How safe is it to travel to Colombia right now? I speak Spanish but definitely look very white blue eyes, blonde hair ; however, I would be going with a native Colombian friend and staying with him the whole time.
Bogota and Medellin Colombia are the 2 safe cities. I traveled there constantly, and if you want to get to know Villavicencio and Florencia, The best bet for you is to travel by jet such as Avianca, Latam or Viva Colombia , instead of taking the road trip via intercity motorcoaches such as Libertadores, Copetran, Expreso Bolivariano, La Macarena , Velotax nor Coomotor. Because you'll never know if these bandits such as Guerrillas are posing as police or legal armed force standing in the roadways in certain suburbs of Caqueza, Guayabetal, San Jose de Caguan or inside the tunnels prior entrance either to Bogota or Villavicencio and even within the villages prior entrances to Paipa , Duitama, Tunja or Sogamoso asking for documents such as passport, photo ID, and patdowns just like they did it in 13 years ago.
What's gonna happen is that if the passport is legit and states "United States of America" Passport, they will kidnap you and hold you for ransom. Nobody wants to get hurt, not even you to get hurt. This has happened to me 1 time from Bogota to Sogamoso , and 2 times to and from Villavicencio Harassing me for a correct document such as a passport, but my dad's cousin told him that she is my dad's cousin.
And, the officer who told me to get back on the van right away with his attitude. The so-called police officer my cousin and I don't know that he is also a guerrilla.
I preferred to fly over to Villavicencio by plane instead of intercity vans not even microbuses nor motorcoaches, just to play it safe. Having traveled Colombia I can honestly say don't trust anyone trying to sell you anything. They will rip you off. They look at foreigners as 'cash boxes'. They are happy to rip you off on a bottle of water right the way through to emerald jewellery.
