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frankg69 wrote:

Could somebody tell me if Popayan and the Cauca are pretty safe? I couldnt find any statistics on numbeo.com or OSAC.... Any personal experiences?

I spent a week in Popayán last month and found it safe with adequate police presence.

However, about 20 miles south of the city during a late-night rainstorm, my car was viciously attacked on the Panamericana by two men on a motorcycle, throwing rocks at my rear windshield.Ìý They destroyed the windshield, which was later replaced in Popayán.

I suspect they wanted to rob me or kidnap me.Ìý They used the slow-driving conditions to ‘box me in’ between their moto and a slow-moving truck in front of me.

With the windshield gone, one more rock could have done me in .. so I stepped on the gas, passed the slow truck and tried to outrun the attackers into Popayán.

I was lucky to survive the attack.Ìý On the slick road, my car spun out and almost crashed into a hillside, prompting the maniacs to flee the scene.

cccmedia from La Zona Cafetera

laceja wrote:

You might very well be attacked, especially by men on motorcycles at night, in just about any remote area of Colombia.Ìý It's common for them to fake car or motorcycle trouble to get you to stop.Ìý Then they will rob you at gun point.... Also, if they're under age, there will be no punishment at all.

Good for you, Laceja, for standing up and telling a truth.Ìý Nobody in Popayán, including the national police, admitted to ever having heard of such an attack in this é±è´Ç³¦²¹.

Your tips about fake car or motorcycle trouble and no punishment for minors are important to know about.

I suspect the moto-attackers I encountered wanted me to pull over and stop.Ìý They were screaming at me -- the screams clearly audible through the back of my car once the windshield disintegrated into shards of glass.Ìý I didn’t see any possible advantage in stopping, just the opposite.

cccmedia in La Zona

jimbob7216 wrote:

Is it possible to rent a furnished appartment or small house
on a weekly or monthly basis?

has houses, apartments and rooms at rates typically well below Expat-standard hotel-room rates.Ìý Weekly and monthly discounts are typically posted on many offerings.Ìý This week I saw monthly discounts of 41-53 percent on some listings in Colombia at that site.

cccmedia in La Zona Cafetera

jimbob7216 wrote:

Thank you for your helpful responses. One more
question, which is an important one; how can I
be sure that the area where I am renting is in a
safe area?
Thank you again,
Jim

All you can do is ask people's opinions, and do your research - and there are still no guarantees - not even if you never go outside of your conjunto cerrado.Ìý How can I be sure I won't be hit by a car tomorrow?Ìý Well, I guess I could stay home, inside.Ìý But then how can I be sure the roof won't fall in on me?Ìý I can't - a storm or a tornado could destroy my house.

You can be literally anywhere and there are no guarantees that you will be untouched by crime or some kind of disaster.Ìý You must ask people but still realize you could be a victim of crime - use your common sense, however - odds are you are less subject to crime in Medellín than in Bogotá depending on the area, and less subject to crime in Dapa than in Cali, and less chance of being a victim in Rionegro than Medellín, etc. etc.

laceja wrote:

I was shocked to discover much of the mountain side areas, with the great views of the city below, are NOT safe at all.Ìý In fact, many are deadly.Ìý An exception would be Poblado, which is pretty safe and expensive.

I pretty much ignored the warnings from the US Embassy and settled on, what was then, a small rural town.Ìý I was warned it wasn't the safest place but discovered La Ceja to be quite safe and secure.

....doing those drugs in a public area, like on a street corner or park, is the equivalent of a traffic violation and subject to a $170,000 fine.Ìý A couple of those folks have been caught in the park across the street from us and fined.Ìý Result, no more "drogos" in this area.

....in Colombia, you do not have the automatic right to defend yourself or your property with lethal force.Ìý If someone breaks into your house while you are there, you cannot legally shoot them, unless they shoot you first.Ìý If you do, you will likely spend many years in a Colombian penitentiary.

Kudos to poster La Ceja -- the eyebrow Ìý

This is the kind of thoughtful, balanced, experience-based post that makes the Colombia forum better and more useful.

A few comments....

La Ceja calls El Poblado an out-of-the-ordinary hillside area in that it is low-crime.Ìý I agree that it's safer there, in fact much safer than most elevated areas, but I do not consider it a hillside area.Ìý It's way down in the basin of the Aburrá Valley and, from the main drag (Avenida Poblado), you look upward at the far-more-dangerous favelas that most new arrivals would not find to be Expat-friendly.

La Ceja implies that the U.S. State Department has warned folks away from the pueblo of La Ceja, Colombia.Ìý From my reading, the State Department has warned folks to avoid unpopulated rural areas of southern Colombia.Ìý However, unless poster La Ceja can demonstrate otherwise, I assert that the State Department has not been warning people away from towns near Medellín in recent years -- La Ceja, Colombia, for example.

Poster La Ceja says that some people who used drugs in public were subject to fines of $170,000.Ìý Most of us familiar with Colombia know that he means 170,000 Colombian pesos, not US dollars.Ìý Writing on a public forum, it's appropriate to clearly distinguish which currency we are writing about.Ìý 170,000 pesos is about $55 U.S. at today's exchange rate.

The comments about defending yourself in your home with lethal force .. are especially timely.Ìý Inside a residence in Oklahoma this week, the youthful son of the homeowner cut down three teenage would-be robbers with an automatic weapon.Ìý The perpetrators all died.Ìý They were carrying a total of one set of brass knuckles and one knife among them.Ìý

The homeowner's son has not been charged with a crime as of today.Ìý By some reports, he had gone into "shock" when he realized his home was about to be robbed by three youths .. and reached for the deadly weapon.Ìý Legal analysts point out that he may have acted lawfully under Oklahoma's "Make My Day" law.

cccmedia in La Zone Cafetera

laceja wrote:

The USD has fluctuated between about 1600 to 3200 COPs to the USD....

Today, $170,000 COP's is actually about $60 but, tomorrow, who knows.

It only takes a few seconds to find the COP to USD exchange rate.Ìý ÌýA couple of timesÌý a week, I Google convert 1 usd to cop in the address-bar atop any web page .. and the rate is instantly shown on a multi-year conversion chart when I hit Enter.

Yes, the rate was 1 USD = about 1,600 COP, but that was years ago.

If you look at the chart, you will immediately see that the rate has been extremely steady for a full year -- channeling between 1 USD to 2850 COP and 1 USD to 3100 COP .. with few outlier days.

Today the rate is at 2875 COP to the dollar.

Here in Coffee Country, the difference between the old rate at 1600 and the more recent rate means that a new condo apartment that may have cost over $30,000 US several years ago .. can now be purchased for under $20,000.Ìý

Of course, such 20K deals are not available in Expat-standard neighborhoods in pricier Medellín.Ìý

cccmedia in La Zona

laceja wrote:

Since Colombia is generally safe, it was much easier to point out the areas that are unsafe and also point out the US Embassy views the security in Colombia through a distorted lens.

I just checked the U.S. State Department's travel.state.gov Travel Warnings page for Colombia.

The State Department is maintaining restrictions against U.S. government personnel traveling on most Colombia roads, whether by car or bus.

The safe areas are roads here in the Coffee Zone departments of Quindío, Risaralda and Caldas .. and on Route 90 along the Colombian coast from Cartagena to Santa Marta.

For all other travel, the U.S. government personnel go by air when doing intercity travel anywhere in Colombia.

Based on my personal experience, I think this an excellent example to follow.Ìý In December (2016), when heavy rains delayed my car travel heading northward in southern Colombia south of Popayán, two ³¾²¹²Ôí²¹³¦´Ç²õ on a motorcycle terrorized me in a rainstorm, throwing rocks at my Chevy Sail -- destroying the rear windshield.Ìý The delincuentes continued to pursue for a while .. and I was lucky to get out of the situation uninjured.

The ex-FARC's and former cartel soldiers were marginalized out of the cities a decade ago.Ìý Driving within COL cities is much safer these days.

It's traveling on roads in rural areas, especially at night, that remains problematic in this respect IMO.

cccmedia in La Zona