We arrived in Colombia by plane and waited in Cartagena for our van to arrive in a container. Cartagena is a nice city to visit: it has a very nice and quite large old city centre where it is easy to walk around and enjoy the old buildings, the small shops and the upcoming neighbourhood Getsemani.
Getting around
We left the airport using an Uber, but that was an exception. Uber is not working really well here. Instead, inDriver is used. But you need to take into account that this is a cash driven business, even if you have a change to get an Uber: we were only once able to pay electronically, all other ride were paid with cash. Noral taxis can be used too of course. Try to fix the price before getting in. It is a bit more expensive than an InDrive or Uber. Local busses drive around town everywhere, and usually they have their mayor destinations written on their windshield. If in doubt, just ask and the helper (of the bus) usually can help you. these busses have afixed price, no matter if you go all the way or just a short distance. They stop whenever yu want; just call out “parada”. If you need to go somewhere alone in Cartagena, you can also use a mototaxi. This is an unofficial way of transport of course, but if you look out for it, you will soon discover that the mayority of motos just drive around for this purpose. It is a bit more expensive than a bus, but it is quicker.
Traffic
Traffic here is chaotic and it is very common to use the horn of your car or motor. Reasons can be:
- watch out
- go aside
- gogogo, its a green light
- don’t park on the street, you’re blocking me
- do you want a ride? (taxi and mototaxi)
Renault is very popular here. I even saw some old Renault 4’s.
Fuel
Fuel (gasoline and diesel) is easily available. GNV (Gas Natural Vehicular) is also very popular and easily available. It reminds me of Armenia, where GNV was popular too. Why do I mention this, when, our van needs diesel, not gas?. Well, we use gas for cooking, and I have installed an LPG tank for this purpose. And every now and then (about once every 4 months) I need to find LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas), and usually the easiest way to get it safely, is at a refuelling station. But in Colombia LPG (or GLP in Spanish) is not really popular because they have GNV already, and you cannot mix things up: You either have an GNV (methane) system or GLP (butane /propane) system. Luckily, since 2021 there is one GLP station in Cartagena. And one is enough in this case. I went by to fill up with LPG again, and LPG users are still so rare that the manager walked out to check out our van and have a short talk.
Currency
The local currency in Colombia is the (Colombian) Pesos, or COP. It takes some time to get used to converting it: a lot more zeros are used. 10.000 pesos is roughly 2 euros.
Did you have a good flight and a good shipment? Colombia seems to me a country that could be a little bit dangerous. But also very interesting because of the original people and lots of birdspecies. Greetings!
The flight went ok and shipping was much easier than to Mexico, nothing got stolen or damaged. So far we have been and felt safe in Colombia, we are hoping it stays that way!