Argentina

Argentina is a really good country to visit, the people are friendly, the food is really good even if I miss the street food culture. I mean when you just go up to a stand or a cabin on the street, buy something you really not sure what it is and get a true taste of the country. Argentina did however counter attacked with one of the hostels guests invited me to a Asado for my last night in Puerto Iguazu.

For you who don’t know what asado is and are to lazy to click the link I will briefly call it combined barbecue with a social event. It was a long time ago I had that amount of meat and to be honest, even the morcillas was really good, at least if you ate it together with some white bread to neutralize the blood taste a bit.

Argentina has its bad sides too though. Money is as many of you know a concern with their hyper inflation (53% in September, 2019) and the money you withdrawn one day may not be worth as much the next day. Another issue related to money is how to withdraw. After a lot of research I found out that in Argentina they use two different ATM systems, “link” and “banelco”. According to Internet banelco is best for foreign cards but my sources on site tells me to use link. Either way you never really know which ATM who will work and there is no guarantee that the machine who just worked will work again. As if that would not be enough of trouble all of the ATM’s I found has a withdrawn limit of 4000 pesos which is really not a lot and with a extra bonus, a withdrawal fee on 10-15%. In total that makes it actually harder and more expensive to withdraw money than to buy something.

Next problem is the reliability. Everything here is more or less 15-20 minutes late which includes the buses and flight. A few companies has corrected this by change their schedule to actually state departure time to 15 minutes before its actually depart, the problem is that you have no idea so you still have to go there and wait. Another issue that I found yesterday when my flight was delayed/canceled was the “mañana mentality”. I like the idea to not stress out but when you have a connecting flight it would be nice with some more information than “Im pretty sure another flight will be available in the future”. So annoying and my 4h flight ended up to be 16 hours instead before I finally ended up in Puerto Madryn.

Have only strolled around a bit today and its a cozy small town. Really beautiful with the beach and rocks/cliffs into the ocean. I was hoping to see a lot of animals but no luck so far. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow. Tonight the hostel is arranging a sea food evening with locally captured sea food, I doubt I ever want to leave this place!