Anomalies of Argentina, Part 1

 With 15M inhabitants, Buenos Aires is a major metropolitan city of a similar size but broader sprawl than NYC. Subways, museums, restaurants ad infinitum, and honking taxis define the city.

And yet … in many ways its still a jungle out here.

I wont bore you with affairs of state, but the currency situation is absolutely bonkers. The highest denomination is a 1000 pesos bill. Its now worth $3 on the blue rate (street) market, which means when I went to buy our ferry tickets to Uruguay yesterday I had to pack a wad of cash so big it barely fit into my money belt. When we went to Western Union (the unofficial ATM/exchange office) to withdraw funds, the stack was so big we could not fold it to put in my husband’s  pocket. Good thing he had big cargo pants. He hugged his pocket the whole way home. 😂

The government seems to have zero interest in addressing the situation (see article: https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/economy/tourists-pay-with-wads-of-cash-as-argentina-inflation-nears-100.phtml) as they would prefer encouraging Argentinians (and tourists) to pay with credit cards, bank cards, or other digital and traceable forms. Unfortunately as the precious US dollar gets us twice the bang for our buck, it is in the financial interests of tourists to carry crisp 100USD bills in their suitcases and exchange them at twice the official rate on the street. Sketchy sketchy.

While we purchased most of our flights and accommodations with our credit cards (and the official rate) months ago, I figured I could probably buy our ferry tickets to Uruguay in person, in cash, and essentially pay $260Cdn instead of $520 for a three hour boat ride across the river. We leave in 10 days and yesterday I proceeded to hike to the nearest ferry ticket office in Recoleta as per the instructions on their (what seemed to be) modern and professional website. The location greeted me with a newish cleanish sign that said this office was permanently closed and I should go to one of three other nearby locations. I picked the one most on my path, and what I found was a hardware store. Incredulous, a store employee asked me what I was looking for, and then informed me that the ferry office closed many years ago. Like, how is that even possible? They put up a new sign with outdated information and didn’t update their website in years?

Ive hit many deadends these last few days based on inaccurate information on google, websites, maps. Which means everything takes me 4x longer. We are on day 4 and while Im becoming more familiar with the neighborhood, I feel like not much is advancing.

Much like in the jungle.

But, we found some delicious whole wheat sourdough bread and some jungle honey which is outstanding. So far the food and wine is top notch.