Tween Travels

John is stepping in to write about Buenos Aires – Madeleine will be back soon when our adventures continue in Mendoza.

We are officially past halfway on our trip. Moving on from the comfort of staying with family and friends in England was a transition we had been nervous about since booking our trip. Luckily our next stop was Buenos Aires in Argentina which is where Nina and I met just under 20 years ago. We have great memories of the month we spent together carousing around the city and were excited to be heading back. We booked an AirBnB for a week literally around the corner from my apartment 20 years ago and planned to relax and explore our old stomping grounds.

Our first challenge was the currency. We knew that there had previously been official and unofficial exchange rates, but from what we read before we arrived, the government had massively devalued the currency in order to stop those issues. Imagine our surprise at the airport when the ATM allowed a maximum withdrawal of the equivalent of $18 USD for a fee of $10 USD. We ended up wiring money to ourselves through Western Union and then visited 4 different Western Union offices until we found one that had cash to pay us out. The largest bill in wide circulation is 1000 pesos which is worth about 90 cents. So the teller gave us our money in giant stacks of 1000 peso bills.

My very rough understanding is that the new libertarian government’s plan was to devalue the official exchange rate and then try to match inflation to the US dollar. Instead, exports and tourism tanked because everything jumped in price for foreigners. Argentinians’ wages and pensions are worth half as much as a year ago, and inflation has just kept right on going. In just the week we were in Buenos Aires, the value of the peso fell by 5%. What we would consider a bad year’s inflation was just another week in Argentina.

If the bizarre money situation is the biggest quirk in Argentina, then the next biggest would definitely be the meal schedules. Breakfast is a light snack and coffee at 7 or 8 AM. Lunch is a long large meal around 2 or 3 PM. There is a snack at 5 or 6 PM and then a moderate sized dinner is at 9 or 10 PM. Back in our twenties, we would have then gone out to bars or clubs which open around 12 or 1 AM. Nowadays, in our fourties with children, this schedule was a mixed blessing. We all really enjoyed the long lunches in nice restaurants with slow service and lots of time to talk and laugh together. Maybe because of wine at lunch or because we were still recovering from our flight from Europe, we were not usually able to stay up and go out for dinner. Less helpfully, on Friday and Saturday night we were treated to live music from the club down the street from 1 AM to 3 AM. It felt like a weird fever dream to slowly wake up to a party at a club we didn’t realize even existed and seemed to disapear by morning. At least it was good music.

Buenos Aires is sometimes called the Paris of South America for the beautiful architecture and the culture of the city. This was what we were most excited about sharing with the children. Porteños, as people from Buenos Aires are known, are deeply passionate about education, books, arts, politics, and protest. Cafes are on almost every street corner and neighborhoods are dotted with parks and playgrounds. The food is amazing. About half of the population is ethnically Italian, so Italian food abounds, along with empanadas and parilla which is charcoal grilled barbecue.

We also love how much of a dog city it is. It’s totally normal to see dogwalkers going down the sidewalk with 10 or more dogs at once. (Also totally normal to see dog poop all over the sidewalk.)

Last but not least, the tango is amazing. We managed to stay up one night to go to a dinner show. I am always amazed how good tango dancers seem to effortlesly float across the stage while still twirling and dipping.

It was in the shuttle for the tango show that we had our most honest chat with a Porteño about the economy and state of the country. She said it is worse now than it ever was during Covid. Our vantage as a tourist was obviously limited, but even so it was strikingly clear that things were not going well. It was the first large city we have been to that didn’t have new skyscrapers being built, or really any major construction at all. There were a huge number of unhoused people and it was striking that unlike the US, we didn’t see unhoused people struggling with addiction or mental health. Outside the train station, people had what looked to be their household belongings spread out on a blanket for sale to try to make some money. Everything felt slightly desperate and generally in disrepair.

Its not surprising that between the bleak economic conditions, the cold winter weather, and having just left family and friends in England, we all had a couple of glum days. The kids started feeling especially homesick. Nina and I were both just a bit listless and sad. Buenos Aires is such a key part of the story of our lives that we have always felt a strong connection to the city. It feels like in the twenty years since we were here, we have grown and I think improved through our time together, raising our kids, and making amazing friends. Buenos Aires, on the other hand, seems to be just a little less vibrant, a little more decrepit.

After recognizing our slump and a long family meeting, we rallied for the final day. We visited a cool science museum that the kids were excited about and had a lovely long lunch. We still had some time to kill before our overnight bus, so we walked down through a string of lovely plazas. It had finally warmed up a bit and we randomly popped into a free public art museum. Room after room was filled with art by Monet, Picasso, Rodin, Van Gogh, etc. and presented alongside what the top Argentinian artists of the time were doing. This felt like the Buenos Aires we remembered.

I don’t know when, but Nina and I will be back. It is a lovely city and a lovely culture. I can only hope -for all the Porteños – that life improves and the next time we are back, Buenos Aires is once again on the up and up.