rfonteno has left 44 comments

rfonteno comments on what to do on a 8-hr layover in el dorado airport, bogota, colombia

No sympathy from me

I had to stay in the Bogota airport from 6 in the evening until 8 a.m. the next morning. The airport is basically closed at that time (virtually no-one in the building). I was upstairs near the little police station and I walked outside every now and then to smoke a cigarette. It was cold outside and I was not prepared for that since I live in Phoenix. Just sit down and read a book or something. You can go into the chapel on the upper level also .

rfonteno comments on New Barranquilla Website

Is that the "Plaza Hotel" in the photo as the tallest building in Barranquilla?

rfonteno comments on New Barranquilla Website

I miss Barranquilla
after seeing those photos of Barranquilla, I sure do miss it. Although my ex-fiance lives in Soledad and she said that she was going to call the federal authorities of colombia to make sure that I could never return there to Colombia,(I doubt that she could do that) I do miss Barranquilla very much, and would love to return.

rfonteno comments on Lodging in Bogota? Dona Flor's Guest House!

I don't know why?

We stayed there last September and I believe that she was 35 dollars a night. It was a very nice place even though her free breakfast consisted of the same things every day. She is a very nice lady and her son is a hell of an artist also.

rfonteno comments on hotel reservation barranquilla

Good Luck
Barranquilla does not have that many hotels as it is for the size of the city. Look at the paginas amarillos (yellow pages) online and see if you can find something. From a personal experience, I would not reccomend the hotel dorado unless you do not mind having mice in your room.
Good Luck!

rfonteno comments on Colombia's tallest building is being built in Cartagena, but when are we going to have a real skyscraper?

Ha Ha lol

rfonteno comments on Colombia's tallest building is being built in Cartagena, but when are we going to have a real skyscraper?

Third Person

rfonteno comments on Colombia's tallest building is being built in Cartagena, but when are we going to have a real skyscraper?

Old Gringo?????
The manner in which you write looks very familiar. Did you happen to be a frequent poster on another discussion board under the name of "Blues" ?

rfonteno comments on My Colombian Girlfriend

Depends on where you live. There are four sectors of immigration that handle fiancee visas in the U.S. California region, Nebraska, Vermont and Texas. Texas and California are the two slowest regions in processing paperwork. Vermont is the fastest at about 30 to 45 day approval. If you intend to do the fiance visa, depending on where you live, start the procees about 6 months before you intend to bring her to the states if you live in the Vermont region. I filed for the visa in the california region and it took about 1 year to approve, schedule interview and grant the visa. If you go to cartagena with your girl, have plenty of photos taken of you and her in familiar places in Colombia because the case worker at the embassy in Bogota will ask to see them as proof of a genuine and sincere relationship. Good luck

rfonteno comments on Familia in Colombia always asking for money

WOW!
I have heard of people spending money to buy friends but to lose them?

rfonteno comments on What's the best city in Colombia?

I agree.
If the poster likes the ocean scene, then Santa Marta is the place to go. I appreciate how the folks of Barranquilla get ready for their famous carnival with the elephant head and the other carnival things that you will see all over the city but the hotels are full. Santa Marta is kind of a cool town that I visited but I have heard that the ELN group operates near the town of Santa Marta. If you go to Cartagena and you happen to meet someone of the opposite sex, they have a romantic horse drawn buggy that goes through the town and near the beach. Have fun!

rfonteno comments on Child Support Laws in Colombia 2 - Clarification please

Embassy
I live in the U.S. and I already petitioned the embassy in Bogota to reconsider the granting of the fiancee visa. They denied it (the petition that is) which means that if she had the money, she could come here to the U.S. and the visa would expire on March 3rd. For now, I will wait until March 3rd and I do know for a fact that she is still in Barranquilla. I guess that I will look in the mailbox constantly around the month of June to see if I do receive anything from an attorney.but for now, I will not send her any more money again. The point here is that i would be more than happy to take care of my responsibilities but I know that this woman has screwed me over in the past so many times that i truly am sceptical about the latest revelation. It's all about money to her. Always has been and always will be. She even had the balls to write in a recent letter that the money that i had been sending her every month for 10 months of our relationship did not cover her expenses. What an ungrateful bytch huh?

Yes I did break up with her before she came up with this pregnancy story and for reasons which I wrote about earlier.

rfonteno comments on What is your favorite destination: Bogota, Cali, Medellin, etc.......

I have only been to barranquilla, Cartagena, Santa marta and bogota. I liked Bogota the most but it does have that big city feel and the people seemed to be not as openly friendly. Cartagena is nice and I would like to go to medellin. Since I am an avid biker man, I was totally thrilled to visit the Harley Davidson shop in bogota and i bet that I am one of the few American men who has a Harley Davidson shirt from bogota. The wording on the shirt says, "Harley Davidson de Bogota, We Live Dangerously"

rfonteno comments on colombians and mexicans

Before I paid no attention
but here in arizona, a mexican will become angry if he is called a Guatemalan and I would be mad if someone called me a Greek when in fact I am Italian American

rfonteno comments on How much money should I have in the bank when sending a bank letter to my fiance?

lpdiver
you are correct. I was not in the military and I noticed some of states such as Hawaii required a higher income. the sum that I provided in the above earlier post was what my immigration attorney gave to me. there is a general guideline for income on us gov. visa website.

rfonteno comments on Child Support Laws in Colombia

Back in the U.S.
i am in Arizona currently. this is where I live. I do not plan to return to colombia. Until I know the outcome of this. It;s not like I ditched her. she pulled her b.S. after the Visa was granted thinking that since we had so much time, paperwork and money involved in this Visa, that I would never seperate with her.she thought that i would send her money again to correct the problem as I always did in the past. It was'nt until after I broke it off with her that she first wrote and mentioned a sperm egg stuck in the filopian tube, and she needed money and I denied her any funds because of past reasons. She now says through e-mail that it is a full term pregnancy.

rfonteno comments on Would like some feedback.

To Utopia Cowbuy
Then you are a lucky man and I hope that you would not think that I was implying anything different by my definition of a self sufficient Colombian woman.I was speaking in general So I was saying basically that your wife was looking for love and a good man and I believe that mine was also but, mine was also not being truthful with me about many things and I believe that if my ex was self sufficient, with a decent job, she would of not had a reason to join the "Barranquilla Beauties Agency". You indeed have a different story and I am happy for you.

rfonteno comments on How much money should I have in the bank when sending a bank letter to my fiance?

no Problem
I just completed the fiance visa back in September, the only guidelines for the financial responsibility is that you earn the minimum amount required by 125%. In other words if it is just you and your fiancee, I believe that the bar is a measly 18 thousand dollars with 25% added to that which would be a total of 22 thousand dollars. if she has kids the bar will increase and etc...etc...
E mail me at rfonteno665 at yahoo.com if you have any more questions relating to the visa process.

rfonteno comments on Colombian women have a big heart but they must become more aware

Immature??????????? I have been to Colombia 4 times and the first thing that caught my attention was the maturity that these younger women displayed while walking in the mall and the way that they carried themselves. Here in the U.S., you will see young women walking around together with the "hee hee hee" attitude staring at boys and etc... I think from what I saw is that many of these Colombian women are more mature than the American girls because of a different lifestyle. Here in the U.S., we take things for granted. In Colombia, you will see a beautiful Colombian woman all dressed up for work riding an ugly scooter and here in the states, most women of equal beauty would not settle for anything less than a nice camaro or something. Colombian women have to make good with what they have and the family comes first in most situations.
To give birth just to be able to stay in the U.S. is another different story though.

rfonteno comments on Would like some feedback.

Similar story
If you have read some of my posts on this site, you will see that we have much in common. my ex lived in Soledad outside of Barranquilla in a small apartment with 5 siblings in it and only one of them working.At first, she did not come straight out and ask me for money but she would say something like, her printer is broken and she has no way to copy my e-mails to be able to translate them to English or other similar scenarios in which if you do not help her financially, then she will not be able to keep in contact with you consistently.It was after we were engaged and I was doing the VISA process, that she outright asked me if I could send her money every 2 weeks. I agreed to every month and even tested her. I told her that I had an unexpected bill that came up and I could not send her the regular amount that I normally sent her and sure enough, she wrote back that the sum that i offered her was not enough to cover her expenses.That told me a lot. Ask her this question if you would? Ask her why she did not meet a colombian man to be with and I will almost guarantee that she will tell you that the Colombian men are unfaithful or that the women out number the men by a 4 to 1 ratio. That is an excuse for them because they want to get out of poverty.
don't get me wrong as there are many great Colombian women in Colombia and I met some of them but I chose to be with one in which I learned the hard way as time went on. A colombiana who has her own apartment and provides for herself will be less likely to marry a foreigner.
I don't know that they are ungrateful but I think that some of them believe that americanos are made of money. Also, if you marry a Colombiana, expect to marry her family. that's just the way that it is there. I hope that you had her sign a prenuptial?

rfonteno comments on Safety standards are not in Colombia. My toddler could have died

Caution
When you first arrive in Colombia and you are walking the streets in the city there will be 2 things that will appear strange. The first thing is that you will see 3 to 5 people on one motorcycle and number 2, the automobile has the right of way when you are trying to walk across a street and a car is turning in front of you. I learned these things about safety (lack of )in Colombia within a half an hour of my arrival. The railing at the malls do not surprise me. I still love Colombia though.

rfonteno comments on Child Support Laws in Colombia

First of all, she did not expect for me to break it off with her. She thought that I would send the money again. Her story about this alledged robbery seemed like such bullcrap. She wrote "2 men ascended on the bus with dark glasses and one man had a gun and the other had a knife. " "The man with the gun commandeered the bus driver to keep driving while the guy with the knife told everyone on the bus to put their belongings in a napsack. She said that the man with the gun shot a boy in the foot because the boy did not want to give up his cell phone. She also stressed that she stuggled with the robber with the knife because she did not want to give up the money because she knew it was for the plane ticket. I thought that her story was interesting enough to make the news but I could not find it anywhere.The women there wear their pants kind of tight (understatement) and she had the money in her purse?She should have put it in her pocket. Of course her ID and VISA along with the current airplane ticket that needed to have the departure date modified she left at her apartment It seemed that she just added too much unnecessary detail to convince me to believe her. The story had to be more elaborate than the 2 occasions prior that she lost or had money stolen from her that I had sent.Hey, if you get robbed you get robbed. She seemed to over apologize to try to get me to believe her story. I have ridden those buses also and I know that many people get on to try to sell you something but I never felt threatened in anyway. If she was concerned about carrying around that much money, she should have agreed to have me purchase the plane ticket by credit card. To make matters worse, she tries to blame me for everything

rfonteno comments on Child Support Laws in Colombia

Thanks for the advice, I know, my stupidity but I always tried to give her the benefit of the doubt.

rfonteno comments on Gringo Bobos ?

Bobos are located in every country and every race.

rfonteno comments on fiancee visa

Visa

I just returned from the visa process. I would like to add that if they grant you the visa, they will notify you at the embassy after the interview is completed. The doctor exam was 100 U.S. dollars, and then we had to pay a fee to the Banc of Colombia which is near the U.S. embassy.Make sure that you pay this fee a day or 2 in advance of your interview. The banks in bogota are different than in the states. The guard will be at the door and he will ask your fiance what her business is there at the bank. They would not even allow me to enter the bank. The cost of delivering the visa to my fiance was 44 thousand pesos and it took 21 days to deliver since she lives in Soledad. It takes 10 business days if the woman lives in Bogota. Hopefully you will get the older man at the embassy to interview your fianceas he was very nice and just looked at photos of me and my fiance together and asked her the location of which the photos were taken. The embassy process took about 4 hours and I would advise that you go to Bogota a couple of days earlier than the scheduled interview date to take care of the physical exams. Bogota is a congested city in the area of the doctor's office where the exam takes place. Good Luck

rfonteno comments on sending money with Western Union

Western Union I live in the States., but they charge 9 dollars for every hundred dollars sent approximately. The office should not charge a fee once the money arrives in Colombia.

rfonteno comments on final interview...

Interview
I just returned from my fiances interview which was held on September 3rd. The embassy gave us about 5 weeks notice before the date of the interview. I was surprised at how many people were waiting at the embassy in Bogota. If you go with your fiance, I can reccomend a little bed and breakfast type place that is within walking distance of the embassy and is also a safe neighborhood.
Also if you go, make sure that you go a couple of days in advance because you will have to have your fiance get her medical exam and then you will have to pay a bank 110 dollars and it will have to be in Pesos. The man at the window basically looked at many photos of me and my fiance together and asked a couple of questions. Also, if they grant the visa to your fiance, they will notify you that it is granted at the embassy but they will send the visa to your fiances residence and it takes between 10 to 21 days so do not buy a plane ticket for your fiance to return with you because you will not have a specific date.

As long as the relationship is genuine, you should have no problem in obtaining a Visa.

rfonteno comments on Colombia Hot dog Recipes wanted

Colombian Food

No offense to the great people of Colombia but the only food that I enjoyed when I was in Barranquilla was the seafood and rice. The places that I tried hamburgers and hot dogs were not very good. Onr of the places that I ate at was in the Buena Vista mall in the food court. Maybe there are some places that serve up a good hamburger or a hot dog, but eveidently I did not find them. Rodizios is a good place to eat at in Barranquilla also.

rfonteno comments on more visa questions the visa buffs

Visa Time
My process was approved by the California immigration center on April 16th. They sent the petition to New Hampshire and the embassy in Bogota contacted my fiance on the date of May 22nd. My fiance turned in her paperwork and the embassy in Bogota sent me a letter on August 1st saying that the interview would be held on September 3rd. I will depart tomorrow to go to Barranquilla and then my fiance and I will go to bogota.

I bought her a round trip ticket to return home with me to the states but after I read the posts about the visa being turned in to the consulate and 7 to 10 day waiting period, I am not sure if she will be able to return with me.
Even though I have known her for over a year, and I have been to Colombia 3 different times in the past year to be with her, I have been thinking that she has been telling me some lies and maybe it would be better if this engagement does not work out. I have been sending her 225 dollars a month to help her with her expenses but she at times has come up with I believe to be other excuses for me to send her more money. Today when she e-mailed me, she wrote that someone broke into her house while her and her family were sleeping and stole her younger brothers clothes and she also wrote that this robber stole her book about learning how to knit. The thing is she requested money a few months ago from me, so that she could buy these books on learning how to knit.
The truth is that she probably never bought this book in the first place.If she did have this book, why would someone steal it? Also the timing in being that this supposedly happened 2 days before I am to arrive there. In addition to this, she asked me for money to take English classes and she never took the classes, and another time, she asked me for 275 dollars to help with a down payment on a house that she never moved into. As a matter of fact she never brought the subject up again until I mentioned it to her.
Anyway, sorry to ramble on but I hope that all is good with you guys and your ladies are sincere over there in Colombia.

rfonteno comments on Am I Crazy??

You are not crazy
I am a gringo of Italian heritage, born in Phoenix, Arizona and I have been to Colombia 4 times in the last year. If I had a job earning the equivalent in Colombia as I earn here in the states, I would move there in a heart beat.

rfonteno comments on HELP with finding a hotel in Barranquilla

I can bring my towel and bar of soap
Thanks for the info, I know that more hotels are in Barranquilla but it seems that the "Big 4" monopolize the advertising from an international standpoint.

rfonteno comments on Colombian Women

I used "I Love Latins"
Owned by Sam Smith, he was reasonable in price and when I went to Barranquilla in June of 2003, I went just to have fun and with no expectations. There were 11 men in my group with over 600 Colombiana women. I enjoyed this because it was possible to meet and have dates with several different women during my stay.
"I Love Latins" events are held in Barranquilla only.

rfonteno comments on A question about customs...

DHL In the past, I have used DHL. It is a little pricey but they guaranteed that the package would be received in 3 days. In addition to the guarantee, they gave me a number for the DHL website which allowed me to see the transition of the package. The day after I sent the package, I looked on the internet to see that the package had arrived in Miami and the time was given and then it was logged for when the package had departed for Panama City and my girlfriend received the package on A Sunday and I sent it to her on Thursday, 3 days before Sunday. They even delivered the package directly to her house by car, and my girlfriend lives on the outskirts of Barranquilla in an area called Soledad. DHL definitely.

rfonteno comments on who has the right to care about colombia?

I don't live in Colombia either but being an American and growing up to hear only negative propoganda through the media and then visiting Colombia 3 different times in the past year has caused me to care about Colombia and the people who live there. Upon my arrival to work after my first visit and hearing a coworker ask me if I had brought back any drugs I was very offended. First I was offended because I do not do drugs, but secondly I was more offended that my coworker only thought of Colombia in this manner. The people there are courteous and hospitable and you walk down the streets not being worried about what status on the social scale that you might fit into if you were in America.The people of Colombia are more concerned with surviving and helping their families as we know that this is not the case in the U.S.A. I did not see the racism either when I was in Colombia like we see it in the states. My most recent visit to Colombia was during carnival time and as simple as the concept of the carnival is in Colombia, I could see how much pride that the Colombian people have in these carnivals. All of the cars were decorated with the symbols of the carnival, (elephant, negrita etc...) It was only after my first trip to Colombia that I was able to understand why they have the problems with the guerillas and the paramilitaries and even though the killing and the extortion and the kidnappings are not the right thing to do, I understand a little more about these ocurrences since I have taken an interest in Colombia than I did before going there and only listening to the media an the distorted views in which they made the ordeal seem to be lawlessness with no foundation or reason for the lawlessness. If people who lived outside of Colombia did not care about Colombia, then they would not have the people who go there to perform humanitarian work for the poor people and the indigenous.
Before going to Colombia the country to me was a third world country with many problems. After visiting Colombia, the country is wonderful, the people are wonderful and the problems there are grossly exaggerated because I believe that the good outnumbers the bad signifigantly.

rfonteno comments on Does anyone know of any websites for travel

Thanks for the advice Gator Gator,
Thanks for the advice as it was very detailed and probably rather time consuming. Appreciate it :)

rfonteno comments on Fiance Visa Interview

Possible questions
I am in the same boat you are. I am also waiting for the embassy to send my novia the info. packet. Anyway, my lawyer sent me some possible questions that the consulate has been known to ask in the past. How and where did you meet? How do you communicate?(if a language barrier exists) The lawyer also placed importance on making sure that my fiance knows everything possible about me. Rikito, if you have been married before, tell your fiance how many times and also if you have had any brushes with the law, the consulate wants to be sure that you have informed your fiance of any problems. Make sure that your fiance knows exactly what you do in your profession. Also about members of your family. Remember that the goal of the consulate is to try to find any holes in your story which may depict your relationship as not being genuine or sincere.

rfonteno comments on Does anyone know of any websites for travel

You can't have Randy You can't have Randy. He is the only really good player that we have. Sorry Bob Melvin is not working out in Seattle as the manager. He was a good bench coach with the D'backs.

rfonteno comments on Does anyone know of any websites for travel

700 dollars from Seattle? That's good Seattle James, I live in Phoenix and I have had to in the past go from Phoenix to Las Vegas, lasVegas to Miami wait at the Miami airport for 8 hours and then go to Barranquilla. I paid 850 dollars for the last fare for Barranquilla. I would be happy to see a flight for 700 dollars considering the cheapest one I could find right now is over 900 dollars. Also if gas prices are continuing to rise, I do not see the prices going down. Are you saying that it is 700 dollars for a Miami to Barranquilla round trip only?

rfonteno comments on Hotel Majestic / Barranquilla

Thanks for the advice
I was in Barranquilla in February and I stayed at a hotel called the "El Dorado". I stayed at this same hotel in August of 2003. They are similar to small apartments with a seperate bedroom and the first time I stayed there it was rather pleasant. This last time(in February) I was in the kitchen and I saw a mouse (raton) scurry across the floor. After I killed that mouse, my girlfriend and I saw another mouse in the bedroom the very next day. How romantic huh? I do not want to give any business a bad reputation but I guarantee that I will not stay at that hotel again. Also, when you look for hotels on an American search engine, the searches are all dominated by "Hotel Del Sol ' The Prago and the country del norte so it is nice to know about other hotels that I may use in the future. Thanks

rfonteno comments on "Special Treatment" for U.S. Nationals

Don't be afraid I am a gringo and have been to Colombia 3 different times and I will be going to Bogota soon. I always made sure that I took a legitimate taxi(yellow one) they are everywhere. Also, I dressed normal and tried not to resemble a tourist by carrying around a camera or wearing jewelry. For the most part, the people there are great and the media contributes a negative view to the American people about Colombia. When I had to go to a grocery store, they knew that I was an American because my Spanish is not very good but I did not sense a reaction of hostility on their part because I was an American, I did notice though that they laughed at me a little.

rfonteno comments on Fiance Visa

Using a lawyer for your visa process I just received my approval from the California immigration department. It took them a total of 195 days to approve the fiance visa. First of all, the immigration department of California will suggest to you that you do not attempt to check your case status until after 30 days of the targeted date that they sent to you. The reason you need a lawyer is because if you do not dot your i's or cross your T's, they will send the application right back to you. Also, my immigration attorney dressed up my entire package to where it looked professional.It's up to you though but I am satisfied that I obtained a lawyer. I know that I could not have prepared it myself that way. I have received a letter from Homeland Security telling me that my approved petition had arrived at the New Hampshire service center and they would forward it to the Bogota consular. Attatched with some of my papers from my attorney, was a notice of a abnormal amount of petitions that had been recently denied. My attorney stated that a couple of the American gentlemen had not been truthful with their fiances by not telling them that they had been married more than once in the past, or that they had filed for a foreign fiance before in the past. I believe that the consulate in Bogota is looking for sincerity and they will notice at the interview if the American man does not speak Spanish or the woman does not speak English. My attorney also told me that even though it is not mandatory that I go to the interview, he suggested to me that I do go for moral support for my fiance. For advice, I would tell you to remain patient as the other posters are correct in that if you tried to change from a fiance visa to a colmbian spousal visa, you would have to begin the process again. In addition to that, you will also have to remain in Colmbia with no confirmed date that the spousal visa would be issued (so I am told).

rfonteno comments on ?? on travel from Barranquilla to Cartagena

American who took the Barranquilla to Cartagena trip We went to Cartagena in June of 2003 and we took a taxi there which cost about 40 U.S. dollars but on the return trip we took the bus and it cost about 18 dollars for me and my girlfriend. I remember a couple of army checkpoints and 1 Colombian military or policeman getting on the bus with a video camera and filming all people briefly as we sat in our seats. Why they did this I do not know but it was for security purposes. I felt very safe and although there are some problems of violence in Colombia, I believe that the American media has contributed to the negativity of Colombia. I would reccomend that you take the bus and do not worry, you will be just fine.

rfonteno comments on young colombian women interested in older american man

cold facts
I am engaged to a woman from Barranquilla and I read your reply in the post. It makes sense what you wrote, and she has never asked me for money but has hinted that things were going rough for her family. We are 10 years in age difference and the 2 times that I was with her down there in Barranquilla she made reservations for me at an economical hotel. In fact it was probably too economical because I saw a mouse in the hotel room on 2 different occasions. Her mother is dead and she lives in a small house in Soledad which is very poor. She lives with her 2 brothers and 2 sisters and I know that the Colombian always takes care of their family first.She is accustomed to not having any money in her life so I do not believe that she is materialistic and I told her when we first met that I am not a wealthy man and she appeared to be okay with that.

rfonteno comments on Question about Barranquilla

I have been to her house 2 times already and I realize that I am not obligated to help but I was not sure if they had the government assisted programs for housing there. Believe me, if I could earn a good income there, I would prefer to live in Colombia