Day 18: October 19

Last night Serzhyk read up on the local currency — the Argentine peso.

In short and simply, the situation is this (it was all a bit hard for me to “get” at first, but now that I’m writing, I’m getting used to it a little :)

Argentina has very high inflation (over the course of a year, prices for everything have gone up 1.5–2 times).

The local population does not want to keep their money in their own currency.

Because a law was introduced that officially allows buying only $200 per month, there are two exchange rates here — the official and the unofficial (“tourist”) one.

The difference is almost threefold!

At the official rate, for $100 we get 35,000 pesos; at the unofficial rate — 100,000!

How does it work in practice?

Everything can be three times cheaper if you know how to exchange dollars at a favorable rate.

First of all, we didn’t know about this at first.

At our first place, we paid in dollars because we didn’t have pesos, it was evening, and we didn’t know where to get them.

The woman, the owner of the house, gladly accepted our hundred dollars. She said the change would be in pesos.

We agreed. She brought the change, we checked the rate, recalculated it, and there was three times more money.

We thought she had made a mistake and took the money back to her, and she gladly accepted it.

Later we realized that they live by the unofficial rate and she had honestly given us the change. But still....

At our second place, we again paid in dollars. Because that day we were driving through the desert and again didn’t know where to get pesos.

The man also gladly agreed to take dollars. And he gave us the change at the official (low) rate.

Later we realized that he had simply “ripped us off” as tourists...

Interestingly, at ATMs, if you withdraw pesos with a foreign card, the official (unfavorable) rate is used.
If you pay with the same foreign card in shops or at gas stations, the “tourist” (favorable) rate is used.

Exchanging our last hundred dollars at the favorable rate was not so easy either. But more on that later...

In the morning we went to refuel. Gasoline is very cheap in Argentina.

If you convert pesos to hryvnias at the favorable “tourist” rate — 10 UAH per liter!