Buenos Aires 1
Floralis Genérica. A millennium gift to the city from Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano to represent the flowers of the world and the hope that they bring as they open every day.
It was finished two years late and the daily opening of the stainless steel panels in line with the passage of daylight, stopped working in around 2008…
Still a thing of beauty though
Day 2 - Wednesday 11th January
Airports! How is it that there is always a balling brat kid at the airport and that they always seem to be paired with a grumpy twat muttering stuff like ‘too young to be flying’ and the balling kid brat is near me which in turn makes me the grumpy twat? Thank Bose for noise reducing headphones! The cocoon of the business lounge offers some small protection but you’ve still got to brave the throng to buy sunglasses🕶️
We arrived at Heathrow ludicrously early but soon enough we were boarding our plane for the 14 hour flight to Buenos Aires.
The trip, so long in the planning and seemingly so susceptible to delay, appeared to be taking another hit as the brakes were applied shortly after the takeoff started and our plane came to a juddering halt. In the moments of anxious silence that followed, I briefly identified as a bowl of Petunias with the pronouns of ‘oh no’ and ‘not again’ but the scale of the potential catastrophe diminished from smacking into a planet to an excess of spray thrown up by the ascending plane in front of us. A short delay whilst the pilot reprogrammed the plane to grow up and be less sensitive and we were on our way.
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Each time since January 2020 that our trip was postponed, we talked ourselves into upgrading our flight experience and now find ourselves enjoying the indulgent luxury of BA business class with seats that fully recline to form a flat bed. A first for us and done in the hope that the flight would be a pleasurable part of the holiday rather than an arduous and uncomfortable necessity.
It almost worked too!
Honestly, it was absolutely great but not quite fantastic. The issues, of course, arose from the presence of an inconsiderate fellow passenger named here as Fidgety Ferret because he was was small, twitchy and was up and down through the night more times than a whore’s drawers. The poor layout of the sleeping pods meant that he had to climb over my legs in order to gain access to the aisle and the toilet area (I think that he may have made a nest there). This played right into Fidgety’s hands as he gleefully cracked his foot into my ankles periodically through the night.
We were kept entertained by our personal hostess, an interesting cross between Whopee Goldberg and Mrs Doughtfire, dotingly mothered attention on all of her passengers’ needs but totally lacked in subtlety, skill and finesse. ‘So you wanted white coffee with two sugars?’ ‘No, coffee black none please’ ‘oh silly me! I always get mixed up but at least I tried’. Bustling up the aisle showering all around her with empty trays, cutlery and napkins as she haplessly tries to tidy up. Always with a jolly jingle humming subconsciously from her throat. Even at 3.00 am when everyone apart from fidgety ferret is trying to get some sleep.
It is definitely a bit weird to be horizontal on a flight as, through the turbulence, your brains are jiggled like jelly on a plate messing with your internal gyroscope. The experience was infinitely better than coping all night in a chair though and in spite of Fidgety’s best efforts, a reasonable amount of sleep was gained.
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Dawn breaks as we fly over Uruguay towards Argentina’s capital (Whoever knew there was a place called Fray Bentos? I wonder if everyone that lives there is very pink?) and into the clear skies above the sprawling low rise urban development that is Buenos Aires.
Successfully hooking up with our ride to the hotel we were so happy to be on terra firma and in South America. But, with four hours to go before we could get into our room and have a shower, we needed to find something to do. There was only one thing for it; go and score some local currency.
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The Blue Dollar
The concept of a black market economy where punters can gain a few percentile points of extra vfm has got to have been a thing since the dawn of capitalism but I don’t think that I have ever been anywhere that has a government that seems to positively encourage its use. Until now!
The ‘Blue Dollar’ refers back to the US$100 bill introduced in 2002 coincidental with the moment that the Argentinian economy was on the slide. Before this time, the Argentinian Pesos (ARS) - US dollar had been close to a 1:1 ratio and Argentinian bank accounts could be held in both currencies but when the ARS crashed, the banks reneged and refused to release the valuable US$ and so a rigorous black market was triggered for the more stable currency. Twenty years later, cash is still king and dollars look like curry to a pisshead!
As I say though, what is astonishing about all of this is that the Blue Dollar rate is not only widely accepted by pretty much all businesses, hotels, restaurants and street vendors but also, it seems, by the current governing power and all transactions can be carried out in plain sight. So, it is illegal but no one bothers to enforce it. The market is so open that through Western Union you is able to transfer money from your home country to Argentina for you to pick up in the local currency at a high street branch and at the Blue Dollar rate.
So what? I hear you say. Well, here is the good bit: the official rate for £1.00 is around 200ARS whilst the Blue rate is 410ARS! That’s huge!
Why the government are not more vigilant (find a different word) is a mystery to me and anyone else that I have asked. The only thing that I think is that the system brings more dollars into the country and that the relatively increased affluence of the populous means a wealthier overall economy🤷🏼♂️. Either way it doesn’t seem to be working as the Argentinian economy is on its knees with inflation racing along at a giddy 100% per annum! Probably time to stop moaning about how bad things are in the UK…
Of course, we jumped in on the deal, did the on line exchange before leaving Blighty and found ourselves jet lagged and hungry walking the streets of the huge metropolis of Buenos Aires searching for a Western Union branch that would do the deal with a pair of British tourists.
I had pre-planned the route but inevitably with everything looking slightly different than anticipated, we lost our bearings and had to huddle in a doorway conspicuously inconspicuous to look at Google maps. Directed to a post office nearby, we took on the grumpiest teller in the whole of South America who really, really didn’t want to help. Eventually, we established that the amount of money that we wanted to pick up exceeded the limit for this particular Western Union branch by a factor of three! After a further lengthy standoff, Mrs Truculent reluctantly gave away a little more information about where we should go so we thanked her for her services to mankind and left. A short walk later we arrived at the specified location that looked way more likely a venue with a long line of gringos queueing for their dosh.
At the window the acknowledgement of money due in exchange for a tracking number went smoothly and the teller started shoving fistfuls of notes into the counting machine. The piles of notes grew higher and higher and we nervously asked if any larger denominations might be available. Er no, only loads and loads and loads of 100 pesos bills which, at the hookey rate, are worth 25pence each. Having left our bags at the hotel to allow street walking without angst, we were massively under prepared to discretely pack away a big bundle of cash that would easily pass muster as the stash of cash in any Guy Ritchie film.
Pockets bulging we emerged back onto the streets of Buenos Aires only to be immediately asked ‘¿Cambio?’ by some dodgy geezer. We have him our best ‘blimey mate why on earth would we want to change money with you when you can clearly see that we have just come out of the nearest thing to a legitimate establishment that exchanges money at the Blue Dollar rate?’ and moved on.
What time of day it was relative to our brains’ expectations could not be accurately determined but our stomachs knew that it was time to eat and, thankfully, there seemed to be plenty of choice of nice looking cafes to choose from. We opted for one that looked popular with tourists (so many tourists in the city) on the corner of Plaza de Mayo and gorged on the locally popular milanasas with chips and washed down with lemonade laced with ginger and mint. We had made no effort to assess value and willingly accepted that we were probably going to be paying over the odds so we were pleasantly surprised at the £20 total. We then reminded ourselves that without having a fistful of dodgy pesos, £40 would have been a little exy.
After that we just felt like sleeping so we made our way back to our highly priced but distinctly average hotel and slept.
The view from our 16th floor hotel bedroom across the Retiro district. Slums nestle in any available gap and posh districts sit alongside.
Evidence of abject poverty is rife on the streets of Buenos Aires and serves as a constant and humbling reminder of how fortune deals out the cards