cubbie

I've been giving this thread some thought this evening and reconsidering some points in the OP's thread, specifically, "My 22-year-old daughter and two (same age) friends want to travel to Cartagena for a weeks vacation" and "how likely it is that three young American girls (non-spanish speaking) can vacation safely there. Would you let your daughter go?"

I'm a woman, a fluent Spanish speaker, now more than 50 years old, who's lived and travelled all over South America and Asia and Europe for work and pleasure over the last 30 years, including multiple trips to Colombia for work, and, though I hate to rain on anyone's parade, I have to say, if it were my own daughter, I'd say no. Curiosity is not a good enough reason for three young people to go vacationing in Colombia of all places. Although Cartagena may be safer then other parts of Colombia, I would still say Colombia overall is not yet a safe place for tourists in general, much less three young non-Spanish-speaking women. There are many other much safer places in Central and South America to go if that's where their interest lies.

Some here may consider me overly negative or overly cautious in saying this, and that's fine with me. My conscience wouldn't be clear if I didn't say it.