Buenos Aries

I arrived 2 nights ago and had all of yesterday to explore around, but I failed in my mission to get to a laundry place or a haircut because here most places are closed on a Saturday and almost everything is closed on a Sunday (today). 

I did however get some local currency out, and in doing so significantly contributed to the wealth of the nation…

The local currency is pesos, and the exchange rate is very approximately around 1000 pesos to 1 US dollar, an easy rate. Unfortunately all ATMs change somewhere between 7000 and 9000 pesos withdrawal fee for foreign cards. Usually that’s not terribly bad because you get out a lot and wear the fee only once. But they’ve thought of that, and the maximum withdrawal is 40,000 pesos. So you end up paying 17-20% fee to get local money! 

But Nick, you say, you could just go to a bank and get a currency exchange. Most places will only accept USD $100 bills, and if they do accept lower values, the rate is much worse. You can find that with $100 notes the rate might be 1000 to 1, but with $20 notes it’s 900 to 1!

And I only have USD $20 bills because nowhere else in South America will accept US currency over $20!

And while you can pay for things with US currency in most shops, they will give you a bad rate if it’s smaller bills.

And at all times, the US currency must be in mint condition. No folds, no marks, no rips.

So in all I’ve had to take a bad rate to get local currency so that I can pay for things without using a credit card (the exchange rate for the credit card is almost always a bad rate too).

Oh, one final thing with money — in many countries if you with draw $200 you might get two $100 bills, or maybe one $100 and five $20s, which often isnt great, you want smaller notes. Here, in Argentina, I withdrew 40,000 pesos and it gave me half in 1,000 peso notes and half in 500 peso notes. I have a fat roll of pesos now.