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long-time lurker here-----I'm currently on vacation in Bogota and Medellin and thought I'd post info. Will be returning to Bogota in 2 days so will do a post on it in a few days. I read up on both cities here and on the web and some of the info is different than my experience. First, in Columbia there are not technically sex workers in saunas (although it is legal). They are called masseurs although the only difference is the title. From worst to best so far: Barbacous Sauna- There are a few internet pages making you believe this place is hot. NOT. It's tiny and has one masseur who is maybe a 3. It is right on the 57A strip but not worth it (even tho it's the cheapest). Spartacus Sauna- Small but OK. I didn't see any masseur who was above a 4 or 5. Club 55 Sauna- Very nice facilites and customers are almost up to Club Tobi. Unfortunately the only masseur was maybe a 5. Club Tobi- WOW- Movie-star like customers in a very nice building. 3 Masseurs at least always on duty and while one's just a 6 or 7, the other 3 I saw in 2 days were solid 9 or 10's. "Massages" are 40K COP ($18) for a "relax" massage, 60K ($27) for a "Normal" full release erotic massage and 90K ($36) for a "Complete" no-holes-barred anything session. The $27 session usually gets a little less actual sex, more hand-jobs. As in Brazil you pay the door (admission is usually about $8). Tips personally are very rare and get a lot of appreciation.The guys working the snackbar are exceptionally good looking and often are masseurs. Open every day from 2-10pm usually. There's a lot of bad info on the hustling scene. A couple stories elsewhere say that the block of 57A west of the cathedral is where it is. What's there on the west side is one block of Calle 57A which has a few trannies and it leads into 57 where there are 2 big pool halls and dozens of thugs who love to beat up and rob anyone who remotely looks gay. Both times I went of the west side of the cathedral I got robbed by guys threatening me if I didn't give them some money. There are a lot of drug-addicts especially on the west side- 70lb guys sleeping barefoot on the sidewalks who haven't bathed in a month. Unfortunately when awake their minds are so crazy they harrass the hell out of everyone. Medellin in those parts is a lot like bad parts of Tiajuana. The east side of the cathedral is wonderful, hustler heaven. The block of 57A where it meets Oriental, the main street, is full of gay bars, hustlers, lesbians, gays, and a $15 sex hotel.Most nights 2-3 dozen hustlers at a time.The bars mostly have roll-up door fronts and the people spread into the sidewalks and street. I met the bartender at Andres Carbon and used the sex hotel to get into the routine. There are several guys who certainly rank up with the best, 7 or 8's, but also a lot of 4's. Sex in a sex hotel isn't very pleasing or fulfilling but I was hesitant to bring guys to my hotel. The rates are between 50COP ($19) and 100 COP ($39). The gay sex area is Chandeleria and it's hard to find a decent hotel there. I stayed at the Gran Hotel which is on 54th and Oriental, a couple short blocks from everything. It overlooks the gay hustling area in the rear and Club 55 sauna is directly behind the hotel. It's about $40/nt and is a 14-story older hotel which is kept up nicely. I didn't try to bring anyone in. The other hotels in the center are awful. Most of the "nice" hotels are in Estadio or Poblanbo, which are over 3 miles out and yellow street cabs are not super safe in Columbia for tourists. English is non-existant. I didn't have much luck with PlanetRomeo or with Manhunt in Medellin, but Grindr lights up like a Christmas tree with "Prepaygos" sex workers. If I thought half of them looked anything like the photos.....wow. Just wow. Set your location to Medellin and see what these guys look like ! Bogota is a much more modern city but my first 3 days were spare pickings. I go back for 2 more and will report.

Well, where else to put this? http://www.veranda.com/luxury-lifestyle/a1103/joan-rivers-nyc-apartment-for-sale/?src=spr_FBPAGE&spr_id=1455_164696536

I heard Joan Rivers say once about her NY digs, "It's what Marie Antoinette's place would have looked like if she had money.

This was my first time in Columbia and I did my research just googleing. I didn't have a guide although I'm sure one would have been better. When you google certain terms the usual sites don't offer much except lists of places- some out-dated. The Gay Guia Columbia, which is very good on Bogota, is almost empty on Medellin. A site called Gay Gringo has the review of Barbcolus Sauna and Club Tobi that implies BS is great while Tobi is just for posseurs with no "masseurs"----wrong. A site called Columbia Express has a story on the best (and worst) of gay Medellin which is otherwise a great story but is the one that said Calle 57A west of the cathedral is where the prepagos are---that's why I went there and got robbed twice. In fact 57A east of the catherdal, where the prepaygo bars are, is the intersection of Medellin's main street Oriental so it's completely safe. Funny how one little mistake like that can make such a difference in safety. Researching, most of the many saunas have websites and list their rates, including for massage. One in Bogota, which I'll go to, actually has photos of it's masseurs. The universal slang for garotos in Columbia is "Prepaygos", which is technically the term for prepaid telephone service. A variation on rentboy. Thankfully Grindr at least isn't hip to that slang yet.

Prior to your going to Medellin, how did you do your research? Did you have a friend guide you along the way? Are you adventurous? I have never seen a guide book or a web site on Medellin that discusses the gay scenes except a mere mention of its existence. Then, again, if one were to look for a web site for details on Brazilian saunas, none exist. True, the well known Brazilian saunas have web sites but nowhere on the web site does it advertise garotos (hustlers). You either have to go there in person or read a site similar to this site to know or learn about the garotos. Did you travel alone? Is your current trip the first time you were in Colombia? Do you feel at all threatened other than the caution you expressed in your first post? I suspect that many forum members here find your information exceedingly interesting. Like I wrote, thank you very much and I look forward to seeing additional posts from you. -

The reason I went is because Avianca had a $400 r/t special from the east coast. It's just a 5-hour non-stop from DC to Bogota and Avianca is a wonderful airline with the best economy class I've ever seen. American flies non-stop to Medellin from Miami and it's a 3-hour flight. Be warned that the Medellin airport is some 25 miles from town over mountains and a taxi is 70K COP ($28). Save some air-sickness meds for the twisting 2-lane road trip with an insane driver. However there is an airport bus I'll use going back that's much cheaper and hopefully slower. Flights between Bogota and Medellin are usually about $175 r/t every hour and take an hour. Avianca is vastly preferred over LAN. Forget the bus. Bogota is 2 miles high and Medellin is 1 mile high and the mountain roads between them are so twisting that it takes the bus 18 hours to go the 120 miles. Bogota is a little cooler than Medellin and may require a light jacket at night but Medellin is warm all day and night. Both cities get several rain showers every day. Bogota is a great sight-seeing spot with the incredible Inca Gold Museum that displays some $5 billion of ancient Inca gold artwork from 3000 years ago. The world's greatest living artist, Fernando Botero, is from Medellin but Bogota has the huge Botero Museum, next to the Gold Museum. Medellin is the center of the coffee trade (although it's hard to get a decent cup of coffee here that doesn't taste like instant). It's also the center of the flower industry where most of the cut flowers we buy in the US come from. Bogota has 8 million people in the city, same as New York, and is a regional financial center with a large middle-class and several 50-story skyscrapers. The gay neighborhood of Bogota is called Chaperniro and extends from about Calle 50 to Calle 75. One of the largest gay nightclubs in the world is Theatron on 58th and the NYT calls Bogota a new gay mecca. read...thousands of middle class gay clones. Coke and pot are both legal and super cheap. Most of the world's coke starts out 100% pure in Columbia for less that we pay for pot.

What a caring and splendid report. I have always wanted to visit Medellin. However, I heard so many bad things about the place. Instead, I chose to continue visiting Brazil, Argentina and other South America countries, rather than Medellin or any other city in Colombia. Prior to my visiting Brazil, I had heard bad things about the supposed dangers in Brazil that ended up not being true. Brazil, could be dangerous if I were not cautious. In my many trips to Brazil, I have never experienced anything bad except a minor incident of someone picking my pocket and stealing my cell phone from my pocket while I was on the Metro. That is so minor that I consider it less than nothing. Based on your report, it seems that a prudent person could have a good time in Medellin provided normal caution were practiced. Thank you very much for your report and for the information. I look forward to your next report.

BTW- Columbian miltary are on every street corner in Columbia. Absolutely georgous stunning guys in late teens who get paid about $20/month. Unfortunately a miltary truck picks them all up and carts them off to some place that must be like heaven to a gay guy. Also, in Medellin the squeegy boys on streets washing car windows are usually not half bad. And in both Bogota and Medellin the hotel guys are very attractive and seem to be willing. My first regret was not hitting on the cute thing that carried my bag to my room in Bogota. I'm sure plenty have.

Tass, Thank you for your report. Medellin is almost top of my list of places to go but I fnd little information so your report is valuable. I am going to SP in June then it is either Cuba or Medelline. Look forward to your next report.

As a rabid Hillary fan, I find this worryingly on the mark. Is Hillary Clinton Any Good at Running for President? New York Magazine ...Pat Buchanan, the venerable Republican operative who advised Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, likes to assess politicians as political athletes. Putting aside ideologies, policy preferences, even personalities, how do they perform on the political playing field? "It's charisma, charm, savvy," he says. "Being a political athlete is having an extra dimension -- it's not learned; you're born with it." In Buchanan's long career, the greatest political athletes he's encountered have been John F. Kennedy, Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. "They're naturals: Roy Hobbs or Mickey Mantle," he says. Hillary, in Buchanan's view, is the furthest thing from a natural: "She's like Pete Rose, who has to grind out every hit." The grind can be obvious watching Clinton on the campaign trail. In her two successful Senate races and her unsuccessful presidential run in 2008, she often struggled to exhibit the basic qualities required of politicians. "Let's remember who she's beaten in her career: Rick Lazio and John Spencer," says a Democratic consultant who has worked for and against Hillary. "The only time she's run against anyone decent, she's lost." Where most pols project warmth, she often runs cold. Her speeches can be leaden and forced. She tightens up in unscripted moments. Above all, she bristles at what the public and the press now want most from politicians: authenticity. As she said in a press-conference soliloquy during her 2000 Senate campaign, "'Who are you?' and all of that. I don't know if that is the right question. Even people you think you know extremely well, do you know their entire personality? Do they, at every point you're with them, reveal totally who they are? Of course not. We now expect people in the public arena to somehow do that. I don't understand the need behind that."... "She's a schemer and a planner and a plodder," says the GOP consultant Rick Wilson, who worked for Rudy Giuliani during his aborted 2000 Senate campaign against Clinton. "You need people like that in politics, but most of the time they end up as campaign strategists, not candidates." Buchanan is more blunt: "She reminds me of Nixon." http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/04/hillary-clinton-2016-campaign.html?mid=facebook_nymag

If you have a taste for English history, you might enjoy Wolf Hall, the BBC's costume drama about Thomas Cromwell's rise from blacksmith's son to Lord High Chancellor and Henry VIII's go to guy. Very well written and superbly acted, IMO. Six episodes on PBS, started Sunday (but they usually get some extra mileage by rerunning episodes during the week, so check local listings). (Spoiler Alert ) They played politics for keeps back in the old days. Thomas Cromwell winds up getting his head chopped off by Henry. In a bit of historical irony, it was Thomas's remote descendant Oliver Cromwell who lopped of the head of Henry's collateral kinsman and remote heir, Charles I.

As if there was not already a massive outcry over the huge Petrobras scandal, Brazil's "Internal Revenue Service" is also involved in a nasty scandal involving billions of local currency. This likely means that the Brazilian Real will sink even farther than it has so far during the past year. It won't be long before we are getting at least 4 - 1 in currency exchange. Here is an article that discusses the problem and the scandal: http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-business/tax-scandal-may-cost-brazil-billions-in-revenues/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRioTimes+%28The+Rio+Times%29

A story goes that Joao Goulart, president in the early 60's, was much revered in a particular Brazilian city for whom he had built a bridge over the river (although everyone knew he had stolen 90% of the money appropriated for the project). Asked why such a scoundrel was so beloved, the locals invariably responded that the two previous presidents had pocketed all the bridge money and neglected to build the bridge. From all I've read, I suspect that the real gripe most Brazilians have with their political class is that they aren't delivering on essential public services and are running the economy into the ground. World wide, at a certain stage in development, folks wading in sewage start to question where all the money for sewer pipes has been going.

The guys on F4F, CB, C4 etc are all from Medellin and Cali. The hottest are from Cali. (believe me I asked!) None from Bogota. I don't speak any Spanish. I leave to go back to Bogota for 2 more days in the morning and if anyone has any suggestions there I'd appreciate them. My first couple days there were fruitless. Evidently Delta is starting daily non-stop service to Medellin and Cartagenia from Atlanta. They already have flights to Bogota. An open-jaw would be good to see both Medellin & Bogota or Cartagenia as one-ways between them are only @ $85.

I, too, want to thank you for your most helpful report. After seeing the fabulous guys on "Flirt for Free" who have always stated that they were from Colombia when I asked them from where do they hail, this has been one place which has always piqued my interest. Also, another poster has written some good reports after he'd visited, too, but he speaks Spanish. Do you speak any Espanol and are perhaps fluent. I know you mentioned about the taxi drivers. I await your pending addition once you travel and enjoy Bogota. Again, thanks man!

Loved the books, particularly Wolf Hall, enjoyed both plays in London, and so far the series is impressive. I liked the actor who plays Woolsley when he was in Something Wicked This Way Comes, scary.

"Madonna's angry entourage?" You can't write this stuff.

You lost me at Pat Buchanan.

Don't try to cheer me up. Best regards, RA1

And one modern rabbit that wants to kill himself for Easter.

Happy Easter to all!