Hotel Bacata, Bogotá

Advantages: Easy to navigate
Disadvantages: Traffic jams

...This city is immense and viewed from the vantage point of Monseratte it seemed to fill the entire plain below. The phenomonal difference in the northern and southern suburbs is sometimes ovewhelming but both have thier own beauty. In the the north there are elegant and palatial homes, areas of great beauty and historical interest, modern shopping malls and restaurant areas (Zona Rosa). You can buy emeralds, sleep in comfortable and expensive hotels, and pretend for a while that this is a city in central Europe. In the south you will experience the shanty towns, poverty at ground level, literally, and some large part of the real Colombia which is the friendliness and happy disposition of the people. The city offers a multitude of historical and interesting sites all of which are better described in the Lonely Planet but the city itself... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Food, Shopping, People, Views
Disadvantages: Thieves

...Bogota has imporved over the years, once a place of chaotic traffic, bad roads and a general sense of disorganisation, it has changed immesly for the better. Transport - Buses and Taxis they are frequent and roughlty cost the same amount which ever you decide to take, For the buses you jump on where you want and then just let the driver know when you want to get off, there are no bus stops as such. there is also the new El Transmilenio - which is a giant bendy bus which gets around the city much faster. Shopping - Bogota is a great place to shop, you can buy typical colombian things, you can buy jewerelly from tradiational colombian pendents with pre colombian figures, to emeralds and dimonds. For clothes shopping i recommend a place called San Anderisto - IT sells fashionable clothes, along with Toys, Jewerelly, Bed Linen ect ect... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Amazing cuisine; coffee; very, very cheap; locals are charming and helpful
Disadvantages: Kidnapping. Like the Sword of Damocles, a pall of fear hangs over everyone. Beggars/prostitutes. Oppressive humidity in Buenaventura.

...Columbia has recently been rated the 3rd most dangerous place in the world, and I can believe this, but the situation is not so cut-and-dried. The biggest and only real problem is the kidnapping. According to locals I met in 3 cities, the cartels will kidnap you no matter who or what you are. If you look (in their eyes) American (Gringo) i.e. Anglo-Saxon, then you are the highest risk group, because by definition, you have more money. I come from a Lancashire Irish Catholic family, and my appearance is textbook Anglo-Saxon. But it doesn't really matter - if you are worth a million dollars or just one, if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, you will be kidnapped. I arrived in Bogota in late July. A tropical country, I thought, better not take a heavy jacket. Well, Bogota is half-way up a mountain, so it is pretty cold... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful