Monday 13th January 2025: Salta and the dangers of visiting a country with a failing economy

We both slept well after our long journey.  Our accommodation  is a studio with an en suite bathroom, and sits five blocks south of the town centre.  The kitchen is small and not particularly well equipped.

We'd managed to buy some bread and spread the night before so tried to make toast.  It took about 20 minutes!

Meanwhile Joan struggled with the Blogger app on her phone that was ridiculously slow.  She decided to edit the post on our laptop and tablet but neither worked.  Eventually she found out that it was the one post that was the issue and others could be amended.  By this time it was nearly noon.

Our flat is opposite a beautiful church called La Iglesia de la Vina.

We walked up to the centre of town.  The city has a back water feel about it.  The pace is slow and there aren't lots of people.  There are plenty of small shops and street vendors selling churros, sweets and other trinkets.  The main square is the Plaza 9 de Julio, which is surrounded by grand 18th Century buildings, including the pink cathedral.

Our first mission was to get our hands on some Argentinian cash so we looked for an ATM.  You can't buy Argentinian currency in Britain.   We'd brought out lots of US dollars to pay for our hire car but had no extra cash. The first ATM did not accept Joan's card.  The next one has a long queue.  We recalled an issue with getting money out previously as the Argentinians use commas instead of our point, and points instead of commas.  Very confusing.  The security guy at the last bank told us we could withdraw a maximum of $40.000,00 in one go.  That's around £30.  And there's a £8 service charge for that.  If you want more money you can use the ATM again and pay another £7 for the pleasure.  It all seems geared to get money out of the customer.  Upon getting home to our flat, I read that some ATMs only let you get $3000-4000 out at a time.  Crazy!!  This could become an issue for us if places do not take credit cards.

There were plenty of restaurants on the edges of the plaza with almost identical menus: pasta, pizza, burgers and huge chunks of meat.  We stopped at the Pulperia 1910 and had vegetable sandwiches with chips and watched the world go by.  Joan had a Pisco Sour ( a South American cocktail) and we tried the local beer.   The service was slow but friendly.  We decided not to try the Pulperia for 2 people....

We had a walk around the Plaza with its statue of General Arenales on his horse.  The trees bore green citrus fruits.  Dogs slept in their shade.

Around four, a few drops of rain fell, so we headed back to our flat for a rest.  An almighty thunderstorm broke out.

Kevin fell asleep on the sofa whilst Joan fretted about the cash situation.  It seems that the economic situation here has not been good with inflation running as high as 211%.   Hence people prefer to be paid in US dollars.  

We've brought out loads of dollars for the hire car but as we can't access Pesos easily, we have decided to pay for the car hire with the credit card (at a higher price) and use the dollars to pay for things like hotels or exchange for Pesos at the informal cambios (exchanges).

It's truly crazy with the ATMs.  According to other travel blogs we have been reading, some ATMs have only let you get out $1000 Pesos a day and still whack on a disproportionate service charge..  That's 79 pence!  As a comparison, our lunch with two large bottles of beer, two sandwiches and chips and a Pisco Sour cost $42,000 (though we were in a top tourist location.)

Just before 10, we headed out into the streets to buy water and wine, as we were still full from lunch. (Argentinians don't do small portions)  Shops stay open late, and people wander through the streets.  It's warm and you don't need a coat.

Back at the flat, we educated ourselves on the new Argentinian President and his anarcho-libertarian policies.  He's in the same camp as other populist disrupters like Farage and Musk, and seemingly likes wielding a chainsaw in his speeches as a metaphor for cutting through red tape.  For that read workers' jobs, protections and rights. Scary.

The other complication we have had is our return flights from Salta to Buenos Aires.  Originally we were leaving Buenos Aires for London around midnight, so we bought mid afternoon flights from Salta to BA so we wouldn't have too much of a wait.  For two people these cost around £100.

Then a few months ago, the Buenos Aires - London flight was changed to 1915 night which meant our flight on Salta was to late for us to connect.  Luckily (or so we thought)  Joan had paid extra to have flexible tickets in case of last minute hiccups like this.

Whilst in England, she had tried to change the flights with the airline - Fly Bondi -but was perplexed by the way they write numbers in South America and when she rang the booking company the charge seemed too high.  So she decided to waited till we got to BA to talk to someone at the FlyBondi desk.  He showed her a price by again those fill stops and commas confused us.  The price seemed ridiculously high.

Last night, have now cracked the way to read numbers, she logged on to Fly Bondi to change the tickets and found that to change each originally £50 ticket would cost over £200 per person an extra for us to be flexible.

So we tried Skyscanner and found we could buy a completely new ticket for less, so that's what we did with Aerolineas Argentinas.  

Lesson learned and I should know this from watching Celebrity Race Across the World.  In Argentina travel ticket pricing is demand led (dynamic pricing, like the Oasis tickets).  So if there are only a few tickets left, prices go through the roof.  So us buying early in July they were super cheap but then trying to change them now is extortionate.

We live and we learn.......