Argentina! And the Blue Dollar

February 10th, Mendoza Argentina

We're finally in Argentina, we've waited so long and we're finally here! We took the 'Tur Bus' and got to the border at around 3 am and crossed through immigration very easily, it's definitely nothing like our previous border crossings. In fact I didn't even know we'd already passed out of Chile, it was that smooth! Got to Mendoza around 7 am and it was already hot. Luckily our hostel 'Chumbas Hostal' is close to the bus terminal so we walked there and once again we lucked out, this place is great and even has a pool! Unfortunately we had to wait around till 10 am till our room was ready so Bernie took a nap while I ran out of Daily Mail articles to read on the flooding and bad weather in England.

Around 12 pm we began our treasure hunt... for money. In the other countries, the problem was that the ATMs didn't have enough cash to dispense so there was nothing we could really do. But we were prepared for Argentina as the money exchange in this country is truly unique. Unfortunately for the Argentinians, the peso fluctuates a lot and is unstable, so the locals have a hard time exchanging pesos for other currencies. As a result of this, a parallel illegal market thrives called the 'Blue Dollar'. There is an official exchange rate of course, but if you have US dollars ideally, you can exchange them for pesos in the Blue Dollar market for one and a half times the amount (versus withdrawing cash from an ATM, exchanging at the official rate etc). Though unofficial, it's everywhere and that's the way the exchange works in this country. Luckily, I was well up to speed on the workings of the Blue Dollar thanks to Dolores!

Berns and I thought it would be easy to buy dollars in one of the countries we were traveling through before Argentina. This was not the case sadly, most of the time we couldn't even get the local currency, so we found out about Azimo. It's a site that let's you transfer money from your UK bank account and you can pick up cash in pesos, but changed at the blue dollar rate. Though it's not widely heard of, we tried it and seemed simple enough. The problem started when we walked for ages around the city and couldn't find the pick up point. When we finally called Azimo for an alternate pick up location, it was shut for lunch from 1 pm-4:30 pm, as was most things in this city. At this point we had no money at all, couldn't find any money changers even at the official rate and had been walking in 36*C heat for hours. I thought Bernie would die from thirst but we couldn't buy water because no one accepts card here!

Finally finally, we went to the one place that has never let me down, my true temple, McDonalds! Haha after finally reaching Argentina, our first meal was at Mcdonalds! They accepted American Express cards so at least we had a meal until we finally picked up our cash. I'd highly recommend Azimo, we bought £700 worth of money for £500 so pretty big savings.

After this eventful day, we went back to the hostel, too tired to even get in the pool. I have a terrible cough- it was quite hilarious acting it out in the pharmacy since we didn't learn the word for phlegm (gross I know, sorry!). I was beyond exhausted but Bernie and his love of steak made me go for dinner. And to be honest, it was amazing. We spent the night talking about books and whatnot, a great night with some lovely Malbec and steak at Don Mario. We had a bit of a language issue and Bernie's steak wasn't rare but medium and they replaced the entire thing!

Mendoza is wine country, my favourite wines are from this place so I cannot wait to check out the vineyard tours. There's a ton of things to do here so tomorrow we're starting out with a wine tour on horseback (!!!) and thinking of going white water rafting and maybe even paragliding. Let's see what happens.

 

 

Cough syrup