I'm looking for a spanish school, beaches, Salsa and rockclimbing

Crazy4Cali says on Jan 7, 2005, 06:51:

I don't know about Colombia ...but I do know you can find places like this in Costa Rica. Google on "Playa Flamingo" and you should find something.

Hay muchas colombianas y colombianos (depende en tu preferencia) en Costa Rica tambien, si quieres conocer la gente.

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Desideria (Moderator) (Trustee board) says on Jan 7, 2005, 09:07:

if you still in spite of everything travel to Cali keep in touch, I might be able to provide you a reasonable-priced homestay type of living accomodations by that time.
Crazy4 is right though, you won't be able to do much rock-climbing inthe Farallones de Cali, since the rainforested mountainsides are crawling with guerrillas. The beaches are a better bet; there's fairly nice beaches on the Pacific not too far away (Ladrilleros and Juanchaco can be reached by boat from Buenaventura) or a little further away in Bahía Solano with whale watching. Photography is always rewarding in that area; salsa dancing the best in Colombia in Juanchito, Cali. For studying Spanish you couldn't have picked a better city: the sweet, unstrained, neutral local dialect of the valluno is a joy to listen to.
Cheers,
Desi

"When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"(First Witch in Macbeth)

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FrankLeal says on Jan 7, 2005, 22:35:

The best and cheaper place for Spanish classes is Bucaramanga Hi Salsero!

I'm writing you from Bucaramanga a city between Bogotá and Cartagena; Bucaramanga is 35 minutes away from Bogotá by plane and 9 hours by car. I am an English teacher at Centro Colombo Americano a renowned institution in Colombia. I offer you a very cheap plan to learn Spanish during the time you desire; it could be one, two, weeks or as you maybe want two months.

I can offer you 25 hours of Spanish lessons weekly. The price is $300,000 (Colombian pesos)/week. In total a 4 weeks course (100 hours) will be $1,200,000 COP. Lessons are normally given 2 hours in the morning and 3 in the afternoon, Monday to Friday, but anyway the schedule is all up to you. These are values in Colombian pesos (the official rate change is at this moment 1USD = 2379 Colombian pesos (COP):

Why do I recommend people taking a Spanish course in Bucaramanga rather than Bogotá or Cali?
- Bucaramanga is much safer
- Transport, food and everything is cheaper in Bucaramanga
- The city with its surrounding places has a population that is less than a million people, very different to Bogotá that is about 8million people. This means shorter distances in Bucaramanga.
- You are going to find more friendly people in a small city.
- Bucaramanga is 1000 meters above sea level and for this reason the city is hot all over the year

The lessons are one to one and are given by young people who have a good English knowledge (et Français aussi si tu a besoin de qqn qui parle Français) and even some of them are students finishing their careers in education and some others are professionals in other areas.

Near Bucaramanga there are many beautiful and more important safe places for practice of X-treme sports (e.g. rockclimbing, rappelling, rafting, paragliding, etc) or you could during weekends visit beautiful colonial towns. There are also some dancing academies where you can start at any moment of the year tropical music dancing lessons including salsa, of course.

Lodging is not going to be a problem, I can help you get a good priced accommodation within a friendly family.

Please take a look at what Robert (Roberto99) said about Bucaramanga, the Spanish lessons and my family (he was our guest last September here): http://www.poorbuthappy.com/colombia/node/4781

Sincerely what I recommend you is to come here during 6 weeks and then you could go to visit Cartagena and Santa Marta and finish in the Cali fair the last week of the year.

For further questions do not hesitate to contact me at franklealt at yahoo.com.ar

Best regards,

Francisco Leal

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