travel in Colombia- Barranquilla- Cartagena

tompower says on Jan 17, 2008, 04:38:

dear russ,
You should call Marsol on arrival at airport and reserve a time for the van in next hour and take a taxi directly to their barranquilla office, its next door to a mcdonalds. If your spanish isn't good just write down their baranquilla office address and get a taxi to take you there once there you'll be able to make them understand you want to go to cartagena. i'm going to be in cartagena from sunday the 20th until feb 20th e-mail me if you need any help.

here is my old post on MarSol:

cartagena-barranquilla-santa marta Shuttle Van MAR SOl is a bus service that runs an hourly van service from cartagena to barranquilla then to santa marta.
They use mercedes benz vans that are all very new, they seat no more than 13 people. They are a very organized and an impressive service. What you do is call them give your name and number and where you are, my experience with them is only cartagena to barranquilla and return but I'm certain the service is excellent all the way to santa marta. If for example you are in the hotel dan carlton in the Laguito, you call and reserve your time for the next available bus they run every hour from 6am till 4 pm to barranquilla/santamarta. The van comes to your hotel and they go around cartagena picking everyone up then they stop at the cartagena office near the airport and then they leave on the costal highway to barranquilla when they arrive at barranquilla they drive a route around the city to drop people off, they dont go all the way south in barranquilla they'll drop you off at a point as far south as they go, in cartagena they won't go any farther from the center than pie de la popa (where the monastery on the hill is). If the van is leaving the cartagena office at 6 am they start picking people up at 5am if you call they'll say like be ready at 5:30 am . They always show up i've never been stiffed and i've used them dozens of times. Sometimes if the passangers are from all over cartagena they'll pick you up in a taxi and the taxi will take you to the office where you'll board the van before going to barranquilla.
Best of all it only costs 19,000 pesos and these guys know the highway they fly through the security and speed traps never longer than 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to barranquilla.
I know they're good because all the other van services try and steal their passengers. There's a home depot at the pie de la popa and sometimes when I'm waiting there for the mar sol van the caribe van(another service) will come by and say mar sol sent them for me and its bull shit. Mar Sol is great and a great price, why use a private car for 120,000 pesos they actually take longer sometimes.
Here's the numbers for the mar sol office in barranquilla:
3683272 3694228 3008083147 3135450004 3736425 3574265
their address is calle 93 # 47-13 their right up from the McDonald's
Here's the numbers for the Mar Sol office in Cartagena:
6564192 3008056659 their office address in cartagena is crespo cll. 70 no. 6a/120 When you walk out of the airport in cartagena theres a main street in crespo i don't know its name but you just walk one block to the right and their office is on the sea side of the street, once again walk directly out the airport to the main crespo road and turn right walk one block and you'll see the mar sol office on the right hand side.
The Mar Sol van service between Cartagena-Barranquilla-Santa Marta is Tom Power approved.
Remember, were all in this together.

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zed2283 says on Jan 17, 2008, 04:38:

You can probably grab a taxi from the airport to the bus terminal. I rode a bus from Barranquilla to Santa Marta once and it was pretty nice.

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zed2283 says on Jan 17, 2008, 04:42:

I mean... what he said! I took a shuttle to Cartagena once also, but I think it was on Brasilia? Anyway, Tom's advice is sound. Take a taxi directly to the office.

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marbape says on Jan 17, 2008, 13:39:

hola soy barranquillera, te puedo recomendar un gran hotel en barranquilla su nombre es: Hotel american golf, es un hotel 4 estrellas, es excelente hotel, esta ubicado al norte de la ciudad, te lo recomiendo con toda confianza, la el costo por noche es economico es de excelente calidad, es seguro por que mi esposo es americano y durante 3 anos se hospedo alli , siempre que iba a Barranquilla a visitarme. En el hotel preguntas por Lays es la chica encargada de reservaciones, este hotel trabaja con una empresa de transporte interdepartamental que te puede llevar a cartagena o santamarta con toda confianza el nombre de dicha empresa es: Vanexpress, el transporte te recoge en la puerta de este hotel y te lleva hasta la puerta de tu destino y te recoge nuevamente para traerte de regreso a Barranquilla al hotel, tiene costo por persona ida y regreso de $25 dolares. Ok no te preocupes cuando llegues a Barranquilla no hay problema es una ciudad segura, si deseas retirar dinero en efectivo de un cajero hazlo en el Citi Bank, este banco esta ubicado en la carrera 53 con calle 74 es seguro esta siempre vigilado las 24 horas, puedes retirar a cualquier hora, en esta direccion se encuentran muchos lugares como Hotel el prado, artesanias, supermercado carulla es como el Publix de aqui de Acworth, de restaurantes muy buenos, buenos de barranquilla se encuentran los siguientes: los trigales, pollos arana, el merendero, Nena lela, la bonga del sinu, pizzeria parmesana "la caprichosa" y hay una pizza exquisita te la recomiendo con confianza su nombre es: PIZZA MILANO, puedes visitar, centro comercial: Buenavista, homecenter, villacountry, la catedral de Barranquilla. En cartagena puedes ir al restaurante la olla cartagenera en bocagrande es excelente tiene buen precio. ahhh si necesitas traducir todo esta informacion visita www.babelfish.com

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