5 on Argentina

1) Maté

Mate is a tea like drink that Argentines go crazy for.  Though the drink is popular in much of South America, in Argentina every 4th person seems to have a mate in their hands. 

As one local guide told us, it is a symbol of Argentine culture and the value of community and sharing. The guide continued explaining that a mate is shared as a gesture of friendship, the straw end is passed facing the person and you are expected to drink until the cup is empty of tea/water, then return it to the person to pour more water and share it with the next person. 

Custom dictates that turning down a mate is rejecting a person's offer of friendship, and also it is rude to hog the mate for too long so people develop a taste for the boiling hot and bitter tea. 

Here is a picture used without permission of Eduardo (see a previous post) trying to casually drink what she described as a mix of extremely bitter tea mixed with a sort of olive oil flavor... After hearing this description I declined the offer of friendship from our guide.

2) Argentine Spanish 

The Spanish spoken here is hilarious. Due to the massive Italian immigration the people sound Italian, they have that rhythmic inflection, the enthusiasm and hand gestures but as a local guide pointed out -every Argentine thinks he speaks Italian even though they don't know a single word.  

The Spanish is also different in that they use a slightly different grammar than the rest of South America (or Spain for that matter) and pronounce a number of sounds differently depending on the region. Eduardo and I have been laughing at the lovely Porteño' pronunciation of words like vanilla - which in typical Spanish is more similar to English without the L sound "van-E-ya" but in Argentine it's "vanisha" the double L is always a ssshhh sound. It's kind of hilarious because they correct you when you pronounce it any other way, or sometimes don't understand normal Spanish.  

3) The Economy and Currency

I've already mentioned this but it has been one of the biggest impacts on my time in Argentina and weighs on the minds of the Argentinian people every day so i think it is important to explain. All of this information comes from helpful tour guides and other Argentine sources.

So basically Argentina is for all intents and purposes an educated, middle class society of mostly white people(I will describe a bit more in numbers 4 and 5). That being said, like all of South America, Argentina has had it's fair share of bad governments and difficulties creating a stable economy. They've got the people and the resources, but they don't have the stability, and that instability has created low confidence in their economy and currency both at home and abroad.

International banks don't trust Argentina to pay their bills(inflated by bad deals). Locals don't trust the government's decisions and have faced hyperinflation in the past so they are reluctant to trust the currency. The government furthers this distrust by ignoring the inflation that does exist and artificially pricing the Argentine peso at a lower rate to the US dollar than supply and demand would dictate. Basically the people will pay anywhere between 12-14 pesos for each US Dollar(called the blue dolar rate) because they trust the dollar more to hold it's value where as the peso loses to inflation each year(partially because no one trusts it). The government wants people to stop using dollars and trust the peso so they say the dollar is only worth 8.50 pesos. 

The demand for US Dollars is high because businesses need to make overseas purchases in them, and families and individuals use them to maintain their savings. But due to the government interference you can't get them at banks, so people use the blue market. Tourists and people who've recently crossed the borders exchange their fresh Bills for pesos offsetting the high Argentine prices and making it a relatively cheap tourist destination. The locals like it because tourists then spend freely, and the shops can get American dollars to save their money or pay their bills.

When asked if this is illegal, most Argentines will scoff but say reluctantly "yes" - normally though they will follow up implying that it won't ever be punished because the police and government officials all take their cut in the market. One tour guide explained "Go to the finance minister or the Vice President and ask them to exchange dollars and they would do it without a second thought."

So what does it look like to exchange? 

In Mendoza I exchanged money with a guy in a car. That felt a little sketchy, but it was basically because the hostel who arranged the transactions didn't want outsiders to start coming to them for exchanges. 

Later while exchanging Chilean money at an actual money changing business I saw an American tourist welcomed into a back room where he received the blue dolar rate rather than the posted official rate. 

While in Buenos Aires we've exchanged money numerous times on one of the main commercials avenues. This comical experience never gets old as hundreds of people selling fake tour posters, handing out fliers or pretending to sell products approach passerbys with not so subtle offers usually along the lines of "tango show? Tour package? Cambio?"  Some get even more explicit just mumbling cambio?(change?) over and over until someone makes eye contact. 

After quickly negotiating a rate (that is almost never different than the next guy- usually around half a peso lower than the official blue dolar rate posted online), you are taken into an actual or fake business. An office where a guy will hand you stacks of a 10 hundred peso notes to the equivalent of however many American one hundred notes you have.

One time it was a clothing store, another a magazine kiosk, another an office with fake zoo posters on the wall, the exchange always feels a little shady but in a few weeks of this we have never gotten ripped off, and that is part of the deal. Everyone wins if no one gets ripped off because the dollars flow, the bribes flow, the people save, the tourists come, the cycle repeats.  

My companion pointed out -look what currency is on the cover of the book...

4) Buenos Aires!

I've never heard a bad word about this city, so I was expecting a lot and my expectations have been met plus more.

First a little about the city (from books and tour guides). 

Though founded more than 400 years ago the big city of Argentina was not that big of a deal till about 130 years or so ago. At this time it became the major port and industrial center of Argentina as well as the home to thousands of immigrants from Italy and Spain. It was also around this time that the wealthy families of Argentina began to redesign the city to look and feel like the capitals of Western Europe replacing (read outright destroying) any resemblance to colonial cities of South America.  Drop a person in BA without telling them where they are and they will assume Western Europe.

large avenues, modern buildings mixed with artistic European designs...

fashionable white people who speak, eat and drink like Italians... big English or French style parks, Italian gelato, pet dogs without leashes and dog shit everywhere (only differentiated from the rest of South America by the fact they are pets).

Oh plus a large and easy subway system that gets you pretty much anywhere you want to go.

The subway stations have lots of murals.

Sign says Welcome to La Boca (neighborhood)

It's a beautifully designed city. Perhaps not currently facing the best of times, but still feels energizing, proud, creative and productive. 

The city has almost everything you could want (minus the situation with needing to exchange American dollars).

Tango dancers in the streets... and some lady's hand ruining my pictures.

Street performers, art galleries, beautiful parks, cheap ice cream, good food, easy access to anything... It's sort of a traveled paradise.

5) Different and yet not... But still different... Yet not... But wait...

So Argentina is great right? Yes yes yes... But at the same time it's a little too much like home, too many easy conveniences, too many Starbucks and McDonalds, too many people who speak English. I found the same in Uruguay and Chile. These countries are western, modern, examples of neoliberalism and globalization... They are convenient and pleasant but where is the thrill if everything is so similar?

And then you run into this:

This is an Argentinian brand that uses American imagery inappropriately to convey that "modern western rebel" style. I'm sure the people who buy the hats and shirts have no idea what it stands for, just that it's American.  

It's the little things like this, the mistranslated signs or directions, the weird cultural appropriations, the merging of American culture with Argentine. These things are usually subtle but once you catch them they are hard to miss and they keep it fun. 

Anyway you may have to take my word for it. 

One more post about Argentina then Paraguay and Brazil!