Taxi cost to and from La Popa?

[Milhouse]

Looking to tour Cartagena on our own. Have read threads in this forum going back to about 2009 to prep. Spec'ed our travel segments as follows:

 

Port to La Popa via taxi (grabbing one outside the port area)

La Popa to Castillo de San Felipe via taxi

Castillo de San Felipe to Old Town walking

Old Town to Port via taxi

 

I can't seem to find enough posts to get a good collaborative estimate of taxi costs to and from La Popa.

The only post I found said it was about $25USD to La Popa from the Port which sounds a bit steep compared to the other rides (eg. $4-$15USD btw Port and Old Town).

 

Can anyone else provide some more data points for taxi costs to and from La Popa, to and from various other key tourist points?

 

TIA.

[GradUT]

While I do not know the taxi price from the Port to La Popa, it would not surprise me if they charged $25. We drove there with a private guide (J.J. Taborda) and it took about 20 - 30 minutes on steep, narrow, winding roads. Also, since I suspect few people travel there by taxi, the taxi drivers are going to charge more because: 1) they will likely return without a fare or 2) they will have to wait for you to tour La Popa before returning to town.

 

Should you decide that the cost of touring by taxi is not much less than touring with a guide, I would highly recommend that you hire a guide. We learned so much from J.J. about Cartegena and Columbia on our tour with him.

[Milhouse]

Thanks for the feedback. Didn't realize it was that much of an effort to get there. Might have to consider dropping it as we'd likely have to allocate about 1.5hrs (there and back and sightseeing) for a single destination. Might be better to allocate more time in other areas.

[Host Caroline]

... on the other hand if you get guide for day or a tour, La Popa is, IMHO, totally well worth it.. views of the city are stunning and La Popa itself is amazing.. rivals anything we saw in Italy, France... highlight of my day in Cartagena by far.

[Traveling Library]

La Popa IS well worth a visit. Because it is hard to get to the usual tours don't go there. With all of the traveling you are doing I'd arrange a private tour and then you won't be looking for taxi's etc.

[Loonbeam]

Agreed. You can get a good private tour for $125 per couple including admission to several sites and transport, which is easily as much as you will pay for a number of cab rides. In addition, you will have a guide, secured vehicle to keep stuff in, etc.

 

If you can put together a larger small groupgroup its even cheaper, we had a party of 8 for less than $60 per person.

[Milhouse]

Thanks for the additional feedback.

It's not necessarily the cost that preventing us but time allocation. (There's a group on our cruise that's booked Dora and her price is quite reasonable. Was flip flopping whether to join it or go independent.) Just needing some taxi costing info so we know what's an appropriate rate to bargain towards.

 

Hmm, ok, ok. Might have to rethink this with all the positive feedback on La Popa. :)

[Host Caroline]

I'm surprised Dora doesn't offer LaPopa on her tour or at least as an option.... there really isn't that much shopping in Cartagena IMHO or maybe the tour is just 1/2 day or people want to stop for a longer lunch? :::wondering what she takes you to if it's whole day:::

[globalwife]

Yep, the rate for a cab to la popa is quite high. You can ask the cab to see his rate sheet and it will be more than 50,000 pesos for the trip.

[Milhouse]

Yes, I think Dora does customize and I think the group is stopping at La Popa.

We just wanted to be adventurous and do Cartagena on our own (so that in our post cruise CC review we can say we did Colombia on our own. ;) )

[GradUT]

I certainly appreciate "adverturous" travel, but I think you will get so much more out of your visit to Cartetgena if you have a tour guide. We hardly ever do organized tours, but I know we would have missed out on a lot of things had we not had a guide for Cartegena.

[Milhouse]

Minor follow-up. Found a website the indicates the following:

"From the historic centre a taxi driver will typically charge around 25,000 pesos there and back with about a 20-minute or so wait for you to have a look around."

[TMLAalum]

Minor follow-up. Found a website the indicates the following:

"From the historic centre a taxi driver will typically charge around 25,000 pesos there and back with about a 20-minute or so wait for you to have a look around."

 

Good information as we want to be indy in Cartagena but hope to head to La Popa, too!

[Loonbeam]

I'd say a little more than 20 mins is required if you are interested in such things..

 

Minor follow-up. Found a website the indicates the following:

"From the historic centre a taxi driver will typically charge around 25,000 pesos there and back with about a 20-minute or so wait for you to have a look around."

[GizFriend]

Question to Milhouse: We're going on a Panama Canal cruise next October. I'm interested in doing the things you're doing/did in Cartagena. Can you tell me what your final plan is/was and/or how it went? I'm interested in hearing from someone who did the independent thing. Thanks.

[Milhouse]

Question to Milhouse: We're going on a Panama Canal cruise next October. I'm interested in doing the things you're doing/did in Cartagena. Can you tell me what your final plan is/was and/or how it went? I'm interested in hearing from someone who did the independent thing. Thanks.

 

Been meaning to write a follow-up to this thread too (I haven't even finished writing my cruise review).

 

In the end, we spent all of our time (in port 10am to 5pm) in the Old Town area roughly following the walking map off of CartagenaInfo(dot)net.

Note: Simplified conversion 1USD ~ 2000COP. Reality is more like 1:1900.

 

Walking past the initial taxi area (ie drivers wearing blue shirts with "taxi" on them) we got outside the walls and were hounded by three or four guys one after another wanting to set us up with a taxi ride.

Mistake 1: Tried to negotiate from Port to La Popa to Castillo de San Felipe for around 20000COP as a starting point. No one would touch it with a 10ft pole :D. Apparently they said it was a special rate. [bad info (???) on the Fodor's website which references 8000COP each way and Colombiatravelguide(dot)net where I referenced the 25000COP earlier in the thread.] (More on this at the end).

 

We decided to regroup and hook up with another couple and head to the old town.

Mini-Mistake 2: We ended up paying $10USD for the trip piled into a small taxi. Reason why I feel it's a mini-mistake is that we probably could have gotten separate cabs for $6USD a piece instead of being squished into a compact. That said, we didn't really worry about a buck or two one way or the other.

 

Trip from port to clock tower took a while because of heavy traffic. Return trip wasn't that bad.

 

We ended up walking literally all over Centro district, San Diego district, and a bit of Getsemaní. The further away we roamed from the SW part of Centro, the less touristy it got (and more street food options). Never felt unsafe tho.

If we moved a little quicker and refined out walk to only the Centro district, we likely would have been able to fit in La Popa and San Felipe.

 

At the end of the day, we were a few blocks SE from the clock tower and tried to negotiate with a taxi driver in a blue shirt to take us back to the port for 16000COP but no dice; he wouldn't go for it. We walked back to just outside the clock tower where a guy asked if we needed a taxi. We offered 14000COP and he agreed. Although we thought he was a driver, he was actually just kind of a caller/negotiator that flagged down a cab for us. He took 4000COP and we gave the other 10000COP to the driver.

On the way back to the port, we asked the driver how much it would have been to take us to La Popa and he said $10USD each way. So I think my original reference to $25USD would be good for a return rate (vs my initial thought of it only being one way).

 

Our lessons learned and if we had to do it over again...

- Start in La Popa, then to San Felipe, and then to the Old town.

- Would have liked to have walked it btw San Felipe and the Old Town. Looking at San Felipe from the eastern edge of San Diego district, it looked like a reasonable walk.

- Know your taxi rates solid so you can negotiate with confidence

- Skip the blue shirted taxi drivers as they are expensive and don't negotiate

- Going with a guide might have kept us on pace better and provided more detail on what we were seeing (instead I just referenced a guide I put together from various websites). But we were happy being able to roam freely.

- Bring a litre of liquid to re-hydrate or there are stores you can buy fluids

- No need to bring COP's. Everyone (even street food vendors) were expecting us to pay in USD's.

 

Alternative options

I think our cruisemates were able to get a "known" tour guide (eg Claudia, Dora, etc) for about $65pp with a group of eight to ten.

I think TMLAalum were able to get a taxi driver as a guide for about $20pp in a group of four.

 

Hope that helps a bit.

[TMLAalum]

Hi Milhouse- You have a great memory because the 4 of us did pay $20@ for our taxi for the day!

 

Just want to add a few notes. Four of us went outside the port area and were approached by an English speaking "official" taxi-hawker. I told him we wanted to go to Il Popa, then the fort and finally Old Town. He gave us a price of $10 each for 3 hours and led us to an A/C taxi with a younger non-English speaking driver.

 

Despite the language barrier, we were able to communicate that we wanted to go to a restaurant for lunch and cerveza between the fort and Old Town. The driver dropped us off at Restaurante la Tinaja, where we were the only tourists until Verliger arrived with the tour guide they had for the 2 of them. Good food, nice atmosphere and very reasonable. He waited for us while we dined. After lunch we negotiated with the driver for more time and he gave us a price of $30 more for 2 more hours for all 4 of us. Our driver stayed with us in Old Town, sort of leading us around, but I suspect he stuck with us because he hadn't been paid yet.

 

We each gave him $20 when we arrived back at port and he was very grateful. The day worked out well for us as we got to see all we had hoped and didn't have to worry about finding a taxi to return us to the ship.

[Milhouse]

Great followup, TMLAalum. [Hope I didn't steal your thunder! :) ]

[TMLAalum]

Great followup, TMLAalum. [Hope I didn't steal your thunder! :) ]

 

 

Not at all! If if hadn't been for your research and post, we'd have probably waited in that long cab line inside the port gate and paid top dollar. I vaguely recall a sign indicating set prices, which were pretty high, before exiting to the street and the cheaper cab we took.