An Expensive Welcome to Argentina

March 27, 2024July 11, 2024 / Maria / 2 Comments

After a very sad winter (weather-wise), I was thrilled to have a big trip on the agenda for mid-February to early March! Me and Seth started travelling again last year with a visit to my cousin, who is studying in Finland. We had an incredible time, so I convinced Seth that 2024 was the year to finally cross a major trip off my bucket list – hiking in Patagonia! I still had some banked vacation time from 2020, so we booked off 3 weeks to explore around Southern Argentina and Chile.

In order to get to Patagonia, we had to go through some major cities first, and like most plane trips these days, it was chaotic. We booked an Air Canada flight to Buenos Aires through Toronto. We planned to stay for 2 days before catching a flight to Patagonia, which is the region that encompasses the southern portion of both Argentina and Chile.

The trip almost got off to a rough start. We weren’t due to leave Vancouver until 1pm, and I woke up early on Saturday morning to an email from Air Canada saying our flight had been cancelled and we’d been rebooked 2 days later through LONDON HEATHROW. I know it’s an automated re-booking, but it’s just unfathomable to me why any program would ever re-book a flight from Western Canada to South America, with 2 crossings of the Atlantic Ocean.

We would have lost our entire 2 days in Buenos Aires with this itinerary (and maybe even our flight to Patagonia), but fortunately, with a little detective work we were able to solve the problem. It was only our flight from Vancouver to Toronto that had actually been cancelled, so we re-booked that portion of the flight 2 hours earlier and rushed to get to the airport in time to make the original booking. Fortunately I’d woken up early, otherwise we might have had a really bad start to the trip.

Our flight did still end up being a bit delayed and we arrived in Buenos Aires ~4 hours late, just in time for a pretty sunset. We had very limited time in the city and there was a lot to explore! I would have preferred to spend a few more days in Buenos Aires, but I had to limit myself because our trip was primarily about Patagonia and I’m committed to the idea of returning to visit Northern Argentina and Chile on a subsequent trip.

There are a lot of neighbourhoods in Buenos Aires and I had a hard time trying to decide where to stay. I was mostly between San Telmo (for location) and Palermo (for atmosphere). I’d heard mixed reviews about how safe San Telmo was, but ultimately decided on a hip hostel because the location was so ideal. It ended up being great! We didn’t really go out after dark, but I never felt unsafe in San Telmo and our hostel was really nice. We had a private room, but our hostel had a lot of community space, including a bar and 2 pools. The entire front atrium is made of glass with crisscrossing glass staircases (very Harry Potter). The coolest part was that it had a glass bottom floor pool on the roof! So the atrium was always kind of shimmery from the light reflecting off the pool, through the glass floor, and across the walls. It was really neat.

With limited time, we could only do a few activities in Buenos Aires. This was further exacerbated by the fact that we ended up having major money problems in Argentina that we needed to solve before leaving the capital.

Argentina’s currency is the Argentine peso, which is problematic because it is a very volatile currency that has seen rapid inflation and de-valuing of the currency in recent years. It seems to be a bit of a pariah currency internationally and we couldn’t get any of it in Canada before we left. For this reason, Argentinians prefer to try and keep their savings in US currency because it’s much more stable, so we brought several hundred dollars of USD with us, and assumed we could get pesos from ATM’s once we arrived.

Argentina’s main problem is that the official government rate from USD to pesos is about a 3rd of the actual rate. So ATM’s are not really an option because they give you a terrible conversion rate; they can only dispense a maximum of ~$20USD at a time; and they charge you high fees to take the money out. So to take out the equivalent of $20USD in pesos from an ATM would likely cost you more like $60USD. However, because Argentinians prefer to keep their savings in USD, there’s incentive for them to change money on the street. So there’s a separate conversion rate known as the “blue rate”, which people use colloquially to change money. So stores will indicate that they will accept USD at the “blue rate” or you can exchange cash in Argentina’s thriving black market.

This seemed completely wild to me and I’m still a bit shocked that we actually did it. Honestly, I would have been good to just exchange the US currency we brought and pay for everything else on card, but our money problem was further exacerbated by the fact that Argentina is a cash based economy and we heard horror stories about more remote towns not accepting credit cards. There’s definitely a preference for cash and many stores will list their retail items at two different prices: a “cash rate” and a “card rate”. I was very worried we would get to Patagonia and not be able to use our credit cards, leaving us with no way to get any more money than the USD we’d brought with us.

This turned out to be very much not the case. You can pay for most things in Argentina on credit card, even in Ushuaia, El Calafate, and El Chalten. They are all small towns, but tourism is their main source of revenue, so they have adapted to accept credit cards. It does cost you a bit more to pay on card because of the fees – which used to be exorbitant as well, but were regulated in 2022 – so while cash is still king, the rate I got on my visa was fine. It’s pretty much just street markets, buses, and taxis where you need cash. But even that was hit or miss. Lots of taxis do take card, as do some of the major bus depots. I think this cash myth is perpetuated around the country because paying with cash on the blue rate is the most economical way to spend money and most Argentinians can’t imagine having the luxury of paying a bit more to simplify your life. So I recognize that that is a privilege we had as tourists.

But I didn’t know most of this when I arrived in Buenos Aires, so we immediately became stressed out about how to obtain enough cash for the entirety of our time in Argentina. We exchanged some of our USD on the black market, but even then we got scammed. It sounds shady, but it’s a pretty accepted practice and there’s a street in Buenos Aires where you can go to change money. We found someone and he led us back to an apartment building where he had set up a bit of a secret office. He only let one of us go in, so Seth went and changed half of our money. The largest bill Argentina has is the 1000 peso, which is worth ~$1USD. So it’s basically the equivalent of everyone in America walking around and paying for everything with stacks of $1 bills. To manage their stacks of cash, a lot of people and businesses use electronic bill counters. The guy we were buying from counted out the money for Seth using the machine, but when we counted the bills later, they had clearly rigged the it and we got short-changed.

It turns out, the most reliable way to get money is through Western Union. I only have good things to say about Western Union after this experience because they offer a great rate and you can basically send yourself money in Canada and pick it up in Argentina in pesos. So it’s the easiest way to get your hands on cash without getting scammed. The problem is, we couldn’t send ourselves money once we got to Argentina. So my Mom ended up going into a Western Union in St. John’s and sent us all the money we needed and we picked it up in cash in Buenos Aires. It’s still somewhat challenging because a lot of the small branches run out of cash, but there’s a few big branches, including one near our hotel, that was very reliable. So after much difficulty, we finally got enough cash for the trip and I was able to breathe easy.

Mostly I’m relieved we started the trip in Buenos Aires because I think this would have been much more difficult if we’d started the trip in El Calafate or Ushuaia. My recommendation for anyone going is to wire yourself a ton of money through Western Union before the trip, pick it up in Buenos Aires, and avoid the blue rate altogether. We ended up keeping the rest of our USD for an emergency. We didn’t exchange it for pesos and ended up just taking it home. Maybe not ideal if you’re European, but as a Canadian, I don’t mind having some USD around.

So it was a hectic and stressful welcome to Argentina, but fortunately the trip improved a lot from there! Check back next week to hear about the fun things we got up to Buenos Aires and make sure you adequately research the money situation if you decide to visit Argentina! Economically, Chile is much more stable, so it was only Argentina where we had issues.

Ski Resort Series: Mount Norquay

April 13, 2022March 9, 2023 / Maria / 1 Comment

Mount Norquay was the last ski resort we visited while in the Rockies. It’s the smallest of the three and I’d heard it is quite steep, so we decided to leave it until last in case we wanted to re-do one of the others instead. Although, really I knew we’d end up going because I wanted to be able to say I’d skied all of the Big 3.

Norquay may be the smallest, but it’s the closest to Banff town. You don’t even need to get on the highway, it’s just a 15 minute drive along switchbacks up to the base of the mountain. Because it’s smaller, it seems like Norquay has tried to diversify itself and it also has night skiing and snow tubing. I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would! Dare I say I maybe even preferred it over the infamous Lake Louise? It may have been because we got really good conditions at Norquay – about 10-15cm of fresh powder the night before – so I felt a little more adventurous with the soft powder base.

There’s only 2 big lifts at Norquay and 2 smaller lifts. The North American lift is located on the front of the mountain and is almost entirely black runs. Like I said, Norquay is a pretty steep mountain and there were a lot of moguls on it when we visited, so we opted not to ski that lift at all. Instead we made our way over towards the far lift, which is called Mystic, and had a great day skiing over there!

If you don’t like steep runs, then I definitely wouldn’t recommend this mountain. Even the blue runs were quite steep, but the fresh powder helped. We did pretty much every run on the Mystic side of the mountain and had a great time working on our mogul skiing skills. There are a few black runs down the centre of the lift with a lot of moguls, but since there was so much powder, which makes for gentle falls, we decided to give them a try. I don’t mind moguls at all, but I definitely like having good conditions for them.

Later in the day we did a few runs on the Spirit Chair as well, which I really liked even though it has shorter runs. It was the best visibility day we had all week, so there were beautiful views of the surrounding mountains throughout the day (though still limited blue sky).

We decided not to stick around for night skiing because it’s really only the small cascade chair that is lit. I definitely wouldn’t recommend going and paying for night skiing because it’s so limited, but if you already have a day pass it would be fun to stick around for it!

Instead we decided to go snow tubing because it was included in our pass. Tubing was fun, but I think they sell too many tickets, so it’s a really long wait to take the magic carpet up to the top. The first run wasn’t too bad, but more and more people kept showing up and since the tickets hadn’t cost anything, we decided to move on after 3 runs.

So even though Norquay is the smallest of the three, I still think it’s worth visiting, and thanks to the excellent conditions, we ended up having a great time!

Ski Resort Series: Lake Louise

March 30, 2022March 30, 2022 / Maria / 1 Comment

Lake Louise was undoubtedly the most popular of the Banff resorts when we visited. I suspect it draws the most tourists because of its association with the famous lake, as well as it also attracts a lot of locals to its open alpine skiing and back bowls. Plus, the awesome views of the surrounding mountains don’t hurt!

Lake Louise is about a 45 minute drive from Banff, so it is the furthest, though I regularly drive 2 hours to Whistler each way in a single day, so I didn’t find the drive too bad. There are some accommodations in Lake Louise if you’re just there to ski and want to stay nearby, but then I think your restaurant choices would be a lot more limited than if you stayed in Banff.

Of the three resorts, I found Lake Louise had the most confusing parking. Norquay and Sunshine have straightforward massive lots, but Lake Louise has several smaller lots and several sections of the lot are allocated specifically for VIPs or pay parking. Clearly we weren’t VIPs and we didn’t want to pay, so we ended up parking in the road parking – it wasn’t a long walk to the resort, but the longest of the 3 resorts and we were annoyed to walk past the huge empty VIP lot right next to the lodge.

Lake Louise had a pretty different set-up than Sunshine. At Sunshine, I found a lot of the lifts went to the same locations but had different bases from which to board at the bottom. Whereas at Lake Louise, a lot of the lifts left from the same central area at the bottom and went to different parts of the mountain, which I think is a bit preferable. The main difference is that the Lake Louise base is at the same elevation as the highway, whereas at Sunshine you take a gondola up to the base and at Norquay you drive several switchbacks up the mountain. As a result, I found the ski conditions at Lake Louise were unfortunately, the worst of the 3 mountains.

It’s partially because of the weather and timing of when we visited that we didn’t get any powder, but overall, I found Louise to be icier because it’s a lower elevation mountain. I also found the runs to be more confusing because it’s a lot of alpine, so there’s not really any discernible runs in a lot of locations. In some ways I really liked that because you could really ski wherever you wanted, but it also made it hard to figure out where you were and we ended up going down a few more advanced runs because we got lost. Not that big a deal, but since it was an icy day, it wasn’t the best conditions for challenging yourself.

So it was a bit of a rough start as we figured out the mountain, but we did still have a good time. We started off on Glacier chair and did a few runs on the Top of the World chair before going up Summit chair once to see the view from the highest point. I liked this area, but it’s where we kept making mistakes and ended up down a gully a few times. One of the biggest attractions at Lake Louise is the back bowls, which is pretty much just all free black run skiing. My biggest regret is that we didn’t ski the back bowl in the morning when we had fresh legs and decent visibility. We were a little bit intimidated by it and there’s so much to explore, so we decided to save it for later.

After a few runs up at the top we switched over to the Grizzly gondola and explored around some of the bottom part of the mountain. Lake Louise is deceivingly large. Sunshine Village felt large because the lifts are spread out and there’s so many different areas, whereas Lake Louise is more concentrated, but still has a lot of runs, many of which I think are longer than at Sunshine. We didn’t do as many runs in the morning, mostly because it was just taking us longer to do each run.

We had decided to buy lunch at Lake Louise, which was a good decision because packed lunches aren’t allowed in the Lodge of Ten Peaks (though you can eat them at Whiskeyjack Lodge). The nice thing about Louise was that there were several lodges, I don’t know how busy it was over at Temple Lodge, but we found Lodge of Ten Peaks to be a lot less crowded than at Sunshine.

In the afternoon we made our way over towards the backside of the mountain to get the areas we hadn’t yet explored. We did a few runs on Ptarmigan chair and a few on Larch chair. I ended up really liking the Larch area, likely because it had some easier runs, or maybe because they are more well defined. I think I would really like Lake Louise if I got to ski it more often, but because I only had one day, I wanted to get a lot a variety and in the alpine, I guess I felt like I was just skiing the same thing run after run. It’s why it’s nice to have more than one day at a ski resort, because you get to try everything on the first day, and then return to areas you liked or try things you missed on the second day.

Emily wasn’t really keen to do the back bowls at all, but like Goat Mountain at Sunshine, I still really wanted to tackle every part of the mountain, so I convinced her to do one run with me. We got to scope it out a bit more on the Paradise chair, which runs up the back of the mountain, and I think on a good powder day I would be pretty comfortable skiing in the back bowl (at least in the area under Paradise chair, which is black diamonds as opposed to double blacks). Unfortunately, our mistake was waiting too late in the day. We took the one easy run down the back bowl, but it had really bad flat light when we did it and we felt like we were skiing blind, so we weren’t inclined to try a second run, hence why I say I wish we’d done it in the morning.

Anyways, sometimes you live and learn. We still ended up having a great time at Lake Louise and surprisingly Emily liked it more than me. I can’t really pinpoint why, but of the three, Lake Louise was probably my least favourite. I may get slammed for that because not a lot of people seem to like Norquay, so I’m inclined to blame the weather on this occasion (we got some great powder at Norquay). In any case, I won’t be too quick to judge it and I would definitely return to try it again and properly ski the back bowl. Overall I think it might just be the vibe that I got from Lake Louise. It was more crowded and seemed a bit more elitist than the others, so I’d be just as happy to ski at Sunshine or Norquay as well. Either way, it’s definitely an iconic resort.