During our trip we passed through Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. We took a picture of local currency in each country. From our central European point of view we find them very interesting, exotic, as they show what is considered important for each nation.
In South America notes are often inspired by the nature. We liked the most the new notes in Colombia and Argentine 500 note.
Note: For more detailed view of the pictures in the galleria, we recommend to open them by clicking on View full size at the bottom right in the galleria.
Chile
While in the UK the first polymer note was just recently introduced, in Chile they already have all notes made of polymer. Scotiabank ATM allowed us to withdraw without any fees.
Argentina
Argentine peso is sadly famous for its drops in value when the economy crashes. Even when the economy is not crashing the inflation is high. They tend to have writings on notes, on one we found somebody complaining: “Ajajaj, the dolar is worth 5000 pesos!”. Maybe because of the instability of the peso the Argentines are living each day to the fulest and do not mind spending – why save, when all savings go worthless with next economy crisis!
We could only withdraw 2000 pesos from an ATM, with a hefty 100 pesos fee.
Bolivia
Bolivia was the cheapest country we visited during our South American adventure. And the ATM withdrawals were free. Well, sometimes withdrawing money from an ATM could be a challenge due to a short-term loss of the electric power. As it happens to us while in Coroico 🙂 Karolina inserted her card into the ATM, entered the pin and choose an amount but then the screen went black, and it looked like the ATM was switched off for a short while. After a furious pressing of that red button we got back the credit card, but no money. However, the bank charged us for this transaction. Luckily, English banks solve these issues swiftly.
Peru
How much for the beer? Four suns! 🙂
In Peru they use sol, which means sun in English. Notice the 5 sol coin – the most beautiful coin that we encountered on our voyage inspired by Nasca geoglyphs. Most ATM withdrawals were free of charge.
Ecuador
Ecuador dismissed its original currency of Sucre and now uses dolar. So the money is same as in the US, apart from coins. Some ATMs are free of charge like Bank of Pichincha.
Colombia
Colombia is in the process of changing its notes and coins to new ones, so currently both types are in circulation. I think the new notes nature inspired are very nice. It highlights some emblematic species of Colombian biodiversity such as the loggerhead turtle (la tortuga caguama), the crystal frog (la rana cristal), the scarlet macaw (a guacamaya bandera), the frailejon, a plant adapted to tough high-altitude conditions of Páramo, and the spectacled bear (el oso de anteojos).
The latest 50,000 banknote we managed to get from the ATM at the end of the trip wishes to pay tribute to the writer Gabriel García Marquez. This Colombian writer received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. His most famous work is The Hundred Years of Solitude, published for the first time in 1967. On the other side of the note, two standing native Indian inhabitants of Tayron culture and the heart of the Tayrona culture Ciudad Perdida (Lost City in Northen Colombia) are depicted. ATMs were mostly free.
