I'm staying in an apartment in Chapinero from Thu-Mon and the owner's giving me the 3rd degree over guests. He wants me to send him the IDs now of any potential guests. **** that. I'll have them show their cédula to the front desk or whatever, but sending it in advance is ridiculous. Wish I could cancel the reservation and tell him to **** off. If a single guy is staying in your apartment for a long weekend there's a decent chance they're probably gonna be bringing someone back. If you don't like it, then put in your profile "absolutely no guests" and see how much business you get.

Is the PLO at Luckia still technically "Dealer's Choice"? I played there a good bit last year, and it was about 95% PLO, with the occasional Pineapple hand. It also ran at odd times; often it was dead on a Saturday, and packed during the week.

If you're bored on a Tuesday, there's a bar a few steps from there (Vintrash) that has a language exchange, and it's ridic easy to chat up women there, with the added plus that they can't fool you with camera angles.

Haven't seen any dealer's choice at all. I went M Tu W and PLO 5k/5k was running until about 2AM each night. Last night even had a full 9-man table at 1AM on a Wednesday. I ended up leaving early b/c I find it kinda boring when it's full. A lot more fun when it's 4-handed and you can raise every hand and a couple guys at the table are playing like 80/5 and only ever 3-betting AA.

Yah I've heard about Gringo Tuesday's, might give it a shot next Tuesday.

Fossil how safe do you feel there? I'd be worried about playing cash games ... being a gringo must make you a mark and you're walking out of casinos late at night with a good amount of cash on you. Curious how it is ...

I had a place in Zona T about a 3 minute walk from the casino and Zona T is usually heavily patrolled by cops so I don't feel too uneasy walking home. Anything longer than that and I'd probably be taking an Uber home 100% of the time.

In general I've felt pretty safe. I'd say it's more sketchy than México, but so far nothing too bad.

Luckily I've been able to mitigate this problem by running poorly all 3 days.

IMO, if you're reasonably vigilant and stick to the nicer areas (Zona T, Parque 93, Rosales, etc) you don't have much to worry about. I had a guy follow me down a street once, but I'm pretty sure he was just trying to sell me drugs. One of my classmates had a knife pulled on him and his friend by a crackhead, but they just ran the other way. Another guy had his phone snatched on a bus, but lol @ riding the bus when Uber is $2-3.

thx for the replies Fossil and GI. really enjoy hearing about your travels Fossil. best of luck with the ladies!

Guy, yah that area you mentioned seems fine. I don't really drink much so I think not being out super late limits a lot of my potential troubles.

I just moved from my place in Zona T to Chapinero for a couple days. So I'll be able to check out an area that's slightly more dangerous.

The girl I met last Saturday and hooked up with within an hour of meeting is spending the night tomorrow. Had a date tonight, but she flaked. Said she had a job interview that would run long. Seems like a lame excuse so I doubt I'll give her another chance. Have a 1st meet set up for Saturday afternoon then next week 2 girls that I really clicked with, but were vacationing when I arrived return to Bogotá, so I'm hoping to meet them. Also the girl on the far left in post #39 arrives in a week. She's a Dominican girl that's visiting for 10 days.

I'll have at least 10 more days in Bogotá. Debating if I'll give it another week or 2 after that, or just head to Medellín.

TY liga, glad some people are finding it entertaining.

Honestly, Colombia is not really that dangerous for a tourist. I spent eight months there in total across a number of cities and never even experienced so much as an incidence of petty crime, despite staying in some questionable areas like El Centro in Medellin, and even venturing out on foot at night from time to time. Obviously it's not a utopia and there is crime but over all I think it's a very safe country.

Fossilkid,

How'd the NLHE games look while you were playing PLO? Same amount of tables? Stakes?

Thx

TBH I didn't pay too much attention. There were usually 2-3 NLHE and 1-2 PLO running. At least 1-2 of the NLHE tables seemed to be playing quite small. The whole room only has like 9 tables. From overhearing stories at the tables it sounds like Medellín gets the much higher stakes action.

Usually luckia runs a couple tables of 1k/2k and a game of 2k/5k. I think 5k/5k runs as well. The 2k/5k is relatively nitty. You can also find 1k/2k in a few other parts of town, and Casino New York in downtown in Centro Comercial Calima runs 1k/2k and 2k/5k and 5k/5k as well, although that is just during busy times and they have this stupid rule where you have to take all your chips from higher stakes games with you when the game breaks and you go to play a lower stake game.


Also another casino has poker, also in a mall, i think centro comercial grand estacion. they had I think one table 1k/2k and one table 2k/5k.

Flake rate is out of control. I was supposed to meet up with 8 girls...3 showed up. 2 bangs out of it though, including 1 who was just amazing in the sack, so passionate and insatiable.

I'm ready to get to Medellin, but I decided to wait until the 10th b/c there were 2 girls who were out of town when I got here and are finally back that I wanted to meet. They'll probably flake so I think I should have just left earlier.

Poker stats for the month:
Live PLO at Luckia: 0 winning sessions out of 5
Online PLO (in way harder games): 18 winning out of 21

So go figure. Was kinda fun playing live, but I felt like it was like 99th %ile run bad out there so I just gave up. Rake might be a bigger factor than I think, but it isn't all that bad and games seem like they should be beatable. Like there was maybe 1 guy out of everyone I played that I think might be breakeven in my online games. By far the most common type is the massive station with a sprinkle of drunk gamboolers.

Very interesting thread, thanks Fossil!
If I could play Pokerstars in Colombia it would be a no-brainer

Your Spanish is getting better now? How would be a dating scene with almost zero Spanish?

My Spanish is decent. I feel like I can express myself well, but sometimes I don't understand a whole lot if the girl speaks really fast or has a non-standard accent. I can spend a day with a girl speaking Spanish and usually it goes smooth enough unless we go to a loud place.

You would be limited, but depending on your focus it could still be ok dating here in English. 2 of the girls I've talked to recently have great English. They are both well traveled, cultured, and have solid jobs. But they seem more like LTR girls. If you want to meet the type of gringo hunter girls that will quickly sleep with you, then they will probably have little English.

Flight booked to Medellín for 12/10 and I'm pretty stoked. The cold and rain is starting to wear on me here, 3 of my 4 apartments have been cold as **** and I don't like cold.

A couple pics from Monserrate with nice views of Bogotá since it's one of the few really cool things to do here:

taxi into town from the medellin airport was a flat rate of 60,000 last time I was there, it should be posted anyway. it's not like bogota it's an hour drive from outside the city down a mountain.

Yah, think I read 65 or 70 somewhere.

Spent way too long in Bogotá, finally leaving on Monday.

Found an enterprising young lady who offers airport pickup and extras to pick me up in Medellín.

Tinder blows in Medellín. There must be way too many gringos just passing through for sex/drugs who have ruined the reputation of white guys. CDMX is 10x better and Bogotá is better as well. Guess I'll have to suck it up and try to meet a couple girls in yoga classes or while walking around.

I still have about 9 weeks left in the trip and I'm thinking about including Perú for the last 2-3 weeks b/c I found a cheap non-stop from Bogotá to Lima and then a cheap nonstop back to CDMX. I will obv do Lima and Cusco, but also thinking about including Iquitos and doing this jungle tour I found online that looks badass. Not sure which shots to take though to avoid getting super sick or malaria or whatever.

Tentative plan is:
8 days Medellín
3-4 days Eje Cafetero
2 weeks Cartagena/Santa Marta/Tayrona
3 weeks Perú

Thinking about including:
San Andrés, Guajira, Bucaramanga, Cali

Maybe I'll just bump up Perú to 4-5 weeks

I wanted to go to Ecuador, but there's no cheap nonstop flight from Quito to Lima or CDMX, so logistically it doesn't work out and would bump up the prices too much. It doesn't seem cool enough to warrant paying like $400 for a Quito to Lima flight.

Decided I'm gonna go back to CDMX to live permanently (or at least for a long time) on Feb. 15. Bogotá is a huge step down for me compared to CDMX for a myriad of reasons.

well if u strike out on Tinder there is always the El Centro casas. best 35,000 pesos u ever spent

Might do it once for the novelty of it all. During the day of course.

So far I'm having a much better time in Medellín. It's not necessarily a great city for hookup apps, but I almost feel like a part of the community already.

I matched with a Belgian girl on Tinder who invited me to a speed dating event on Saturday. I met with an Argentine girl today who lives in a house with a couple people from different countries and told me about a barrio tour on Thursday and a language exchange event on Friday. The girl who picked me up from the airport last night is gonna give me a tour of the Christmas lights on Thursday night for like $15 and has a car (would probably cost me more just to Uber both directions). So it feels like once you get a foot in the door, there are tons of possibilities to meet people and do stuff. I have a couple pics of the girl from last night, but don't think I can post them b/c they're a little too NSFW.

I'm in Poblado, and it's kinda cool, but feels a bit isolated and not very walkable. I'm definitely not one of those gringos who would just hang out in Poblado 24/7, I'd rather be around Colombians. I visited the Argentine girl in Envigado and that seems like it'd be a cool place to live. I move apartments to Laureles on Thursday and I think it will be a better fit for me. The neighbourhoods do seem more interesting here and it's easier to get around with the metro. Bogotá just seems like a city with no identity, less friendly, and a couple cool areas but super spread out and takes forever to navigate.

You should hit up Casino San Fernando for some live poker while you are still in El Poblado. They have some massive malls in El Poblado as well that are decent for a stroll and grab some lunch.

Yah, I checked out Santa Fé already and I'm close to El Tesoro so will probably go there tomorrow.

Live poker went so ****ty that it almost completely killed my desire to keep playing. I played 5 sessions at Luckia and lost all 5. Not that the games were even that tough or that I was playing badly, but PLO variance can be a ***** sometimes. But yah, the action is probably way better at San Fernando so maybe I should check it out.

u still grinding the 1/2 games on chico buddy?

.25/.50 up to 1/2 when I have time, which is far less while traveling Colombia.