Argentina

We recently finished up four weeks in Argentina, four weeks that seem remarkable by any measure. 

We took an unconventional route through the country, beginning at the very south in Chile, crossing by bus into Argentina just north of Tierra del Fuego and visiting the Perito Moreno glacier near El Calafate, then traveling by bus or plane northward along the Cordillera and into the Patagonian desert before flying to Buenos Aires and Iguazu Falls. The route went from small, rarefied populations to the large and dense metropolis (Calafate has a population of maybe 20,000 people, Bariloche around 100,000+, Neuquen with a million-ish, and BA with its teeming masses).

In contrast to Europe, our time in Argentina (and southern Chile) focused on natural phenomena and natural history--glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, dinosaurs, the Ice Age--along with a bit of modern politics and economic theory.

I have been at a loss for words for much of our visit. The national parks are incredible--the pictures don't do them justice, and we could easily have spent many more weeks hiking or driving through these amazing places. The dinosaur fossils and reconstructions are stunning.

Some funny guys at Iguazu.

Katie waiting for some calving.

Visiting a very large dinosaur.

But I have been struck particularly with the economy of the country, and how the cities "look." By the GDP numbers, Argentina is a solid upper-middle-income country, nestled in 2023 right between Costa Rica and Bulgaria in the per capita rankings, ahead of Mexico but behind Russia, Panama, and Uruguay. So I guess I should have known--this isn't a developing country, it shouldn't "look" like South Africa or Vietnam. But I didn't know. The recent economic troubles mean that 60%+ of Argentines are now living below the local poverty line. The massive inflation of the past few years (250% per year) mean that cash is worthless, and the central bank has not printed new notes which means that it is also unavailable. Somehow I thought that No hay deniro turning into No tengo deniro would mean a lot of No hay servicio para ti, but it didn't. Everything worked.

Almost all business accepted credit cards, and Visa has assisted tourists by exchanging payments using the black market rate (they call it a blue-market rate since it isn't technically illegal) rather than at the official rate. Restaurants were full, and not just in the tourist areas. We chanced upon a music festival in Neuquen that was packed, with thousands in attendance (and we met no other foreigners). Business have large plate glass windows, with freshly painted signs, clean sidewalks, new TVs and electronics. Buenos Aires has wide boulevards--very, very wide, with as many as twelve lanes going each direction!) with stone buildings and tree-lined streets, at least in the center of town. Inflation and expenditures can trigger each other--last fall, in Turkey, we saw the infusion of cash into the economy before an election trigger inflation, but in Argentina it may be the other way round and it's the inflation that is triggering all the construction. There is no point in saving if the value of your money will inflate away in a few months; better to spend it on a new car or new windows. The towns were busy.

Despite the surge in poverty, the crime rate seems to have remained quite low. We walked everywhere, not just in smaller touristy towns like El Calafate but in downtown Buenos Aires in the early evening. We saw women jogging, families out walking, businesses open, and no one anywhere warned us to be careful. Once, on our bike tour of Boca, our guide suggested that we put our phones in our pockets because of the risk of someone snagging them, but we took them out for photos (along with everyone else visiting the colorful neighborhood at the time). It was fine.

Best of all, if you are a foreigner, everything was cheap. Another option in an inflationary environment is for locals to convert their cash into dollars (or euros), so the dollar is currently very strong. The five of us ate at restaurants routinely for under $40, even when ordering wine and steak. Uber rides for forty minutes cost $12, empanadas for lunch cost 50 or 60 cents, a large Coke cost a dollar.

So we stayed for four weeks, but the beauty and the affordability (at least for us) meant that we could have stayed for much, much longer.