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Outside of Colombia, Barranquilla is perhaps best known as the hometown of superstars Shakira and Sofía Vergara. With names like that coming from what is Colombia’s 4th largest city, one would expect there to be some sort of draw for tourists.
Getting There
I arrived in Barranquilla with Marisol via transfer from Cartagena. We used MarSol, which costs about COP$35,000 (as of December 2023). It’s also possible to transfer to and from Santa Marta for the same price. They picked us up at our hotel in Cartagena. We were expecting them to drop us off at the hotel in Barranquilla, but we were dropped off on some random street pretty far away and had to take a taxi. Also, it’s not the most comfortable way to go.
Hotel Génova Prado
We stayed at the Hotel Génova Prado. It’s a very nice and modern hotel with a great staff. The room was extremely comfortable and clean, and it’s in the safe, upscale area of El Prado.
Tour Guide
Barranquilla has a reputation of being a dangerous city in certain parts. Some of the sites we wanted to visit were in seedy areas so we decided to find a guide to show us around for a couple hours. The hotel suggested Jorge, who picked us up in his immaculate red Chevy Impala and told us he would take us to four parts of the city.
Centro Comercial Buenavista
For some odd reason, our guide took us to a huge shopping mall, Centro Comercial Buenavista. It’s a very nice mall with a great selection of shops, a cinema, and food court, but not exactly what we had in mind as a tourist attraction. It also took us an hour in terrible traffic to get there. Traffic and malls – I felt like I was in Istanbul again!
Maília (Permanently Closed)
After the tour, we had dinner at Maília, a gourmet restaurant near the hotel. It’s a very nice place and we were quite underdressed in shorts and flip flops but I didn’t care. It was one of the best meals I’ve had in Colombia.
We had the octopus as a starter. As a main course, I had the salmon and Marisol had a salad. We both drank cherry lemonade and finished off the meal with a strawberry dessert. Service was friendly and attentive. The meal was reasonable priced for the quality.
