My girlfriend wants to do a long weekend trip next month. The first idea was to go to Costa Rica, but she has since mentioned that she’d like to go to Columbia instead. Part of the reason she wants to go there is to shop for an emerald. She’s done some reading and said that it seems that Bogota is the place to do this. I recall that there used to be a lot of kidnapping and other scary stories coming out of there, but am not sure what it’s like nowadays. I looked at the State department travel advisory and it didn’t sound too bad. The comments on Tripadvisor and virtualtourist don’t seem too scary; however, the tips also don’t necessarily make it sound like there’s much to do.
Does anyone know how safe it currently is? Is there anything else in the area worth doing/seeing? Any tips on emerald shopping?
First tip, the name of the country is Colombia, not Columbia.
I have not been to Bogota, but I have spent about 5 months in Cartagena.
I almost always felt safe, but I was the victim of a pickpocket that took my cellphone, and of a taxi driver that tried to drive off with my luggage in his car.
If you like beef, you should really enjoy the food.
I went to Colombia last spring for a week. It was a great trip! I didn’t spent much time in Bogota, so I can’t comment too much on the city as a travel destination. I definitely didn’t go emerald shopping. We visited a very nice archaeological museum, which was enjoyable.
If you’re not hanging out in the jungles, you’re not in any danger from the guerillas. In fact, everywhere I went in Colombia, you’d be hard-pressed to tell there’s a civil war going on. Everything seemed safe and orderly. Lonely Planet assured me that kidnappers usually target other Colombians because they’re more likely to have kidnapping insurance. The FARC doesn’t bother with ordinary tourists because they aren’t useful for ransom purposes. I certainly felt safe the whole time I was there.
One thing to know is that Colombians generally do not speak English, so if you can’t get by in Spanish, you’re gonna have some problems. I only heard one guy speak English the entire week, and that was in Cartagena, which I would assume has the largest international tourist crowd.
eta: one thing I learned after my trip is that Colombia is famous in the Spanish-speaking world for its clear and beautiful Spanish. My own Spanish was pretty rusty (it was great when I was in Spanish 5 in 12th grade…in 1996) and I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to hold my own, but it was happily surprised by how easy communicating turned out to be.
In all seriousness, buy her a bottle of nice wine and rent Romancing the Stone to check off the adventure and romance part and then go to Costa Rica instead. Costa Rica is a nice little American friendly tourist destination. Colombia isn’t always that way from what I hear. People go there for travel of course but you are looking at two very different countries. If you just want a semi-exotic vacation that is safe, in the general region, you can’t beat Costa Rica. They speak lots of English and take American dollars there plus they are really nice. I have been to Costa Rica and I would go to Colombia but not for a weekend jewel shopping getaway with my girlfriend.