Of luxury cars, frozen sheep and the exchange rate mafia

Everyone who visits Argentina, sooner or later will learn that the peso has many exchange rates and the official one is rarely used if ever. The economic situation of the country and the seemingly pointless economic policies of La Presidenta (Cristina Kirchner) have sent the peso down a very slippery road and everyone who can and is able is trying to exchange whatever money they have into dollars. Although in theory there is only a certain amount of dollars any Argentine can buy/exchange in a single year, there is a flourishing black market that is not even the least bit hidden and given the amount of tourists coming to the country, it is not a miracle that payments are often demanded in dollars, not pesos.

We came to know about the ubiquity of this opportunity on our first day on the main street of Bariloche, the capital of the Patagonian Lake District (strangely reminiscent of Switzerland but much better). Many shops post the daily “blue” exchange rate quite visibly next to the entrance, but basically almost every shopkeeper is happy to exchange dollars for tourists. At the time of our visit the official rate was around 6 pesos per dollar, the “blue rate” was 8-10 pesos per dollar, depending on the denomination of your dollar notes. Yes, that counts, and anyone wanting to take advantage of the arbitrage should bring 100 dollar notes and brand new ones at that. Torn notes are refused. Also, forget about 50 and 20 dollar notes, they are worthless or extremely hard to exchange on an agreeable rate. Needless to say, but most of my money was in 20 dollar notes...

¡ Hola Patagonia !

Almost 4 weeks before I started kicked vending machines in Argentinean airports and went on shouting at Brazilian security guards, I happily arrived in Buenos Aires. It was 2 days before Christmas and Geri and I finally embarked on our journey to the southernmost city of the world through the wilderness that is called Patagonia. We put quite a lot of planning into this journey and I will dedicate a separate post to that process because I believe many could profit from it. This post however is about the frantic day of the arrival.

21 December 2013 was just another awful winter Saturday in London (windy, rainy, dark and dreary) but I was smiling the whole day as it was my departure day to Patagonia. I still needed to make some last minute purchases and I had to find out how on earth I would pack all my stuff into a 65-litre backpack for almost a month. After some anger fits, hopeful repacking attempts and the realisation that I will wear the same clothes over and over + I will not shave for a whole month, my stuff fit into the bag nicely. I was on my way to Heathrow at 5pm, sent out some goodbye emails to friends and family and I came to realise that next morning when I wake up, I would be in South America. Yayyyyyyy!!

And so it begins... in Buenos Aires

It all started on a sultry January evening in Buenos Aires’ Ezeiza airport. I was standing in front of a rundown Coke vending machine, trying to extort some mineral water out of it as it was the only thing at the airport that had cold water for an agreeable price. I was anxiously entering torn and less torn 2 peso notes into the machine that rejected the majority of my notes but took some on a completely random basis. You might wonder why I entered torn notes, but anyone who’s ever been to Argentina can tell you that by a still-to-be-solved miracle of modern engineering even new notes in the country are already produced torn. Although most vending machines are torn, too, they still want only new notes. Talk about supply-demand discrepancy. Suddenly, as drips of exasperation started to materialise on my forehead, the resolution struck me like a thunderbolt: I want to write a blog about all this madness and punish the world with reading about my (mis)adventures.

The steely resolution brought a change of mind and I started kicking the machine with amazing gusto but the bastard still wouldn’t give me any mineral water of course. My swearing and kicking (which by the way was nearly not as spectacular in BA as let’s say it would have been in London) amused a whole high school class and some apathetic by-walkers, but nobody was really shocked or moved by it. My insistence on the other hand proved quite surprising and a lazy security guard from a neighbouring store showed up with a bored face that has seen many people kicking the poor machine. When I tried to explain my story in a strange language composed of Spanish, English and other words, all he could say was that “yeah, bad luck amigo, machine’s a bastard”. Since I was left with no other choice, I had to buy mineral water for 21 pesos instead of 12 pesos from a store nearby. At least I got a nice smile from the girl in the store.