mapquest in colombia

adrimm says on May 31, 2008, 16:04:

Googlemaps has Colombian maps, but they haven't perfected an address-finder. If you know the street or a major location then it can find it.

ie. Parque Simón Bolívar, Bogotá, Colombia

The District of Bogota has an address-finder on their website.

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adrimm says on May 31, 2008, 16:08:

Here it is:

http://www.bogota.gov.co/mad/buscador.php

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expatriate says on May 31, 2008, 16:29:

After four years of living in Cali, and have never been able to see or buy a city map, the best way to get to your destination is to tell the address to a taxi driver.

If you are young, skilled, and intelligent, you might want to seriously consider leaving the US now, while you still can.

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ColombianoGringo (Moderator) says on May 31, 2008, 16:39:

Here are a few.

http://mapas.com.co/visor2007/colombia.visor/visor.jsp

This one is worldwide but has many Colombian cities. Just select Colombia from the menu and type the city you want.
http://world.maporama.com

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Lchiwawa says on Jun 2, 2008, 01:05:

this is really useful. now what i really need is some site where you can enter your destination and it'll tell you which bus to take. anyone know if that exists?

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mariacvetanoski says on Jun 2, 2008, 04:20:

thanks..

Save the street children of Colombia Now!!

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adrimm says on Jun 2, 2008, 09:12:

Lchiwawa, do you mean between cities or between specific locations within a city?

edit: http://www.surumbo.com/ This is the TransMilenio trip planner, first click on the station you will be starting at , then click your destination station, it will give you a list of ways to get there. The fastest TransMilenio buses are the ones with double digit names Ie. H24 rather than single digit names H7.

If you are talking about other cities or routes that the stink-bus operators run then good luck - it is too fragmented o be coordinated into a website.

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chester says on Jun 2, 2008, 10:43:

downtown cali in the centralo market district has street vendors that sell good city maps with all the street and barrios.

just wander around and ask. should run around 20k to 30k as i recall.

picked up a couple trip last.

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ColombianoGringo (Moderator) says on Jun 2, 2008, 10:46:

I have never understood how anyone can get lost in Bogota. The vast majority of the city is made up of numbered "calles" and "carreras". Granted, there are the oddball "diagonales" and avenues like Circunvalar , etc that don't follow the grid system, but it is still easy to find your way to most places.

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romy says on Jun 2, 2008, 12:33:

CG- same with Cali... it also helps that you can tell the mountains are towards the west... sure I don't always know exactly where I am, but I know how to get to where I want to go.

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GregYohn says on Jun 2, 2008, 15:32:

Hola!

I use Google Earth and it is getting better. Now Cali is much more improved, and San Andres is FANTASTIC with it too!

12VOIP.com gives free calls to Colombia.Greg

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ColombianoGringo (Moderator) says on Jun 2, 2008, 15:38:

FYI, Of those two services I mentioned, Mapas.com.co has kind of a funky and slow interface, but it works better when needing to print a map.

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Lchiwawa says on Jun 2, 2008, 17:20:

yea, i meant regular ol' busetas. oh well.

i usually always get lost when the damn street numbers are nowhere to be found, which i find it to be often.

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webmanco says on Jun 2, 2008, 21:44:

ColombianoGringo

Cabdrivers do get lost in Bogotá, let alone a regular "cristiano" Sometimes addreses are not as easy, especially with the old and new Nomenclature.

...A yo, déjenme queto y no me jodan má! ...

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adrimm says on Jun 2, 2008, 22:11:

I have been in a lost cab at the worst possible time. A few years ago I went to Bogota to surprise my relatives & mother at a family reunion - first trip to Colombia totally on my own, hadn't been there in 10 years.. they had just finished changing the addresses. I had managed to squeeze 6 days away out of my boss. Yes I was nervous as hell. Anyhow after a few days of travelling and seeing stuff on my own I hopped a cab to the reunion.. there were 3 possible places with the right address... and we couldn't find it.

I was practically in tears thinking I had flown 1/3 of the way around the world, to get to the right city, only to be lost a few kilometers away.. and no one knew I was there.

Then magically about 45 minutes into the ride we were stopped trying to check addresses when I noticed one of my cousins (10 years older from when I had last seen her) getting out of a cab and going to the location. **thank god** people were trickling in all evening long. I wasn't being taken for a ride - the consensus around the the hall was that it was a difficult address!

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ColombianoGringo (Moderator) says on Jun 3, 2008, 08:39:

wm,

The only time I've seen a cab driver genuinely get lost was once going to the Bus Terminal in Bogota. The streets around there are a bit odd and the guy was obviously new at driving a cab. This was evidenced by the fact that he was not only grinding gears but also being courteous to pedestrians and other drivers.

I agree that it is possible to get a bit turned around a bit with the new versus old addresses, but it shouldn't take you more than a minute to snap to and figure it out. I haven't lived in Bogota since I was a kid yet I never get lost. A cab driver that gets lost is probably just trying to jack you for a bigger fare. On rare occasion, they try to pull that bullshit with me because my accent is a bit off Rolo, but I nip that nonsense in the bud quickly.

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webmanco says on Jun 3, 2008, 08:44:

Just as a test ask a honenst cab driver if he belives he could find hard to find addreses in Bogotá, and ocasionally get lost, by getting lost I mean once in the area it takes him15 or m or minutes to get the address, and I stand corrected because cab drivers usually work only some areas, some work only south others work only north.

7 out 10 cabdrivers would said yes you can get lost in Bogotá, with just the address, even when they tell you the neighboorhood you could get lost.

Yo nunca digo nunca. :-)

...A yo, déjenme queto y no me jodan má! ...

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adrimm says on Jun 4, 2008, 21:50:

Well my challenge was that I didn't know the name of the neighbourhood - I just had the street address - that and it was across town.

I also took a ride in Bucaramanga where the cabbie let me out about 2 minutes into the ride becuase he wasn't sure where the address was - that was dumb - I had already found it on a map.... (which he obvioiusly didn't have). It wasn't a bad area either.

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