Medellin Agency

[V_Man]

I am thinking that my plan C or D might be to go to an agency in Medellin. I like the Paisa look.

Can you guys recommend an agency in Medellin?

[Gato4Astrid]

I am thinking that my plan C or D might be to go to an agency in Medellin. I like the Paisa look.

Can you guys recommend an agency in Medellin?

I am afraid I have never been to any of the agencies in Medellin, but I believe there are 3 agencies in Medellin.


1 - http://www.medellincuties.com/   - ask Mudd as he owns the agency
2 - http://latinlifemates.com
3 - http://www.colombiansweethearts.com/


About Colombiansweethearts, I do not trust it.  I strongly believe the owner is in for the money.  He sends me letters, selling his agency but never got reply when I told him I was interested in buying the agency  (only to see if he had replied to me lol).   Plus he keeps sending me news letters when I told him not to send me any because I have a girlfriend!!

[AndyLee]

www.loveme.com is affiliated with A Foreign Affair. It is  there was a big thread on here a while back about a man David who met his wife through loveme.com social in Barranquilla. they just had a social in Medellin and the video/pictures are on their web page.

[Kiltboy1]

I went to Colombian Sweethearts in 2004 and the great Pete E. went along as my wingman. Steve Valdez is the owner and he was pretty much a straight up guy somewhere between friendly and Jamie. He produced the women, had parties , etc. For what he charged at the time(not sure what he charges now), I though his agency offered a good value. Paisas are a whole other story though about finding a good one in an agency there.
 
KB

[Traveler]

There is also an outfit called Colombian Angels, but Mudd had some sort of issues with them, that apparently they posted profiles of some of the girls from his site on theirs.  So I am not sure how legit they are, but they could be another option.

[opusone]

I am thinking that my plan C or D might be to go to an agency in Medellin. I like the Paisa look.

Can you guys recommend an agency in Medellin?

I think the resident expert is Dennis. He knows the "inner' workings of just about any agency in Colombia.

[dennislevy]

opusone
thank you for the compliment, I think.....................jejejeje

Vman ina word, I would  NOT pay an agency in Medellin....ii htink there are threads that pertain to Medellin agencies as recently as the lñate summer. so do a search.......

if you can t find, let us lnow and I ll write up somehting on the board....but it wll be the same adive...don t do it. How loing aqre you going to be in Medlelin and when...and maybe we cna help you. 

[opusone]

opusone
thank you for the compliment, I think.....................jejejeje

Vman ina word, I would  NOT pay an agency in Medellin....ii htink there are threads that pertain to Medellin agencies as recently as the lñate summer. so do a search.......

if you can t find, let us lnow and I ll write up somehting on the board....but it wll be the same adive...don t do it. How loing aqre you going to be in Medlelin and when...and maybe we cna help you.

I was being serious. I really don't know of anyone  on this board that have worked for agencies, dated agency girls, and help set up agencies . I wasn't being facetious at all

[Samuel]

For various reasons I would not recommend ANY agency in Medellin.


CSH = overpriced and dishonest
AFA (Love.me) = ditto
MC = not enough female members
LLM = overpriced and dishonest 

[V_Man]

If I go to Medellin, I would be there for a week. It will be very soon.

I have enough Spanish to find women on Colombian Cupid and set up dates.  The problem is that I have read so much about how flakey these women are and I have such limited time.

If I was to do this, the point of the excercise would be to meet several women and have some choices.

I was also worried about how well I could communicate. However when I think about this now  I realise I almost have enough Spanish to deal with this situation. If I had somewhere safe to use an online translator then I'd be fine because my reading abilities are quite reasonable and I can write most things with a little assistance.

I suppose I could do it independantly but it will be a struggle.

[Micky]

V-Man -
You can get the phone numbers of the women that you meet on line,  one.  You can meet all,  or any of them,  for lunch or after work cafe at one of the malls,  Santa Fe or Oviedo.  Both are near each other up on Poblado Ave,  maybe a quarter mile from each other.  Both have food courts and are secure areas where you could use your translator without worry.  Anything that you may need help with PM me and let me know.
Micky

[Zon]

Limited Time and Medellin really don't mix.  There is a large flake out rate when meeting women on-line.  It takes weeks - maybe months - to line good candidates up.

I would try someplace else if you have limited time.   Jamie's agency is the only seeminly legitimate option for a guy on a very fixed timetable.

[dennislevy]

Mickey is right. Both Oviedo and Santa Fe malls are very good places to meet. Yoi cand do do that in the food courts, or a Juan Valdez or Crepes and Waffles.
 
And Zon is right...bt it depends on what kind of women you re dating.....
 
If I recall, ALL three of the the personal  introductions Medellin agencies have the REQUIREMENT  that you pay for a woman s tranportation both ways and of course is almost always a taxi. And cabs are NOT cheap in Medellin If a woman says she is coming form Bello or Itagui, (seaprate municipaliites outside of the Medlelin cty limits it can be 40,000 to 50,000 pesos round trip 24 to 36.00 USD out of pocket BEFORE you go out and have your date.
 
And you have no proof of where a the wpman is actually coming form , she may have cut a deal with a taxi driver for a spli tof what the mrter show.
 
And just for that reason alone, its better to date Medellin women from a web site, IF they ask you for cab money,  YOU can decide if you want to pay what they ask. or just say....
 
NEXT....

[AndyLee]

If I go to Medellin, I would be there for a week. It will be very soon.

I have enough Spanish to find women on Colombian Cupid and set up dates.  The problem is that I have read so much about how flakey these women are and I have such limited time.

If I was to do this, the point of the excercise would be to meet several women and have some choices.

I was also worried about how well I could communicate. However when I think about this now  I realise I almost have enough Spanish to deal with this situation. If I had somewhere safe to use an online translator then I'd be fine because my reading abilities are quite reasonable and I can write most things with a little assistance.

I suppose I could do it independantly but it will be a struggle.

V-Man, good luck in your upcoming trip. Medellin is a beautiful city and will be an excellent first trip to Colombia.
What you are describing is a Do It Yourself Introduction Tour. I've tried this in the past and I have given it a lot of thought. I decided that if I ever did it again I'd follow this simple plan. Here are the steps I wrote down for myself.
1. Breakfast date only on first day. After that any dinner date might segue into breakfast date.
2. Lunch date is easiest and less expensive than dinner date. Any lunch date might segue into a dinner date.
3. Stay at a mid priced hotel. Too cheap will send wrong message. Too expensive will likewise send wrong message.
4. Choose a hotel with at least one English speaking staff who can impromptu translate.....or, have the hotel staff recommend a translator who lives nearby who can impromptu translate in person or by phone.
5. Choose a hotel with a decent restaurant attached. Have your dates meet you at the restaurant. You have the hotel staff to back you up and you have access to hotel wifi. If your date doesn't show you aren't left hanging out on a limb somewhere in a distant part of the city. In Medellin choose a hotel within safe walking distance of the Metro Train, it's a LOT cheaper than taxis as DL pointed out.
6. Be aware that if any of your online girlfriends helps you with any arrangements, or meets you at the airport, she will own you for the duration of your visit. She will expect you to be hers and not share you with others.
7. Don't lie to girls that you are unexpectedly in town on a one day business trip. Tell them the truth, that you are here to meet several girls and from this group you hope to find the one you would like to date long term.
8. The more girls you are meeting the less of a cat fight you will create. Any individual girl will be less jealous of her peers if you are meeting 6 other girls than she would be if you are meeting only 1 other girl.
9. Work the ColombianCupid.com and LatinAmericanCupid.com and the LoveMe.com websites heavily during the month or two leading up to your trip. Have enough girls lined up that you have an A list and a B list. Keep in mind you can only reasonably date 2 women each day. Any more that that and it becomes a logistical puzzle.
10. Have a backup plan to fall back on an agency for introductions if all else fails. Personally in Medellin I would try working with LoveMe.com to both meet the girls individually on your own and also to meet them through the agency introduction service which can be a pay as you go deal.
My own experience with three different Do It Yourself Introduction Trips has been pretty dismal. Here's why:
1. You need to speak the language well, or you have to pay a lot of money to have a translator walk around with you.
2. It really is hard to schedule the girls and they often do have last minute changes that upset plans and sometimes they just don't show up.
3. These girls are incredibly jealous and will NOT like the idea that you are meeting anyone other than them during your vacation.
4. Getting it right the first time is a crap shoot. Even something as simple as finding a good hotel with restaurant is difficult when you aren't there and don't even know which part of the city is best for you. If you can't find the right hotel online then just finding the right hotel with restaurant can take one or two days of your precious vacation time.
5. You are completely on your own. You don't know the city or the people or the customs. You don't know which parts of the city are safe for you or not. There is no trained staff person to read the girl's body language for you and make suggestions. There is no trained staff person working tirelessly in the background keeping your calendar up to date and full.
I've spent close to $10,000 on do it yourself stuff that wasted a bunch of money and a lot of years. In hindsight I would have been better off to use an introductory agency. HOWEVER, having said that, I want to also point out that none of my Colombian girlfriends have ever been signed up with an Introduction Agency. I found them all on one of the three dating sites listed above, including my fiancee who was on ColombianCupid.com.

[dennislevy]

Terrific, AL, can t find anything that I disagree wth............possibly the hotel doesnt have to be attached to the hoel , it can be a couple of blocks away from the hotel.
 
Vman, if you decide to go to Medlelin, I ll give you some ideas for good places......Dennis
 
 
 

[mudd]

medellin, you need a lot of time, high degree of flakey girls in the city. tons of no shows and excuses.


stay away from girls in poblado, mostly in zona rosa or parque lleras areas. very difficult to meet girls on the street or in public if your a gringo. too many weirdos and sex starved gringos hitting up girls this way.  i know countless girls who were hit on  by gringos on the streets, metro, malls ect.


schools and universities used to be a good idea, but too many expats gringos trying to meet girls this way also,so  bad rep.


best advice, is either an agency or through friends, agency is quicker but cost more., friends takes some time, they dont want to set up a friend until they know he isnt a weirdo and wont give them a bad name for setting him up with somebody they know.


you can try cc, but soo many scammers/ prepagos just looking for gringos, you really have to be careful and safe

[Traveler]

Well, let me chime in.
 
First of all, if you do meet girls, do not expect girls to show up on time.  If they do, be pleasantly surprised.
 
As DL, there are girls who live in the suburbs (Bello, Itagui, Envigado, etc.), although the taxi fare I think is a bit overstated.  However, most girls will be living in Medellin proper.  Regardless, taxi fare is not that big, restaurants are cheap, going out to discos is cheap, so the dating costs are a lot lower than in the US and (I presume) Australia, even including the taxi fare.
 
If you do invite them to a restaurant, a good choice is Mondongo's.  It's a chain with several locations, and have good typical Colombian food, and reasonable prices.  Let the girl teach you to eat a mondongo   Do NOT try restaurants with non-Colombian food - people there are not usually into trying unusual foods, and do not eat anything remotely spicy.  For a coffee date, a good place is Cafe South at the Premium Plaza mall.
 
The best place to stay is actually in the Laureles area - it is walkable, safe, with many affordable restaurants on Nutibara avenue or Carrera 70.  Also, there are virtually NO expensive hotels in Medellin.  There are cheap ones, there are moderately priced ones, and there are some that are somewhat pricey, but expensive none really.  You will have a hard time finding any hotel for more than $130 a night.  $70-$100 will give you a VERY comfortable accomodation, far superior to what this price buys in Europe for example.
 
As for meeting women, it is not actually easy.  If you are reasonably good at meeting women randomly (in the street, stores, etc.), it is doable, although the language issue will obviously arise.  If you are not good at meeting women randomly in Australia, you will not suddenly become a pick up artist when you come to Colombia.  There are no typical discos where you can meet women at the bar.  People go out a lot, there are TONS of night clubs, but women go in large groups, almost always with men included.  It is possible to meet girls outside of your group, but difficult, and you will have to be with your own group anyway.
 
Let me give you an idea how you could overcome these hurdles, but there is a certain risk to your safety involved. It is a high risk and VERY high reward method.  If you run into a friendly young taxi driver, chat him up, tell him that you are in town for a few days, you were coming to meet a girl, but it didn't work out.  Ask him if he will going out with his friends the following weekend, and if you could come along, so that you could meet people.  Most likely, he will invite you.  This could give an additional perk as most of the taxi drivers live in relatively poor areas, and it is much more likely to meet unescorted girls in clubs there, as most girls do not have money to pay cover in more upscale places like Barrio Colombia (which is why they go out in mixed groups).  The main problem with going to clubs in poor barrios is that you don't know if a girl who is there by herself is really a girlfriend of a local "calenton" - gang member (chatting up a girl like that can be extremely dangerous - to both you and the girl), but if you are with locals, they can let you know.  And more importantly, this way you will see how most people live in Medellin, not the 15-20% who live in Poblado and Envigado. 
 
There is safety risk to this scenario, and I don't know what your comfort level is, but I have done it once and was very happy with the results.  If you do decide to try this, do it only with taxi drivers that you meet at an official "acopio" at a mall or hotel, or whom you have called to pick you up.  YMMV  And if you do go out, do not wear anything expensive, and let know your hotel the name and number of the person you are going with.

[AndyLee]

Traveler, good post.....you just reminded me of something. When I lived in Sabaneta/Itaguí on the south end of Medellin I knew a taxi driver who spoke reasonably good English. I used to hire him by the hour to drive me around Medellin looking for an apartment I could rent direct from owner. The taxi by the hour was 20,000. (By the way, the taxi from Bello to the North Terminal is 50,000, and that's near the center of Medellin, so yes, the taxi fares can be enormous and they do go up at night. Taxi to the airport is 65,000 and taxi from Envigado to La Ceja is 50,000).
This taxi driver is a decent looking guy in his 30's and he was always wanting to introduce me to his cousin or his sister or his neighbor but the timing was never right for me. I wish now I'd taken him up on it. He was a decent guy that I met in the taxi que at Home Center and chances are his women friends would have been decent, too.

[Traveler]

Well, the only way to be exposed to large numbers of datable women (and for most of those datable women to seriously consider dating you without ulterior motives involved) is to develop a social circle, and you need to start somewhere, and the taxi drivers are typically very social and know a lot of people.  The good news is that developing a social circle in Colombia is far easier than in the US.

[dennislevy]

With respect, I would never try Travelers method of meeting colombianas  by buddying up with a friendly cab driver,


but I m older and I dont club, and although I ve got a spirit of adventure, it doesn t extend quite that far.....jejejeje


There is an excellent  hostal modern and clean......... appears as a small modern hotel........its called Hostal Global, just a few doors from the corner of 10th and 36....and on the corner of 10 and 36 is one of my favorite restaurants In Medellin called Bistro Gastronomia, excellent food and its very well priced. delicious cazuelas, continental food...quite good. 


That was my restaurant of choice when I was last in Medellin in June. The hostal has several 8 bunk bed dormitory rooms with large shared baths  for 25,000 pesos a night, but it has several  large single rooms with private baths for 80,000 or 90,000 pesos....and prices  include a continetak breakfast. .the single rooms were terrific and the hostal, again  its clean, modern it doesn t have the appearance of a hostal more like a small modern hotel. ---- is just up the hill from Parque Llleras, very easy to walk down the hill in no more then 10 minutes.


laureles is a very good  area for hotels, a decent room with private bath can be had for 70 or 75,000 a night  and there is a Mondongo on 70th, a Piccolos Pizza and some other decent restaurants.


Traveler, there is the new hotel in the heart of Parque Lleras...Charlee s, I checked the price one night..370,000 pesos, thats 200 dollars or a tad more,  beautiful rooms, white on white scheme  yadda yadda.....and of course an all you can eat brekfast, for 200 boens, i should hope so!!!!!!! but I didn t think it was worth 150   bucks MORE a night then a private room in the  Hostal Global...unless money isnt a concern.


V man, if you need to, keep the questions coming

[Traveler]

Well, the hostal is decent, but I would spend a few more dollars for a place with duvets, handheld shower and a vanity cabinet in the bathroom.  I have not heard of a $200/ night hotel in Medellin, but I guess things like that can happen.  I stay corrected. 
 
Granted, in the city I am from originally a Holiday Inn costs more.  You know, Dennis, before your trip to Colombia you should have spent a little time in Russia.  If you did, your idea of what is "expensive" would have been different  .
 
I've tried the "friendly cab driver" method a few times in my travels.  The first time I did it, it was in Santo Domingo.  It was one of the best decisions of my life to try it.  Coincidentally, it was the night of the final baseball game between S.D. and Santiago, and everyone was out partying that night.  One of the best nights of my life!  I haven't tried it in Medellin, but did it when I was in Bogota.  Ended up meeting a waitress at the establishment.

[V_Man]

There is a girl who is almost begging me to stay with her for a week in Medellin. You'd think I'd be happy!!! jajaja!
The thing is that I'd like to meet several women from there, then deceide. As you say these women are super jealous and want to monopolise my time.

[fathertime]

Well, the only way to be exposed to large numbers of datable women (and for most of those datable women to seriously consider dating you without ulterior motives involved) is to develop a social circle, and you need to start somewhere, and the taxi drivers are typically very social and know a lot of people.  The good news is that developing a social circle in Colombia is far easier than in the US.

Among other methods, I think using a friendly taxi driver is a reasonable idea, just so long as you feel you can trust him.  If the gringo is reasonably social and good looking, the taxi cab driver might think it is neat to let him meet his extended family.  I see that as one avenue to meet the ladies.  I imagine bringing a reasonably handsome gringo around would be fun thing for him to do, and like Traveler said you got to start somewhere.  Once you get that foothold, and if you make a reasonably good impression, you could meet the family and then the friends of the family and then the friends of the friends.  By then you could easily have found a lady or two that are good candidates. 


Fathertime! 

[fathertime]

There is a girl who is almost begging me to stay with her for a week in Medellin. You'd think I'd be happy!!! jajaja!
The thing is that I'd like to meet several women from there, then deceide. As you say these women are super jealous and want to monopolise my time.

Well V-man, welcome to Colombia!     The ladies are friendly and if you present yourself decently you will be a hot commodity!   For a couple reasons it is smart that you are keeping your options open for a little while.  From my point of view, if you find a babe that really does it for you (and she feels likewise), then you don't let her go, despite the outside 'distractions' you are going to get from all the other 'short skirts' you are bound to see!  Good hunting! 


Fathertime! 


 

[Big_Al]

There is a girl who is almost begging me to stay with her for a week in Medellin. You'd think I'd be happy!!! jajaja!
The thing is that I'd like to meet several women from there, then deceide. As you say these women are super jealous and want to monopolise my time.

Definitely a different mindset there. I could have gotten married dozens of times while I worked there. One thing you need to remember is there is no shortage of available women. It makes sense to keep your options open as long as you can. Don't let any woman monopolize your time.