ton of lion fish. I’d put that extra day in Cartagena, as it is you barely have enough time to walk around the old city. Or maybe Minca so you can do more hiking.
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Jan 10, 2019 18:13
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Chikimiki posted:04/03 - Cartagena & Travel to Santa Marta It's probably 2-3 hours from the walled city to the bus station on the south side of Cartagena, when we did this trip it was basically the whole day. All the traffic hours a choke point between the castle and the bay. If there is a bus station on the north side of the city by the airport, and exits along hwy 90a that would be a better option. Barrinqulla is actually a pretty nice city, you will travel though it from Cartagena to Santa Marta, it has a completely different, modern vibe from Cartagena. I really liked sleepy Santa Marta, amazing roof views from the party hostel Masaya Hostel I thought Minca was pretty dumpy, not even a town really. We did a day trip out of Santa Marta to do some fun activities on the mountain with Minca as the base. I think the Taxi was $7 round trip. I have not done Cartagena to Medellin, but I've done Bogota to Medellin and that was a long bus ride I would like to avoid in the future. Hadlock fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Jan 11, 2019 |
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Jan 11, 2019 01:48
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Oh yeah for sure fly from Tayrona (Santa Marta) to Medellin. It’ll be like $70pp in Viva Colombia and 1.5 hr vs 20 hr in a bus or whatever. Santa Marra is nice enough, I spent 3 full days there, it’s just not very interesting compared to spending that time in Cartagena or Medellin. We took a tourist shuttle from Santa Marta to Cartagena which goes from old Cartagena to downtown Santa Marta. It costs wayyy more than the regular bus but holy Christ is the regular bus a massive pain in the rear end for that particular route. If it even exists, iirc you might even have to change in Barranquilla (or maybe it’s just a long stop) if you go by regular bus.
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Jan 11, 2019 07:42
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Thanks for the tips! Santa Marta I mainly added because I was a bit afraid that Cartagena would too touristy & expensive, and figured that Santa Marta would be more "authentic" (for lack of a better term). Shame about the diving though, is there any good place on the coast for it? Islas del Rosario maybe? Keeping in mind we're absolute amateurs, apart from a diving baptism in the Mediterranean and some snorkeling in Sri Lanka we didn't do much, so any coral or sea critter will be amazing to us  Minca was recommended to us by quite a few people for relaxing in the mountains, so it seemed a cool place to spend a day or two. Would have liked to do the Ciuadad Perdida trek as well, but I'm afraid we wouldn't have time and physical condition for it. I've looked at Barranquilla and it looked interesting, especially as we would be there in the middle of Carnival, but I don't know how complicated it is to get around etc. How about Medellin? Are 2 days enough to enjoy the city? Otherwise, as much as we prefer overlanding in public transport, I guess we'll be taking some internal flights and tourist shuttles if the alternative is too complicated, especially given the travel times in this country Thanks again guys, appreciate it!
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Jan 11, 2019 10:54
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Anyone applied for an evisa to Brazil? https://brazil.vfsevisa.com/brazil/ loving sucks.
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Jan 21, 2019 02:01
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I'm tentatively planning a ~3-6 month trip to Central America starting in probably May. A few questions: Ideally, I plan on getting a return ticket from somewhere in Mexico and then winging it with no itinerary and just slowly bumming my way around. That's how I traveled Europe. I'm Canadian so, with respects visas and such, it seems like this shouldn't be an issue. Everything can be had at borders and I can just leave countries when tourist visas run out and come back later. Does that seem fair? Or should I do more preparation? I'll be there for the off-season: May-Oct'ish. The weather doesn't seem to be an issue (muggy, but still mostly sunny with rain storms in the evening.) but I'm actually concerned about hostels. I traveled in Dec-Jan in Eastern Europe awhile back and the worst part was the hostels were empty: 5-6 people, maybe, and then staff. You end up getting lonely and bored -- I love travelling in a large part for the hostel social life. Is the off season still pretty popular? Or are a lot of the off-the-beaten-path hostels going to be closed and others have nearly no one there? I also love the idea of those tent-hammocks and I hear a lot of hostels will let you just hang them up for cheap. Is that still viable in the rainy season or should I not bother packing one?
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Jan 24, 2019 20:30
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