Sophisticated uneventfulness (Argentina)

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(Day 339 on the road)I have the feeling that this is going to be a tough blog entry to write. Put simply, nothing extraordinary happened in the last four weeks in Argentina. No Machu Pichu to stare at in awe. No lost city to discover in the remote jungle. No 6.000m-high mountain to climb. No death road to bike down. No multi-day camping trips high in the Andes. No vast salt desert to drive through. No volcano to scale. No close encounters with tame wildlife. Put simply, no major highlights to write about - compared to virtually all my last entries.

Instead, I discovered a northern Argentina full of pretty landscapes, with appealing and (fairly) orderly cities, and with a sophisticated and educated population. In fact, travelling south after spending many months in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, Argentina was the first country where I actually realized I had crossed a border and entered a new country. So far, the countries (actually with the exception of Colombia, and not counting my four days in Chile), were all pretty similar - at least from a traveller's point of view. Crossing borders was mere formality, but on the other side of the border, many things in daily life were fairly similar.

Not so in Argentina. The difference was instantly noticeable. And luckily, most things were a change to the better. Often, much better. The list of things that are different here in Argentina is long, and as I was travelling along, I started to make a list that I kept slowly expanding over the coming weeks. Some things were visible from day one. For other things, it took me a while to realize the change - especially when things were "missing", so they were sometimes less obvious.

Here are some of the things that changed for the better in Argentina, especially when compared to Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia (often less so compared to Colombia):


• Traffic: Drivers in Argentina actually give right of way to pedestrians, or let you cross the street. In general, they are much more considerate, much less egoistic than in literally all other countries so far, where drivers feel they own the road, and the driver in the biggest car (or bus) is king. What a pleasant change here in Argentina.



• Attention to detail: Another really nice aspect - Argentinians are somehow tons more thoughtful. There are countless examples, and I could probably write a whole blog entry just about this, but here are a few: Wobbling tables in Argentinian restaurants have a piece of paper under one leg, so they don't wobble anymore. Honestly, I don't think I have ever seen that in other countries - they simply did not care, and the tables simply all wobbled. Salt shakers in restaurants have a bit of rice in them so the salt does not clump up. Light bulbs on the ceiling are covered, and not just the naked bulb. In hotel rooms, there is mostly a small bedside lamp (and not just the harsh, uncovered ceiling light). In restaurants, you often get a small glass of water when your order a coffee. When you order a meal, you mostly get a small appetizer (even in the cheapest restaurants). Holes in pavements are (mostly covered), and not just left as they are as treacherous traps for pedestrians. And the list goes on - it's small things, but taken together, they make many things so much nicer.



• Environmental awareness: This one was pretty obvious from day one: Argentina is so much cleaner, and people don't just talk about Pachamama all the time, they actually do care about the environment. I have been appalled by the negligence of the people in all other countries I visited, so it was very nice to see that Argentinians have a strong sense of keeping their everyday life clean by such simple things of actually using rubbish bins, rather than tossing their plastic out of the car windows.



• Receipts: Again, it might seem trivial, but when going to a restaurant in Argentina, or when buying things in a shop, you actually get a receipt. Cash registers in neighbouring countries were the great exception, meaning you never got a receipt, meaning the shops most likely never paid (any/ much) tax on their sales. Argentina seems to handle this much better.





• Noise: Argentina is generally a much calmer country, and people are generally more mindful and considerate towards other people. No huge boom boxes outside shops and restaurants, no loud music playing all night from some flat next door, nobody watching a movie on their phone without headphones on public buses.


• City planning: In Argentina, and save for the bigger/ capital cities in other countries, I for the first time had the feeling that Argentinians actually plan their cities, rather than simply let them grow however they grow. Where no planning leads to is pretty evident in neighbouring Bolivia, where cities tend to be a complete mess.


• Parks: Many Argentinians cities have numerous nice parks in the city centre. This is something which was very rare in other countries, where the cities tend to be messy, dirty, loud and car-dominated – it feels like nobody ever considered how to make a city actually livable.


• Sports: Argentinians actually do lots of sports outdoors. It is so nice to see so many people going for a run, or groups of people doing yoga in the park. Outdoor sport to keep fit seemed almost non-existent in Ecuador, Peru or Bolivia, where sport was limited to indoor gyms.


• Education: Honestly, the general level of Education in Argentina is on a completely different level than in the other South American countries I have seen so far. I met so many well-informed and generally interested people here that it was quite a shock after so many months in mostly completely ignorant Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. I hitched a ride with ice cream vendor who was very aware of current European politics (and had installed solar panels on his ice-cream truck to do his bit to combat climate change). I overheard three teenagers in the park wondering if France and Germany were republics (and who then checked their assumptions on Wikipedia). I had lots of people ask me very specific, informed questions about how we do things in Europe. The list goes on. By contrast, in other countries I met people who though that the currency of Europe was the US Dollar, who thought that Germany is physically located in the United States, and who had never even heard of a country called Croatia. Clearly, the Argentinian are doing something right in their education system, and personally it was very nice to have some conversations beyond the usual “where are you from” and “Bayern Munich footbal” type of conversations.


• English language: This one still surprises me, even after a month in the country now: Many people here speak English. Mostly basic, but many are completely fluent. In many restaurants, certainly in bigger cities, the staff speak good English, and in many museums, there are English tours of offer. I have even met people who are learning other languages, and had a nice conversation in German with a random woman on the street who was just learning the language at the Goethe Institute for personal development (and was very happy to try her language skills in real life).


• Culture: This is a big one - Argentina has such a deep appreciation of culture, it was great to see. Even smaller, regional towns tend to have a few really nice, thoughtful museums, proudly showing off their history and heritage. It was a pleasure to roam many of them, including many small art galleries in the bigger cities.


• Thoughtfulness: This one is more subtle, but I feel that Argentinians are generally more thoughtful than its neighbours. One thing where it is easily noticeably are explanations in museums, which are (mostly) in English (in addition to Spanish of course). It was similar in Columbia, but in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, this was hardly ever the case, where it was all in Spanish, even in big, important museums in their respective capital cities. Heck, one museum in Cordoba even had a very detailed print-out in German (and other languages).


• Road safety: In Argentina, drivers actually use their seat belt, and actually stop at red traffic lights. This seems like such a trivial thing to write, but coming from Bolivia, where crossing the street was often a life-threatening affair if you simply start walking even on a green light, it was instantly notable. It was also nice that I do not have to explain myself here for using the seatbelt every single time I buckle up in a taxi.


• Bicycles: Argentinians like to bike around, and it was certainly nice to see it. Plus, they actually use helmets while biking, which of course is the smart thing to do (in contrast, in neighbouring countries people don’t normally wear helmets even when on fast motorbikes). The last time I have seen people riding bicycles with helmets was in Quito in Ecuador.


• Reading: This might seem trivial, but in Argentina, people read books and magazines: Again, something which I noted immediately: Even smaller Argentinian towns have well-stocked book shops, and you see lots of people sitting in cafes and parks reading books and magazines. I can't remember seeing that at all in the last six months in Ecuador, Peru or Bolivia, where people seemed to spent their entire free time watching TikTok videos or playing games on their phones.


• Car alarms: This is something which took me a while to realize: There are no car alarms in Argentina. This is something which annoyed me profoundly in all other countries: Car alarms going of literally 100 hundred times a day on any given day. What a relief to be rid of that. Let's hope Paraguay and Brazil are similar.


• Enforcing the law: In Argentina, for the first time since Colombia, I had the feeling that the country is actually trying to enforce the law it makes. It was mostly notable in traffic, where traffic police, often on bicycles, actually wrote tickets to speeding drivers or for illegally parked cars. I don’t remember seeing that at all in the other countries I visited, where it is generally a wild-west attitude, or rather the law of the strongest.


• Stray dogs: This is a big one, and so nice: Argentina is the first country that has no epic stray dog problem. I am not sure how they do it, but I did notice that most towns have elevated rubbish bins, so that dogs cannot rumble through the rubbish. Fun fact: In northern Argentina, I saw countless semi-wild horses going through the rubbish, which was actually quite funny to watch. The horses seemed to know they were not supposed to do it, and gave me the “it is not what it looks like” horse-look.


• Taxis: There are a lot less taxis on the streets, which is very nice. In my other visited countries, taxi often accounted for a considerable number of cars on the road. Often, more than half of all cars where taxis, honking their horns or flashing their light at passing pedestrians, which becomes pretty annoying over time. My guess is that taxi licences are regulated in Argentina, whereas in other countries there is no limit to the number of taxis on the road (plus the countless unofficial taxis), resulting in terrible traffic congestion and pollution, as there are way too many taxis ploughing the road, all competing for way too few passengers.


• Bus stops: Again, this one took me a while to realize, as I kept wondering why the traffic congestion is so much better in Argentina. But then it clicked: Buses in Argentina stop at bus stops, and not simply everywhere they want, blocking the roads completely for everyone else. It is such a trivial, normal and sensible to thing to do, so it really makes you wonder why their neighbouring countries have no regulation in place.


• Car horns: Once again, I didn't notice it straight away, and I guess that is because my default expectation is this: When a car honks their horn, there is a reason for it (the way it should be). This is the norm I am used to, and this is how it works in Argentina. And it is really nice, and such a big contrast to other countries here, where cars honk their horn all the time, for any reason (overtaking another car, approaching an intersection, taxis trying to attract passengers etc etc).


• Music: There is such a nice variety of music here; I didn't even realize it how much I missed it. Columbia apart, I felt that Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia had no sense that sound-alike Spanish love songs (“corazon, oh corazon!”) are not actually the only kind of music in the world. How nice then to hear street musicians in Argentina play songs from Dire Straits or Joe Cocker.


• Climate change: Argentina is the first country where I have seen solar panels and wind turbines. I have also seen awareness campaigns run by the governments, for instance billboards telling people to turn off the light when they leave their house, to swap light bulbs for more efficient LEDs, or to regularly defrost their refrigerator. Way to go, Argentina.


• Security: Argentina is the first country on this trip where I feel safe almost anywhere I go. It has been a steady progress actually - Columbia was worst, Ecuador better, Peru even better still, and Bolivia was mostly safe. Argentina is the best however by far – I realized that when I found myself sitting in a café, my laptop in front of me, having a video call with a friend. I would have never considered taking my laptop out in public in any of the other countries, but I did it in Argentina without even thinking about it. Nice while it lasts I guess – in Brazil the security situation is apparently even worse than in Columbia.







Where there is light, there is shadow. So, to contrast the list above, here are the things I noticed in Argentina that I did not like too much:


• Motorbikes: This was an issue mostly in northern Argentina: Many motorbikes are unmuffled, and often pimped, so the noise they make is unbelievable, and hard to describe in words if you haven’t witnessed it yourself. It is a big nuisance - standing on a hill in a city you can literally hear the motorbikes from kilometres away as the accelerate. I have no idea if Argentina has no noise-emission laws, or if they are not enforced, but it is a big problem. I had several sleepless nights, as even good-quality earplugs cannot drown out the terribly loud, low-frequency noise from the bike's engines.



• Language: Simply put – to my ear - the Argentinians speak a weird version of Spanish. My Spanish is limited to start with, but generally I understand what people want from me. Especially in situations that I have been to before, and I roughly know what to expect. Example: When I have finished my food in a restaurant and the waiter comes to the table, there are a limited number of things they typically say ("how did you like the food?", "would you like desert?", "anything else?" etc). Pretty straight forward, a conversation I have every day. Here in Argentina, I have been dumbstruck countless times, as I simply did not comprehend what the waiter was saying to me. Not that I did not understand certain words - no, I had no idea what she was talking about, due to their weird pronunciations. Example: When an Argentinian says "Robert", they pronounce it like "Schubert" (the Austrian composer). Honestly, this makes it really tough in daily life for me.



• Money: Getting cash or paying for stuff in Argentina is complicated to say the least. The country is in the middle of yet another financial crisis, which makes daily life in Argentina complicated and potentially expensive. I could write a whole blog entry just about this (and plenty of others have), but let's try and keep it simple: Argentina has three exchange rates that are relevant for the traveller:
1) The official one (really bad - to be avoided at all costs). 2) The actual, floating and ever-changing exchange rate (called "Blue Dollar" - the rate you aim for when exchanging foreign cash on the black market). 3) Finally, there is the MEP rate, which you get when pay when paying with a foreign credit card (and which is worse than the Blue Dollar exchange rate, but much better than the official rate). Confused? Rightly so.
The best option is to bring Euros or Dollars and change it on the black market. Argentina has an inflation rate of over 100%, meaning everybody wants to get rid of their pesos, so changing on the black market is actually quite easy and very common. For a shorter trip this is a good option. But for longer travels in Argentina, carrying large amounts of cash is not really viable.
And once you run out of cash, you can’t simply use an ATM to withdraw cash, as they work on the very bad official exchange rate - which, at the time of writing, is about 50% lower than the actual rate. As I write this, 100 US Dollar is worth 24.500 Pesos at the official rate, and 48.000 at the Blue Dollar rate. When I first entered Argentina, the rate was 45.000 Pesos, so it has already inflated by 3.000 Pesos in just four weeks. So literally the only option to get cash in Argentina is to transfer yourself money through Western Union, paying their high fees every time and accepting whatever rate they were willing to offer. What a great business model.
But once the money is transferred, actually getting the cash at their office is hit and miss. The first time I did it (in Cordoba), it was actually pretty painless - thirty minutes waiting in line, at the third office I tried. In contrast, in Mendoza, it took me two days and over four (!) hours to actually receive my money. I tried more than ten Western Union offices all across the city; most did not have any Pesos at all. The few shops that did have money reliably ran out at one point – basically you queue for an hour or so, and then they announce that they have run out of money, and could please everybody go home now? I gave up after that and came back the next morning, queueing well before opening time, which reduced the waiting time to about 1 1/2 hours. Honestly, a thing which normally takes one minute at any ATM, takes four hours in Argentina. It was extremely time-consuming and frustrating to say the least.
And just to round it off: It is possible to pay with credit card. The rate you get there - the MEP rate - is about 10% worse than the Blue Dollar rate, but that is also hit and miss. I carry a few credit cards, and they basically all handle it different: My main credit card used the official rate, which was a no-go. Another card I have used the MEP rate straight away, which was very convenient. Yet another card used the official rate first, and then refunded the differences about five days later. So to sum this all up in once sentence: It is all a big mess.



• Opening times: This was another major obstacle to travelling in (northern) Argentina: Literally everything – shops, cafes, museums etc – closes between 1300h and 1700h or 1800h, and whole towns go into siesta mode. I spent time in smaller towns where literally everything was closed in the afternoon – it was impossible to buy water, get some food or visit the local museum. This made my life quite hard and became quite frustrating after a while – four to five hours of everything closed in the afternoon - the prime time to explore things as a tourist - is just a bummer. Restaurant opening times are even worse, they close at 1300h and mostly don’t open again until 2000h or even 2100h. I mean, seriously? I get that Argentinian like to eat a bit later, but who waits until 2100h to go to a restaurant to eat? Plus, I feel that the current economic crisis in Argentina is at least influenced by these extended closing times – if you close your business for long periods every day, you sell less things to potential customers.



• Pizza: Argentinians love Pizza. Unfortunately, they have possibly the worst pizza in the world. I have made the mistake of trying way too many pizzas in my first few weeks in the country, and I was thoroughly disappointed every single time. The idea of a tasty pizza in Argentina is a thick dough with as much greasy cheese on top as you can possibly put on it, and often nothing else. After many disappointments, I completely gave up on pizza.



• Friendliness: This is a tough one, as it generalises a lot, but I feel the people in all other South American countries I have visited on this trip, were (considerably) more friendly. Not that the Argentineans are unfriendly, but I did meet a number of cold or downright rude people here. Especially in Peru and Bolivia, I never encountered that, people were generally so friendly and helpful that it was almost scary. In Argentina, I feel that many people are annoyed when the stupid foreigner does not understand everything straight away. In all other countries so far, people made a noticeably bigger effort to help, patiently explaining things when they realized that I was a foreigner.



• Public transport: In ten months of travelling across other South American countries, I have never had any problems getting from A to B. Even in very remote areas, there was simply always a bus going. Here in Argentina, especially in smaller towns, I was stuck countless times, or I gave up going to places I wanted to as there was simply no transport available. I love hitchhiking, and I found myself doing it extensively, on some days taking five or even more cars, often going hours with a kind soul who stopped for me. At least safety was not an issue. But I feel for the local population. Bus to go to the next city? Sure – but only Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays, at 4am. No joke – this or similar was the timetable for many smaller towns I visited.
In terms of sightseeing, there weren’t too many highlights to write about at length. Nevertheless, I did enjoy my time, taking it slow and easy: Walking in the pleasant mountainous scenery of Jujuy. Sipping way too many café con leche in stylish cafes while listening to street musicians. Soaking in the hot thermal springs of Rio Honda or Cacheuta. Walking the streets of pretty Salta. Exploring the great museums of Cordoba. Biking around the vineyards near Mendoza. Hiking at the base of Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere. Checking out the pretty, natural Puente del Inca bridge.



My two favourite places on this stretch of my sabbatical were the stunning Talampaya National Park. Of course, there was no public transport going there, and I spent nearly two hours waiting for a car to stop. In the end, funny enough, the head of the national park drove past and gave me a lift to his office so to speak. The park itself was amazing – think deep, orange-red and narrow canyons, with condors circling above.

The other highlight was completely unexpected: I was staying in a hostel in tiny Uspallata and had an afternoon to kill. The hostel rented out a bike, and the owner told me of Cerro Siete Colores - a coloured mountain 10km up the dirt road. So off I went, not expecting too much. The bike ride was already very pleasant, but the multi-coloured mountain, set amongst other remarkable mountains, was simply incredible – it is the panorama you see at the top of this blog. I spent many hours scrambling around in the area, which (weirdly) I had mostly for myself to enjoy.

Coming up next, my plan is to head over to Buenos Aires, leaving the Andean mountains and the Pacific coast for goo. That makes me feel almost melancholic – I have followed the Andes down south all the way from Colombia, but now we have to part ways. But maybe that is a good thing – winter is coming fast; even in lower regions temperatures are touching zero degrees at night, often well below. Luckily, all the places I have stayed in here in richer Argentina have had heating. I really don’t want to be in higher regions in Peru or Ecuador now, where there was generally no heating; I was already very cold there during summer. Brrrrr.



My route in Argentina (so far): Purmamarca - Tilcara - Salta - Cafayate - Tafi del Valle - Tucuman - Termas de Rio Hondo - Santiago del Estero - Cordoba - La Cumbre - La Rioja - Chilecito - Villa Union -Rodeo - San Juan - Mendoza - Puente del Inca - Uspallata - Mendoza.

Next stop: Buenos Aires (Argentina).

To view my photos, have a look at pictures.beiske.com.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Exploring Argentina
As I read this blog I was thinking it is good to have you traveling and blogging again. We have not made it to this part of Argentina yet but hope to soon.