Northern Argentina

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January 24th 2024

Published: January 31st 2024

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sarahlilly

14 Colors Mountain

Normally this time of year I am in Eastern Africa to visit new potential partner organizations as well as check back in on my existing relationships in Uganda. But my two partners in crime in Uganda - Irene and Hope - received a last minute opportunity to attend a leadership program in the UK for 4 months and so will not be in country when I had planned to visit. After learning this, I decided to switch up my travel for this winter.

I am back in South America for a combination of work for Lift Her Up Foundation and bit of tourism. I have three pilot loan programs that I am starting in the first quarter of 2024. The first one will be with the group in Bolivia that I visited last year. They needed a year to make some changes to their organization and now they are ready to start the partnership. This is going to be my first pilot program. We will start with five loans so we can see how the program is received and if we need to make changes for the women to find success.

While working on this I am spending some

Quebrada de Humahuaca

time in northern Argentina to better understand their economy and the issues they face as this is a country I would like to eventually find partners to provide loans. I have rented a car so I can visit some small towns along the way.

In the early 1900s Argentina was one of the riches countries in the world. But they have been on a more than 30 year economic decline. In 2023 alone Argentina saw an average of 211% inflation in the cost of goods and services. People would stock pile food and goods as there was little reason to save money as it would not be worth much in the future. Over 40% of the population lives at or below the poverty line.

When they elected a new president in December he vowed to fix their economic troubles, and fast. His first plan was to dollarize their economy, similar to what Ecuador did in 2000. But, that quickly was determined not possible for a multitude of reasons. The next plan was to massively weaken the peso to dollar value. Up until now there has been two exchange rates. The officially exchange rate that bank provided something like

7 Colors Mountains

400 pesos to a dollar and the black market/true exchange rate that could be 700 pesos proving the government was significantly over valuing their currency. On December 12th the President devalued the peso by 54%. There are two potential advantages to this. The first is to make Argentinian exports cheaper and raising the costs of imports. They hope this will cause consumers and businesses to shift to domestic goods, and a more immediate effect is to make it costlier for Argentinians to shift their savings aboard, a common practice with the consistent inflation. Wealthy Argentinians or other foreign investors may find this is a good time to make an investment in country. It also have an immediate effect on the already large poor population whose income is not increasing at the same rate the peso's value is decreasing.

I witnessed this first hand as I tried to keep on the true value of the US dollar here when being charged for food or goods. The short answer is that now is a very cheap time to visit Argentina as an American.

I am currently visiting the Salta region which is the base of the Andes mountains. The mountain

IMG_5813.

ranges here are very dramatic with color changes and rock formations. I went on a two hour drive yesterday through the mountains first visiting the Cerro de los 7 Colored (7 colors mountains) and finishing the Serranias del Hornocal (Hills of 14 colors).

Additional photos below

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