Argentina currency crisis

[Scott P]

FYI for anyone headed to Aconcagua, Patagonia, or anyone else in Argentina.

The change in government has made it impossible for foreigners to get money out of an ATM. There are few official money changing places open (we havent found one that wasnt closed), but a lot of black market money changers. You can get a good rate, but only with $100US bills. If you try to exchange anything less than $100 bills you either won't be able to or will get an extremely poor rate.

If you are heading to Argentina anytime soon, bring only $100 bills and don't expect to use an ATM. Credit cards work fine a lot of places, but not for many mountain services or even some hotels. Most taxi drivers won't take them either.

Spread to word to any other climbers headed for Argentina this season.

[greenonion]

FYI for anyone headed to Aconcagua, Patagonia, or anyone else in Argentina.

The change in government has made it impossible for foreigners to get money out of an ATM. There are few official money changing places open (we havent found one that wasnt closed), but a lot of black market money changers. You can get a good rate, but only with $100US bills. If you try to exchange anything less than $100 bills you either won't be able to or will get an extremely poor rate.

If you are heading to Argentina anytime soon, bring only $100 bills and don't expect to use an ATM. Credit cards work fine a lot of places, but not for many mountain services or even some hotels. Most taxi drivers won't take them either.

Spread to word to any other climbers headed for Argentina this season.

Thank you tons Scott. Might have a trip pretty soon to Chile/Patagonia side fairly soon. Maybe. Any wisdom about the Chile side of Pat, or in general?

[cedica]

Milei.jpg

[Jesse M]

Milei.jpg

For you who only live by memes…

[KState14er]

FYI for anyone headed to Aconcagua, Patagonia, or anyone else in Argentina.

The change in government has made it impossible for foreigners to get money out of an ATM. There are few official money changing places open (we havent found one that wasnt closed), but a lot of black market money changers. You can get a good rate, but only with $100US bills. If you try to exchange anything less than $100 bills you either won't be able to or will get an extremely poor rate.

If you are heading to Argentina anytime soon, bring only $100 bills and don't expect to use an ATM. Credit cards work fine a lot of places, but not for many mountain services or even some hotels. Most taxi drivers won't take them either.

Spread to word to any other climbers headed for Argentina this season.

Thanks for sharing. Headed there on January 4th.

[Scott P]

Thank you tons Scott. Might have a trip pretty soon to Chile/Patagonia side fairly soon. Maybe. Any wisdom about the Chile side of Pat, or in general?

Chile travel is about as straightforward as it gets. Other than some places not accepting Mastercard (we brought both), which is very minor, there have been zero problems. Travelling here is pretty much similar to the US, but with better public transportation and healthier food. It's also pricier than the rest of South America and you don't have to worry about drinking the tap water.

I'd warn you about the fierce Patagonia weather, some of the "worst in the world", but we had two days of moderate wind and it snowed one day a few hours. Other than that we have had only sunny skies. Our biggest "mistake" seems to be that we brought mostly cold weather gear and not enough hot weather gear. We need to buy some shorts and t shirts because it has been too hot for warm shirts and pants, even most of the time in the mountains. Of course, we hit an unusually clear and warm weather window. Right before we left it was a highs in the 40s with 100% chance of rain for many days in the lowlands. The peaks were having heavy snow and -30s windchills. As soon as we got here, the weather cleared and has been unusually warm.

We're crossing back into Chile in a few hours and it will be a relief not to have to worry about no working ATMs or not having enough $100 bills.

[montanahiker]

I'm excited to see what Milei can do for Argentina. I expect a bumpy road in the short term but hopefully he can achieve some positive results for the country.

[cedica]

For you who only live by memes…

I would argue that it isn't a meme. That's a real chainsaw, that the turned into propaganda tool. The dogs that supposedly advise him are also real, doesn't really matter if cloned or not.

But for example, black dog that Berkowitz was receiving orders from - that's a meme.

[DrNoe]

I was in Argentina about 8 years ago getting up on Aconcagua and in country almost a month. I exchanged US dollars for Argentine pesos but really didn't spend much. As I was getting ready to head back to the US, I thought I would just convert those pesos back to US dollars. Not a chance! I was told by the money exchangers that they didn't have any US dollars that day. So I said, how about Euros? Nope. How about Japanese Yen? Nope. How about British Pounds? Nope. I ended up converting the pesos to dollars in Houston when I arrived back in the US and as you might imagine...I took a bath on the exchange rate. I learned more about Argentina at that point realized that the country as a whole is hoarding US dollars in the event of an economic/currency collapse. It appears not much has changed...

[randalmartin]

From what I understand the new president wants to move Argentina official currency to the US Dollar. Just take dollars with you and I bet you will have plenty of willing takers.

[Kiefer]

FYI for anyone headed to Aconcagua, Patagonia, or anyone else in Argentina.

The change in government has made it impossible for foreigners to get money out of an ATM. There are few official money changing places open (we havent found one that wasnt closed), but a lot of black market money changers. You can get a good rate, but only with $100US bills. If you try to exchange anything less than $100 bills you either won't be able to or will get an extremely poor rate.

If you are heading to Argentina anytime soon, bring only $100 bills and don't expect to use an ATM. Credit cards work fine a lot of places, but not for many mountain services or even some hotels. Most taxi drivers won't take them either.
Spread to word to any other climbers headed for Argentina this season.

Funny you should bring this up. I've hired about 35 J1 visa students for the winter from Argentina and a few of them have outwardly stated, they want to "work as much as they possibly can" this winter. Considering how awful the peso is, and that Milei wants to convert the country to the dollar (a risky endevour to begin with), I can understand the desire to wanting to work much better now.

[pvnisher]

We should all be using dogecoin anyway.