Q & A Fridays. Marcela advises Jack and Jill about one of Colombia’s hidden destinations :Santander.

Hi All,

Marcela here!, some of you may  already know me from  my  Marcela’s Colombia Travel Blog. Today  I’m very happy to officially post my first entry on See Colombia Travel’s collaborative blog joining Ryan, JL, Andrew and Paul in their quest to tell the world about the wonders of our beloved Colombia.  As we are convinced there is strength in numbers we encourage all of you, readers that have something to share about Colombia, to get in touch with us and take part in our effort with your comments and guest entries about your Colombian experience.

Thanks to my blog, and much to my own surprise, in the last couple of years I have become a prolific member of the online community, promoting Colombia whenever I can and, on platforms such as Trip Advisor, helping people with their questions about my native country. This, of course, means I get a lot of questions fired at me and we thought it would be a good idea if every Friday we tackled some of the most popular questions I get.

Today’s question comes from Jack and Jill who are the proud owners of a delightful, humorous travel blog that charts their traveling adventures (they are currently in Colombia) . As yet, neither of them have fallen and broken their crown in but they have (almost) both eaten ants. You can find their blog here.

Jack and Jill where about to head south from the Colombian Caribbean and were curious as to how nice the Santander area was. Santander is a very well known destination among locals because it has the most beautiful little town in Colombia (Barichara) , the best natural scenario for extreme adventures and some of the best food in Colombia , but is not very well known in the international tourism circuit. So I was very happy to help them with some insider’s advice and tips.

The initial question was about taking a night bus from Cartagena to San Gil at night. There are obviously a few safety concerns involved, and the logistics are hard to plan online.  Here’s what I told them:

Night buses are fine in routes like Bogota – Medellin, Bogota- Armenia (coffee Triangle), Bogota – Bucaramanga but that specific route you want to do, i.e. Cartagena – San Gil, I wouldn’t do it by night.

During the day should be OK security wise but is a veeeeryyyyy long and wavy route.

About two years ago I drove for about a month throughout Colombia and did that route but from San Gil to Bucaramanga…. The scenery is unreal and you’ll go through EVERY climate on earth, even reaching temperatures of 40+ centigrade but the road is tough even if you are “trained”.

There is an affordable airline called Aires that flies from Cartagena to Bucaramanga or you can take the bus but please during the day.

Either way, I would advise you to:

1.       Take a day bus or fly from Cartagena to Bucaramanga

2.       From Bucaramanga take a local bus to La Mesa de los Santos. From there you can enter the Panachi (Parque Natural Chicamocha) from where you’ll get the most amazing views of the Chicamocha valley and eat amazing local food

3.       From there take the cable car that in 30min will take you across the valley saving you about 4 hours of driving from Bucaramanga to San Gil

4.       Leaving the park you can take a local bus or van that will cost no more than 10mil pesos. They leave the park entrance regularly and will take you to San Gil in about 1 hour.

I can think of a million other things to tell you but I suppose it would be easier if you ask first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack and Jill got back to me shortly wondering if it was worth spending 2 nights in Los Santos.

La Mesa de los Santos is beautiful but you’ll have more activity options if you stay in San Gil which is not as beautiful but is perfectly located to go everywhere.

 

Now, places you have to go and things you must do when in San Gil, Santander:

 

• Visit Juan Cury waterfalls
• Rafting. It is a lot of fun even if you are not an expert. You can swim in the river!
• Rappel in Pinchote
• Visit Barichara and Guane (a must)
• You can do a two hour walk from Barichara to Guane through a colonial road…fab!

 

All this places are about 20 to 30 min away from San Gil and a couple of hours from La Mesa de los Santos.  Staying in San Gil is also cheaper than anywhere else.

 

We stayed at http://www.hotelveranosangil.com/ which is very well located, has nice views over the river and the restaurant is good value for money.

So there you go. Any more questions please feel free to get in touch with Marcela at the comments and we’ll do our best to answer it here on our Colombia Travel Blog.

Jack and Jill, disfruten and keep surprising us with your adventures!

Marcela