The official Colombian money is the Colombian Peso.
Notes come in Denominations of 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 20,000 and 50,000;
Coins come in 20, 50,100, 200 and 500 peso denominations;
If you would like to view the obverse and reverse of the current Colombian Peso notes and coins and learn about the people whose faces grace the currency go to:
www.medellintravelguide.com/medellin_money.html
There is also a link to a currency converter with current exchange rates.
Planning to use your ATM card when you visit Medellin? You will get better exchange rates than changing cash or travelers checks at a cambio!
There are convenient ATM’s (called ATH’s in Medellin) all over Medellin. In Banks, Malls, Grocery Stores, Casinos, Restaurants and more. Most of them support the more popular networks like Cirrus, Plus, Maestro, MasterCard and many others. Most also have an English and Spanish language option.
Different ATMs have different per transaction limits of usually 400,000-500,000 COP. You can do multiple transactions up to the daily limit allowed by your bank.
A few hints on using ATM’s in Medellin;
Only withdraw what you will need on a daily basis;
Only carry 1 or 2 ATM/Debit/Credit Cards
Only make withdrawls from ATM’s in well lighted areas and preferably places with on site security;
Keep your paper receipt;
Count your money; Check your balance on line to make sure only one transaction occurred.
Make sure that your transaction has ended and the machine is ready for the next customer….not asking you if you want another transaction!
One of the newer and certainly more upscale casinos recently opened in Medellin is the Portofino Casino in Portofino Plaza on Av. Poblado, El Poblado, Medellin Colombia. Medellin has the second largest number of casinos in Colombia for any city where it has been legalized but these are not gigantic casinos like you would see in Vegas, Tahoe, Reno or Atlantic City. These are more like a few thousand square feet rather than a few million. Attached in the same complex is the very upscale Holiday In Express along with shops, restaurants and offices.
I am not a big gambler and don’t go to casinos with any regular frequency but yesterday, a visiting friend wanted to go play some roulette so I decided to join him. I had been inside Portofino once before just for a look around shortly after it opened. I was impressed with it’s layout, it’s decor, it’s professional staff and the range of gaming offered.
Many casinos in Medellin only offer slot machines. Some offer limited table games while Portofino offered a wide range of slots, several Black Jack tables, Roulette, Caribbean Poker and more. They also have several promotions offered this month (and usually every month there are several). This month, they are offering $20,000 pesos in playing money just to sit down at a table. You can double down against a dealers ace and if you loose, they do not take your double down bet. If you win, they pay both. Anytime you get a blackjack, they give you an entry ticket to win a free car and one is awarded every month. Drinks are free, light snacks are served at the tables and the dealers and pit bosses are very friendly (many speak English). The minimum bet at the table is $5,000 COP (about $2.50 USD). General Black Jack rules apply including your ability to surrender a crummy hand and get back 1/2 of your bet. You may play multiple hands on vacant seats.
Normally, when I go to a casino, I play $100USD. If I win $100, I quit. If I loose $100 I quit. I got close to winning but ultimately walked out a looser. Such is the life of gambling. I am probably even on winning/losing over the years and have never really made a big deal out of keeping track. For me, gambling is a form of entertainment that I do so infrequently as to make it merely something different to do for an afternoon or evening.
If you are visiting Medellin, we can highly recommend the Portofino. It is in an extremely safe and seure area of town, has a lot of security, will hail and escort you to a passing taxi, you can walk there from most Poblado Hotels, you will find a number of local ex-pats, tourists and Medellin visitors and as mentioned, many of the staff speak some English.
Medellin Travel Guide
We are www.medellintravleguide.com We are Medellin Travel Guide. We are the largest English web site dedicated only to Medellin Colombia. We live in Medellin Colombia. We have over 150 pages of Medellin centric topics, accurate and current information about visiting Medellin Colombia. We have over 150 Medellin photos. We have over 150 links to Medellin Hotels, Hostels, Bed and Breakfasts, Restaurants, Tour Agencies, Malls, Museums, Attractions. We have 11 videos about Medellin Festivals, Nightclubs and Discos posted on YouTube. Everything on our site is current, correct (to the best of our knowledge), updated monthly, ever evolving and yet, we do not have position 1 page 1 for a search for Medellin Travel Guide on any search engine in existence.
For example on Google, page 1 position 1 belongs to World66.com. Granted, they are a world wide travel site focused on cities all over the world and their contributors are actual travelers but, their last post was from August of 2006? They have 3 posts about Medellin Accommodations from the owners of the establishments; They have a brief mention of the Medellin Metro as a means of transportation without any mention of buses or taxis; They mention 2 museums in a city teeming with over 40 to visit; They mention 3 internet cafes in a city with the most internet connections in Colombia, hundreds of internet cafes and no mention of Wi-Fi Hot Spots; They only mention the Feria de las Flores in a city that has ferias almost every month; and, they have a whopping 30 photos posted of the city.
Third place goes to Virtual Tourist. A travel site consolidator that gets travelers to post trip reports of their travel experiences. They boast 20 members living in Medellin, 99 photos and 71 Medellin Tips. Their last person living in Medellin that posted was Feb of 2007?
Position 4-This one is a real standout. Title Page: Medellin Travel Guide | MyTravelGuide.com. Another travel site consolidator for hotels (a grand whopping 1 hotel listed, 0 restaurants, 0 attractions, and 2 outdated deals listed by Travelzoo), well, it just goes downhill from there!
Somedays, I do not know whether to be honored or angry that they use our website/URL name in their title page.
Then there is Wikipedia in position 2. We love this organization and all it has done to bring knowledge and information to the world at your fingertips. We have even recently opened an account to help edit the information on Medellin on it’s site. Not only is it outdated, much of it is downright wrong including the name of the person that discovered Medellin. For the sake of world knowledge, we will endeavor to commit an hour per week to getting it corrected. We like Wiki and will help them all we can and are proud to have them use our name in their title page.
Then, there are the creative wannabes: TravelGuide-Medellin; Medellin-Travel-Guide; Colombia_Medellin_travelguide
We also like the sites that refer you to a city in Spain or the Phillipines named Medellin (don’t get on the wrong flight). Whatever they are, there are page after page of websites listed on Google, MSN, Yahoo. AltaVista and others that use Medellin Travel Guide as their 1st position Title Page description but……….There is only one www.medellintravelguide.com
Somedays we chuckle at what we find on other websites. For instance, one site listed its favorite restaurant and even recommended it’s favorite item to order from the menu. Save your taxi money. That particular restaurant was closed and bulldozed over a year ago to make way for a casino expansion. Or the site that advertised special hotel rates for Feria de las Flores. Unfortunately, the rates were from 2004 as were the dates for the festival. The best one was for a very upscale Medellin Hotel that really had us searching high and low for where this hotel was located. Suddenly a light went off about the address and we realized this hotel had been purchased and it’s name changed in 2005. Then there are the clubs and discos that have been closed for years or changed names, directions to local attractions that are incorrect, old maps that do not show new highways, links to sites that do not exist anymore or never existed in the first place and ad infinitum.
We spent hundreds of hours researching our data and facts. We do monthly updates and announcements and on some pages, daily updates, we have people stopping us on the streets or approaching us in restaurants for information (The best was, “Hey, how many species of birds are there in Colombia?” Our response, “1810, more than any country in the world”.
We must have done something right in choosing our name (and we made sure we had the .net .info and .mobi URLs as well. Now if we can just get the search engines to give us our credit due with page positioning we will be very happy. We are working on it and hopefully someday soon, you will see our website where it belongs when you do a Medellin Travel Guide search. Just don’t put a lot of faith in the information you see on other websites unless it is current. We’d hate to see you try to book a room at a hotel that no longer exists!
Medellin Travel Guide
Many people that visit Medellin want to take various tours but don’t really know where to start. “Where can I find an English speaking tour guide to show me around?”
Some people want to do things that are a little more exciting like white water rafting, rock climbing, parasailing (and Medellin has some of the finest in the world) while others want to get out of the city to visit the countryside, visit a coffee farm or do a finca tour.
While finding an English speaking tour guide is no simple feat, there are a few that specialize in and cater to English speaking visitors. Most are very reasonable and willing to accommodate special requests like arranging a birthday party or special event, go on birdwatching tours (Colombia has 1,810 species of birds. The most of any country in the world.)
Whether you prefer to visit museums, churches, universities or take a wild ride down some class 3 and 4 rapids you can find a tour guide in Medellin to assist you.
Paisas love gambling. Many of the Medellin Casinos listed only have slot machines while others have full service gaming tables with Black Jack, Caribbean Poker and Roulette. Several Medellin Casinos have started Texas Hold Em tournaments. Out of 7 cities in Colombia with legalized gambling, Medellin ranks number 2 in number of casinos.One of the newer Medellin Casinos recently opened in Parke Lleras called Casino Lleras Crown. They boast an impressive array of slots, Black Jack, Caribbean Poker and Roulette. Monday through Wednesday they host Texas Hold Em tournaments with assured banking and double buy in rules. Everyday from 3 PM until Midnight they have Millionaire Roulette with accumulating prizes.
