Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Argentina - Travel with Christy
In this episode we visit with Christy, a full time traveler while she explores Buenos Aires, Patagonia, Salta and various other locations in Argentina.
Follow Christy : https://linktr.ee/TegloGoes
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Carol: https://www.instagram.com/carol_freelance_life/
Kristen: https://www.instagram.com/team_wake/
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Carol Springer: https://www.instagram.com/carol.work.life
Kristen: https://www.instagram.com/team_wake/
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Hi, welcome to our podcast when Next Travel with Kristen and Carol. I am Kristen and I am Carol, and we're two long-term friends with a passion for travel and adventure. Each episode, we interview people around the globe to help us decide where to go next. In today's episode, we are visiting with Christy in Argentina. Enjoy, okay. So welcome, christy. And so where are you right now, christy?
Speaker 2:I'm in Igua it's Igua Zoo, which is right at the border of Brazil and Paraguay, so it's right in the north and it's I just got here two days ago so I've took a rest day yesterday and today I've been getting stuff done so I haven't gotten to really explore much. But it's the major waterfall system that is like Niagara falls on steroids.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, I've never heard of such. So how do you spell this place?
Speaker 2:I I G U A Z U.
Speaker 1:Okay, it is Iguazu falls.
Speaker 2:So I've heard of this before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you look and you see the picture, you'll see. So apparently from the Argentina side you see more of like from the bottom of the falls, but from the Brazil side you see the top of the falls. A long time ago, many years ago, my ex-husband's aunt and grandma went there and I remember seeing their pictures going whoa, I can't believe that. It's like bigger than Niagara Falls, and I forgot all about it. And then when people in Argentina were like, are you going to go to Iguazu Falls, I'm like what's that? And I look at them like oh my gosh, that's the crazy waterfall system.
Speaker 2:And so I'm super excited. But they're like you got to make sure you go to the Brazil side because of Brazil side you see it from the top, and then from Argentina you see it from the bottom. And then my Airbnb host was like yeah, if you walk down this road like 20 minutes you'll get to a great lookout point where you're looking at Brazil, and then another lookout point you can see Paraguay. So they all three kind of meet, but the waterfalls are not in Paraguay.
Speaker 1:They're meet, but the waterfalls are not in Paraguay, they're in Brazil and Argentina. I have photos up of it and I definitely see where I must be looking, from Brazil's side and Argentina's side, and they're both beautiful but very different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what people told me they're like, you'll see totally different angles and different experience. So I'm hoping that on, let's say, friday, so Saturday and Sunday I can see Argentina and then the next day Brazil. Um, cause I ended up booking for six days because it's just been weeks, probably six weeks straight, of like nonstop all day tours and I was like I need a break desperately, and so I was like I'm taking two days to just like try to get stuff done, catch up on my emails, and then all over the weekend go explore the waterfalls.
Speaker 2:But so just a little background to get stuff done, catch up on my emails, and then all over the weekend go explore the waterfalls.
Speaker 1:But so just a little background to get some perspective. So are you primarily a travel blogger as your main job, or you just kind of piecemeal ways to make money? Airbnb, the website, freelancing, you know? Is there one primary thing that you're doing or just exploring life right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when I, when I left LA in 2018, I sold my house, and so the first year and a half of travels were just from the sale of my house, and so I was blogging, but I didn't have any income stream. It's kind of been. Now the last year has been the Airbnbs and then the book, and then I'm hoping to turn my travel blog into a book series, because my travel blog is less here's tips on what to see and do. It's more of the story, the experience, the history, what it's like, things like that. But I am adding a section. I have a tips and advice.
Speaker 2:I had a post about Thailand and Vietnam. I'm going to add one for Australia a tips and advice. I had a post about Thailand and Vietnam. I'm going to add one for Australia. I'm hoping to then turn my stories into a book travel stories series. So it'll be like the first six months of my travel, I went from LA, drove to Alaska, spent time in Canada. That was all six months. So ideally, I'd like that to be book one, and then book two would be Thailand and Vietnam, and then book three would be Australia, cause I spent six months and drove around the entire country.
Speaker 1:So were you a writer originally? No, it's just like this crazy stuff? Is it, like you know, when you have like the dream life? It almost sounds like it happened by accident.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a operations and recruiting manager, for I was a manager at Target for five years and then 11 years at an industrial supply company in LA and 2016,. I hiked the John Muir trail and then I had been married at that point for nine years and we were separated, and so it kind of helped me figure out what to do.
Speaker 2:I ended up filing for divorce a few months later. And then 2017, I went on a three week trip to Scandinavia, did hiking, kayaking and then traveled by myself. The first 10 days were a tour, and when I came back to LA, it was like this Hmm, I don't think I want to be here anymore.
Speaker 1:It's really crowded.
Speaker 2:It's really hot. It just I had the desire for a long time. It just felt completely unrealistic. And then, when I started seeing, well, actually, if I sold my house, I think I could make this work, and if I had to go back to corporate America, I think I could also make that work. And then I just started writing and I said you know what I'm going to write. I'm going to write about this, I'm going to write the true story, because I do think social media and different blogs don't do it service. They make it seem like everything's wonderful and if you do this too, your life will just be perfect and it's like. No, you will still have struggles and you will still have all of this. And the writing truly helped me to get past it, to just get it out to say here's how I'm feeling. And so I would say, even if you're never going to share your thoughts, just the act of writing it down will actually help you process it and kind of come to terms and be okay, kind of, with what you're experiencing.
Speaker 1:I'm curious. Yeah, so you ended up in Alaska. What's the longest and typical duration and where have you? Where have you been? I'm just curious. A couple of things and we'll dive into Argentina, but I'm just to understand your path, so kind of a summary.
Speaker 2:When I first left LA, I drove to Alaska and that was about six months. I loved British Columbia and the Yukon in Canada, and so it was about four months to Alaska and back to LA, and then I ended up going back to Canada, whistler, north of Vancouver, for six weeks. I just love that town. Then in 2019, went to Thailand for a month, vietnam for a month, australia for six months, drove around the entire country through the middle of Tasmania. Then I came back to the States in October 2019. Then 2020, back to the States in October 2019,.
Speaker 2:Then 2020, I went to Whistler, canada, for two weeks for my birthday in February and then by March the beginning of March I was in Switzerland because I was going to tour Eastern Europe for six to eight months and I've also done house and cat sitting along the way. So I use trusted house sitters. You pay one annual fee to trusted house sitters I think it's about $120 a year for verifications and background checks, and then there's no exchange of money. So I watched the house water the plants, get the mail and then I stay for free.
Speaker 1:So I did it all over the world, or just um it's all over the world, but I will say South America.
Speaker 2:I have not been able to find any there. I think was one house sit in Argentina and it was for dates in a city that wouldn't work and I tried searching pretty much all of South America. So I was really surprised by that, because they're all over the U S, canada, australia, asia, europe, so I'm not sure why they're not really quite yet in South America. But it's a really awesome way to travel because in other countries you end up also getting to know the host. So other countries tend to say come the night before I'd like to cook you dinner, get to know you, stay the night the next morning and we'll show you the routine with animals in the house, we'll leave and then when they come back they usually end up staying a night. And I'm still in touch and friends with some of the people I've met in Australia.
Speaker 2:In the U S I've done a couple. They tend to be more like come here for an hour, we'll show you the routine, get to know you and then here's the key, and we're gone by noon tomorrow and then come. So it's not, it's just, I think, the American culture. It's really funny because when I first got to Argentina, it was that initial struggle of everything that you experience when it's new language, you know customs, culture, it really I didn't have a lot of time to research before I went and it, even though they speak Spanish in Argentina, um, they have a very different type of Spanish. They have a very heavy Italian influence and so the Spanish that they speak is not the Spanish that I learned in the U S.
Speaker 2:And just to give you an example, like we learn, um, chicken is polio and that a double Y is pronounced or double L is pronounced like a Y. They pronounce it Poshow, so the double L is like a sh, not a yeah. So even like takeaway is usually Peta Yavar, they say Peta Shavar. So there was a lot of pronunciation differences. So it was kind of a okay, getting totally used to. You know had been so long getting used to routine of traveling abroad again. But I've I've came to Argentina at the very end of August and I've spent about five weeks or so in Argentina. I spent a week in Uruguay and then I spent a couple of weeks in Chile and I've kind of done the North, the South, all of Argentina.
Speaker 1:So currently in the North of Argentina, so is that the language, the accent, is that different in Uruguay, chile and other places? Or that's specific to Argentina that Italian influence?
Speaker 2:Yeah, specific to Argentina. So it's really interesting because they have their constitution, is very open to immigration. So if you say I want to move to Argentina, you pretty much can. They might do a background check, but otherwise they're pretty much open. And after World War II they had a lot of people from Italy, a lot of Jewish people fleeing the war and they ended up. They said at one point Buenos Aires was 50% Italian and even now they estimate that the country as a whole has 50% has an ancestry of Italian. So you can see it in the way they talk. They talk with their hands, they talk very fast, they pronounce things differently. They have a very, very heavy European influence. So walking around Buenos Aires was felt like I was in Europe. It was very. I did not realize how heavily the European influence is in Argentina. And even eating dinner they don't start eating until nine o'clock and some restaurants don't even open until eight o'clock for dinner. So they they very much try to emulate everything in Europe.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm looking at the population 46 million compared to America is like three over 300 million, and it's Argentina. Well, it's not nearly as big as America, but, um, it's pretty good size, it looks like probably like two or maybe a half or a third of size in America, but it looks like there's a lot of like barren mountains, people probably there yeah, there are, and the Andes mountains go through on the east but on, so the Andes mountains kind of divide Argentina, argentina and Chile.
Speaker 2:So, um, and it's interesting because I was told that the length of Argentina is the same as the width of the U?
Speaker 2:S, so it is really big and people don't realize how big the land masses and the population of Buenos Aires is. I think 15 million for the metro area it was. It's kind of like being in New York City. It's a very big, dense city and I thought originally oh, to go see the other parts of Argentina, I can perhaps take a train or take a bus.
Speaker 2:And the history of Argentina is really interesting. You will learn about the economy and the history when you're here. Because they have major inflation. I think this year I was told they're at 80% inflation. They have been having inflation problems for the last 20 years. So the way a tour guide kind of explained it to me is um, and I'm kind of getting to this with the the why there's not many? There's no long distance trains because 20 years ago and then late nineties, through the nineties, they were doing really well.
Speaker 2:They thought, oh, we're like Miami, they're building high rise buildings by the water. The peso equaled the dollar and they were by about year 2000,. They were the world's third richest country and they were doing really well and a lot of political strife happened. They started getting inflation. They ended up with a military dictator, I think in the eighties that they were able to bypass. So there's a lot of just from 1970, 80, 90 strife. Then they were doing really well for about 10 years and then their inflation started hitting really bad. So it's interesting because when you walk around you'll see, even like at an Airbnb, the inside might be remodeled and have new tile and be nice. The outside of the building might look really bad, you know, torn stucco or you know kind of black streaks down it and the streets and the sidewalks they're. They're just kind of in disrepair, and so you can see the signs of the economy and the struggle. It's just such an interesting place because I've never been somewhere where, you know, just 20 years ago they were, you know, on par with the US, they were doing really well, they were, you know, had the amazing infrastructure, beautiful buildings, and then you can see the results, though, of 20 years of having poor government and inflation.
Speaker 2:I saw in Salta, kind of in the north near Chile, and I spent eight days or so there in small towns, and I saw twice these lines that probably had over 200 people in the line at seven in the morning wrapped around the building, and I said, what is that line at seven in the morning and the tour guide said oh, that's government assistance unemployment. Because we're open to immigration, anybody can come here. So people come from Bolivia, peru, paraguay and they can collect unemployment and it's supposed to end after like two years but they can keep reapplying. So some people have been on it for 10 years and sometimes the dad and the son are on it and it's not a very good life, but then they don't have to work and because of that it's very interesting because that's what the tour guide told me. And then another tour guide told me the amount of taxes that Argentina takes from him is about eight months worth of a salary and he lives on four months worth of a salary. So it's really wild to say. That's why I say when you come to Argentina, there's no way to avoid finding out, you know, learning kind of, about their economy and about their, their history. They had it was.
Speaker 2:I asked a tour guide. I said you know how did your inflation change and at what point? And he said in 2000, like a burger would cost, like at the U S it might be $5, five pesos. Then within I think, he said it took about nine years for it to go from five pesos to like 50 pesos and then it only took like. In 2015 a burger was 50 pesos. Now a burger is like 700.
Speaker 1:So it's okay. Yeah, so so as a traveler, since the inflation, so I'd assume you do do you still like exchange your money or just use the credit card that has the exchange at for each purchase individually?
Speaker 2:No, so that's one thing that I have never experienced anywhere, except Argentina is everywhere I've been. I just use my credit card, where it has zero foreign transaction fees.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And sometimes they'll go to an ATM take out cash. So I have some cash and you might pay an ATM fee, but the official conversion rate's always the same, so it doesn't really matter if you use your card or you go to the ATM. Argentina is the exception. Argentina, you have what's called the blue market rate, so the official exchange rate. Just to give you an example, when I came at the end of August it was 138 pesos per dollar. Now if you go to Western Union and you exchange cash or you wire yourself US dollars, because they save their money in US dollars. So US dollars are highly prized because US dollars hold their value a lot better than pesos. Right, you go to Western union. They gave me a rate of 280 pesos per dollar. So to to give you an example of how that kind of looks, I went to a restaurant. I mean it was a very nice, like four-star vegan restaurant and the total, if I paid with my credit card, would have been $41. Paying cash was $20. So you do not want to use your card.
Speaker 2:Here Things will actually be as expensive as the U? S. Sometimes they're as expensive, as you might see in London, because of the official exchange rate. So what you have to do? I took American dollars to Western union, exchanged it and they gave me a rate of 280 instead of 138. Within three weeks, the official rate was 148 and Western Union gave me 310 pesos. So just in three weeks it went from 280 pesos per dollar to 310 pesos per dollar, and their highest bill is a thousand pesos. So you'll get a thousand, 500, 200, 100. So you end up with these stacks of cash and, for example, an Uber ride around Buenos Aires might be 600 pesos, but your meal, your dinner, might be 2,500.
Speaker 1:And it's yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's yeah. And it's so crazy that in Buenos Aires, the first Western union I went to, it was in Palermo I didn't have a line. I thought, yep, this is no big deal, I just go wire myself money, which I'd never done before. I wire us dollars, they give me pesos, so, okay, I need to use cash everywhere. Um, and then when I went to the smaller towns in the North and in Patagonia, there are Western unions and I realized this in Buenos Aires, this can happen in some of the Western unions too. I waited two hours in line.
Speaker 2:It happened to be start snowing in Patagonia and El Calafate. Two hours they were. I first went at three 45. They were they close at four o'clock and they said we're out of money. And I said I figured I read the online review saying they run out of money. They said come back tomorrow at nine, I get in line at nine, 15. The line's not moving. Finally, at 10 15, somebody said, well, they haven't opened yet because they don't have any money. Um, they're literally waiting for money to like to be deposited from other people, from locals, to have enough pesos, and then they wait for, like, their big money drop. So then in El Calafate. It's such a problem. They limit you to 60,000 pesos, which was about 200 us dollars. So, in order so that they could fill more people's orders, I ran into the same problem in Ushuaia, in the very far South of Patagonia. I waited two hours. They weren't limiting me, so I was able to take out a little more.
Speaker 2:But the price difference is so extreme that even to buy my plane ticket within Patagonia and Patagonia to where I'm at now in Iguazu, it was such you pay. You know. It's like do I want to pay $400 for this ticket online or $200 in cash? So you have to get this cash from Western Union and then only only certain airlines will take cash. So Aerolinas Argentina is actually an airline run by the government. They will let you pay cash, but you can only pay cash at the airport or at the. They had an. They had an office in town in Ushuaia, but they said you can pay cash but only for a same day flight, because people will even like for example, I got stuck in Salta for an extra three days, so I booked a place on booking and they I was able.
Speaker 2:It says you pay on site, and it was this little apartment and it was, you know by? It wasn't like, it was like by an individual. I said, oh well, you take cash. Yeah, okay, great Cause that's going to cost me $75, not 150. And I still had 140 us dollars that I wanted to exchange.
Speaker 2:And the problem is that in Salta, if you, the Western union there, will only let you wire money, they won't accept cash. The banks there's a street with all the banks and ATMs. They were using the official exchange rate, which at the time was 145 pesos. Well, that's not beneficial. That's the same as me using my card. So I literally my only option was to do the blue market rate by the street guys.
Speaker 2:So I asked the tour guide. I said what do I do? And he goes, go to the street with the banks and look for the guys that are saying cambio, cambio. And they have this little satchel and they literally exchange money with you on the street. But you, you do have to be a little careful because if you go that route, you want to make sure they're not counterfeit pesos. So he said, tell them you don't want thousands, you want 500, 200, 100, because a thousand is the most likely to be counterfeited. And so I found a guy and I asked the tour guide I was messaging him through WhatsApp and I said how do I know that this guy's legit? And he said use your intuition.
Speaker 1:I said okay.
Speaker 2:And when we made the deal I said, okay, how much? And he didn't really speak English, I speak very little Spanish, but he showed me on the calculator. He said he would give me a rate of 270 pesos. The banks were giving 145. I said, okay, that's still really good, but I was trying to tell him I don't want thousands. He didn't understand. So we went into a shop and that guy spoke English and I asked him and he told the guy, hey, she doesn't want thousands. Okay. But then when he saw I had $20 bills, not a hundred dollar bill, he said, oh, the rate's going to be 250 because they they prefer hundreds because they save in us dollars, so they want bigger bills. And then the shop owner, he told me okay. And I said, well, two, 50 is still better than the banks at one, 45.
Speaker 2:I exchanged the money. The shop owner said, hey, if you have more dollars to exchange, come back to me. I'll buy your dollars from you. Um, I just couldn't now because you already made a deal with this guy. And I said, okay, well, I'm, I'm out of dollars now. I have like $8, the rest I have to wire and I've just never experienced that. So I have literally exchanged money at Western union. I've exchanged money on the street, I've wired myself money through Western Union and multiple places. I've waited in lines of two hours because it's because it's not even a oh well. Okay, you'll pay a little more with your card. No, you'll pay double with your card, and those prices will be equivalent to the U? S or Europe prices, and so it makes a really big difference on when you're talking about flights, hotels, food, Ubers.
Speaker 1:Oh, so maybe you know there's always these planned trips, back roads or something. So maybe going with the tour that understands the country, for some travelers that you know can afford, it would make sense for Argentina specifically, just because it sounds like total madness, like yeah, a lot of it I've learned.
Speaker 2:So some of it I saw like online, I read on blogs that kind of warned me bring cash. And then a lot of it I learned through tour guides that I met and then other travelers, so I would go. There's a lot of, especially in the North and Salta. You go on these day tours that might be eight hours long. You go on these day tours that might be eight hours long, 10 hours long, and most of the tourists that I've met have been Argentinian or Brazilian. I met very few Americans and Europeans, but the tour guides and then other travelers would tell me, oh, hey, and we would literally talk. And you know I met this couple from Belgium and you know they would tell me, oh, here's what we're doing for a rental car, here's where we're going. And then when I told them, oh yeah, I bought my plane ticket at the agency for cash, I said oh, I didn't know you could do that with cash. And you're literally learning from each other when and it's changing constantly, so it's like what's the rate today? And then, only way, I knew that that Western union was capping out at 60,000 pesos, which you needed to know because if you placed an order for more than 60,000, they wouldn't fill any of your order. It was like they have to fill it all or nothing. So if you went there and you said here's my order for 80,000 pesos, they'd say we'll give you nothing. So I only saw on Google maps I looked to find the Western Union. There were reviews of people saying the limit team is 60,000. And then, sure enough, there was a sign on the building that said 60,000. And so I was telling other travelers that while they're waiting in line, they had to place a new order for 60,000. So they didn't go over that limit, and so it's truly like it's changing so fast that it's learning through tour agencies, tour guides.
Speaker 2:But even when I was in Buenos Aires, I went to a tour agency to book the Salta portion, because I ended up going to several towns in the North and the South. I went through. They said, okay, we'll book your flight, we'll book your hotels, we'll book your transportation and tour guides. And if I paid with my credit card, which is what they wanted, in us dollars it was going to be $1,800 for like seven or eight days. And I said that's really expensive actually. And I said how about if I pay cash. They accepted in the rate they accepted. It ended up costing me $930, not 1800. And so but I had to go to Western union, get all this cash barely fit it in my purse and then go to the agency and they had.
Speaker 2:You know, they have literally counting machines to count because it's so many bills, so it's it's really unlike anything I've experienced. So that's the problem is, if you're in the U? S and you book something you're going to book online, which means you're going to pay with your card. So I've never experienced this Like, and I and other travelers have run into the same thing of oh I don't really want to book things in advance or schedule, but then you have to physically go to the tour office, book it, pay cash physically, go to Western union, wait a couple hours, get your cash, move there. So, but it's worth it in many cases because the price difference is so extreme. But it does make it a lot harder not being able to just book things online and pay with your card All right.
Speaker 1:So what were some of your highlights of that that you've done while you've been in Argentina?
Speaker 2:these tours that you've done, yeah, yeah, you know, in Buenos Aires, it's a really big city, there's so much to do. But I did a cooking class, a mate drinking class, I did a football game, which they're very known for their football, which we call soccer. You know, in their tournaments and you have to actually go through an agency to get a ticket because to in order to reduce any like competitive violence, they um made sure that only fans of that team can get a ticket. So you have to go through there, but they literally stand and chant and cheer the entire match Um, so that that is a really unique experience. I'm getting to go to one of their football matches and it did tango class. You know I didn't take a class, but I watched tango and in Salta, in the North, it's really different. It's and and to kind of go back to what I was explaining they, their country is really big, but they don't have a train system. They used to. I think decades ago.
Speaker 2:I've I've not experienced that. Most countries I'm used to just, oh, I'll hop on a train or I'll get a car or a motorbike. Um, I did it in Thailand and Vietnam. This is the first time that I've flown so much. So I flew to Salta and then within Salta I did, um, did tours that took me to little towns in the north and in the south, and that area is very mountainous and deserty.
Speaker 2:And then I went to Chile and then, after Chile, I kind of went across to the Atacama Desert and then went south. Chile is just as long but it's very narrow, and I ended up doing the Chile. So Patagonia encompasses Chile and Argentina. And so I first did while I was already in Chile, because I did the Atacama desert, Santiago. Then I flew to Punta Reynos in the South and did Torres del Paine national park, and then I said you know what, let me just cover all of Chile and then I'll go to Argentina and do the Argentina Patagonia sign and then go north. And so from Torres del Paine then I went to El Calafate, which is in Argentina and it's really interesting in the Patagonia because it used to actually all be owned by Chile and Chile.
Speaker 1:We didn't switch because I just I was kind of shocked I had to look it up. Yeah, I just I was kind of shocked.
Speaker 2:I had to look it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where does Patagonia start? Like how far south, like um low Santiago?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's, oh yeah, much lower than Santiago. Santiago's kind of middle Patagonia is like that whole, just southern tip, whole southern region. Yeah, so like El Calafate was the furthest north I went in Patagonia and then the furthest south I went was Ushuaia, which were both in Argentina, and it's interesting because they Chile owned it, and then Chile in the 80s, was actually in a war with Bolivia and Peru for the north of what's now Chile over mining rights. So part of that was actually owned by Bolivia and Peru. But there's a lot of mines in the north and the Atacama Desert, I was told by one tour guide, they're now mining a lot of lithium for all the batteries for electric cars and I saw from the airplane you can see these mines, but they mine copper, iron, lithium.
Speaker 2:It's really impacted the region with the water. Lithium takes, she said, 1,700 liters per second of water, whereas, like iron, is 900 liters per second, and so there was a big battle over all these minerals in the North and Chile was fighting to get it from Bolivia and Peru. They ended up winning that, which is now why the North of Chile is Chile and Bolivia no longer has access to the ocean. Bolivia used to have ocean access, but now they don't. They kind of closed them off there and now it goes from Peru to Chile and while they were at war, argentina took the opportunity to say hey, we really want part of the south and we'll either jump on this war and you can fight us, bolivia and Peru, or you can not go to war with us but give us some of Patagonia. So Chile said okay, we can't fight three countries at once, so we'll give you part of Patagonia. And so it's, it's divided.
Speaker 2:Really weird because there's islands and you have these waterways and you have the Magellan straight. And it's interesting because before a lot of cargo ships would go through the Panama canal, but the Panama canal is becoming expensive and so a lot of cargo ships are actually coming down south and going through there, which those waters can be a little rough, but it's more beneficial than paying to go through the Panama Canal. And they said winter is actually better because it's less wind. I have never experienced the amount of wind that I have experienced in the north and the Atacama Desert in Chile and in Patagonia. In the North and the Atacama desert in Chile and in Patagonia, I actually, when I got off out of the airport in Ushuaia, the very South of Argentina, patagonia.
Speaker 2:I actually got knocked over twice onto this wall and my neck pillow got blown away, and a woman caught it and I just walked a few feet to go get it and then my suitcase, which is very heavy, it was on wheels but it literally started getting rolled down the street pretty significantly and I had to go run and catch my suitcase. I have never experienced wind like that and it can get very cold. Um, it actually I think they said their average in Ushuaia, which is the South, is about in the winter the average is like 37. And in the summer the average is like 57. So the temperatures actually don't get that bad. It's the wind that makes it feel incredibly cold. Uh, but they're right now because their seasons are reversed from us, so they're in their springtime, um, right now. And uh, I, it was really beautiful. Um, I really liked Patagonia.
Speaker 2:Torres del Paine National Park, which is actually in Chile, is really nice. In El Calafate in Argentina, they, you get to see so many glaciers and there's one in particular, the Petito Moreno glacier. It's massive and they have these really cool what they call balconies kind of these walkways that you can actually look at just across from the glacier and you get really cool views of it. It's one of three glaciers worldwide that's actually not receding. It's actually growing every year. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And where was that exactly El Calafate? Oh, I see. Oh, you went way down there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you flew then.
Speaker 2:I would assume. Well, from. I flew from Santiago to Punta Reynos and then I took a bus from Porta Natalis to El Calafate it was like a six hour bus ride and then from El Calafate I flew to Ushuaia, which is in the very far South, and actually, oh I see it. Oh wow, Way down there, yeah, where you feel like you're so close to Antarctica, where you feel like you're so close to Antarctica.
Speaker 1:Do you like cold weather? Benny Chan, alaska, canada, it's kind of funny Missouri right, it's cold yeah.
Speaker 2:Missouri gets really cold and really hot. I tend to prefer the cold, but I will say after. So it was so cold in the Atacama desert, which in the North, and in Chile it was springtime but it was some of the coldest temperatures that I've ever felt. And I actually hiked on a volcano and it's really weird because their elevation is so high but it's a desert so it's dry. But then literally I hiked to this volcano to 18,500 feet, so it was 800 feet higher than Everest base camp.
Speaker 2:And I think in the Andes mountain range, which is the longest mountain range, I believe, in the world, they have over a hundred peaks that are over, I think, six meters, which is like over 18,000 feet. It's. It's crazy high. I've never been that high. I mean, the tallest peak in the continental U? S is Mount Whitney, which I hiked on the John Muir trail, and that's 14,500 feet. So this volcano, when we got to the top, it's 18,500 feet and it was the elevation was so high. There were six of us on the tour to hike and it was only a mile and a half but it was 2000 feet gain. We went so slow it took us two and a half hours to get to the top.
Speaker 2:Three people had to turn back because they were getting altitude sickness and it was a cold on a level I've never felt.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask about wifi. That was my other question too, but I think it is good, except for just now. But just also getting around, just kind of some of the basics Is it safe to get around with the typical foods? How expensive is it to have lodging there, although I know, if you're doing trusted house sitters, you know just kind of the basics.
Speaker 2:So I would say that prices vary. For accommodation I've had, I would say probably $50 a night or so is probably average. November and March are kind of their shoulder seasons. In October I was there in October, so I was able average. November and March are kind of their shoulder seasons. In October I was there in October, so I was able to find some decent deals, but like a hotel in the national park was about 170 a night.
Speaker 2:And one thing I have discovered post COVID travels. So some of the blogs that I was trying to read and get information on, like how to get to the glacier, for example, in El Calafate and this blog from just 2018 said oh, you should get a car. We rented a car and paid $420 for 10 days. Well, the two local links that she even provided in her blog showed zero cars available. Priceline had one automatic and I thought maybe I'm just looking at the wrong places. And I checked with other travelers and they said the same thing that there was one car available and it was over $200 per day. So and I was told by some tour guides that to survive during COVID, they sold a lot of their vehicles. So it's made it a little challenging because things have changed since COVID and so where in the past they might say, yeah, rent a car, it's cheaper, that's just not an option.
Speaker 2:So then you're kind of scrambling for do I take a taxi? How much is a taxi? Do I take a tour? Argentina is very much a tour country. There's a lot of day tours that you do and they're pretty well-priced honestly. So it's your best bet for kind of getting around and seeing local areas. If you're in the north or in the south, like to see the glacier, you do a day tour where they take you out there with a bus. You know it might be a 15 person van, sometimes it's a big bus for 50 people. But I would say that the prices for lodging probably average, if I had to guess, about about $50 a night. And then Uber is in Buenos Aires but they're not in a smaller town so you have to take a tax six-hour layover in Buenos Aires.
Speaker 2:And I looked and Uber was seven minutes away and there was a taxi sitting right there and was available. So I said I'll just take a taxi, because Uber shows you the taxi price as well and you can order a taxi through Uber. And I said, eh, I'll just take this guy. It said it ranged from 1600 to 1800 pesos. So I get in the taxi and halfway through the drive I realized his meter's not on, whereas in Chile and in Patagonia they're very proud they have their meters, their track. And I said oh no. And I forgot to ask him at the beginning how much will it cost to get me to Western?
Speaker 1:Union.
Speaker 2:And I asked him and he puts on the calculator 3,500. And I said no, no, no, no. And I show him Uber and I said it was 1800. And he's like, no, no, that's Uber. I'm like, yep, I'm not paying you $3,500 when it should have been $1,800. So then he lowers it to $3,000. Then before I get out, I just gave him $2,500 and he didn't complain.
Speaker 2:So I try to use Uber when I can and Uber gives you a choice to pay cash, which is really nice. But with Uber they pick you up where you are. You can see how much the price is, um, but generally, like in the South and in Salta, they use a meter for the taxis, um, so they're they're pretty cheap. You know, it might cost a few bucks to get around and in Buenos Aires the bus is better than the subway. It might be 20 cents. It's just a difficult to get the Sube card, which is what you have to load money on Um. But Google maps will really help you with you. Just click bus route and it shows you take this bus to here in a side days and then Uber and then, in the smaller towns, usually taxi or walking. And I forgot the other questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the food like. What kind of food do they eat there? What have you liked there?
Speaker 2:They definitely eat a lot of empanadas, lots of different kinds. You might have a meat or chicken or veggie. I like most of the empanadas. I've had some that were not cooked well but I did not like. They also have some that are fried. Some are baked and I do prefer them fried. The baked can sometimes be dry. They really like their steaks, their meat, especially in Buenos Aires.
Speaker 2:The thing is, I've tried it a few times at different places and while they are cooked very well, very juicy, very um, they're just cooked well. They don't have like a marinade or a spice, and so I found myself feeling like they were very bland, so I would kind of have to add some salt myself. And then they have, um, something that chimichurri, which is kind of like a think of like a salsa. And it's really funny because I started noticing very quickly that their food and I've been to three or four places that sometimes a chimichurri can have a little bit of spice and they'll warn me oh, if you eat this chimichurri, just be careful, it's very spicy, very hot, and it's not even what we consider mild. So they definitely do not have spicy food.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the chimichurri actually has a funny story, because it was when the English came, a long time ago. They were used to, when they went to India, that locals had curry and curry had a lot of spices, you know, and spices were more valuable than gold, um, at one point. And so when they came to Argentina they asked locals, but they were actually saying give me curry, and they said it really fast and the locals thought they said Jimmy curry, but it was give me curry.
Speaker 2:So it's literally this day called Jimmy Chury. But the food in general I will say I've not been the biggest fan of. I've had some items, some food that I've really liked, but I just wish things had a little bit more spice and a little bit more seasoning and like their pizza I've not generally enjoyed. It's so hard to describe the pizza I've not generally enjoyed. It's it's so hard to describe the pizza. Some of it, some of it that I've had at restaurants is almost like taking a frozen pizza that you'd buy in the U S and not a good quality one and heating it up and sometimes they have some different ingredients. They'll have like whole pitted green olives and they'll put fried eggs on top, and so some of it's been good, but I I it's not been one of my favorite places for food. Let me just say that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do they have fresh produce or fresh fish or things like that, or?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, some of the like. In the South and Patagonia they have a lot of fish. Um, because of the ocean and the fruits and vegetables, that's to me. Um, before I came here, I was actually trying to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and limit my gluten and my dairy and my meat, so coming to Argentina was a bit of a challenge because it's mostly gluten and dairy and meat. Yesterday I went to the grocery store just to get some groceries and their vegetable section was so tiny and the vegetables and fruits that they had were just not good quality. And I met some other travelers who said they struggle, like you kind of have to search for a grocery store or a market or somewhere that has, you know better, fresh fruits and vegetables. But it's, it was a bit of a shock to me, to be honest. I didn't realize how the food would be here and I thought, oh, I'm going to love the food, it's going to be really delicious and it just hasn't really been the case for me. Got it Okay.
Speaker 1:Awesome. No, thank you so much, and Carol, I know you need to wrap up as well If you want to ask your your rapid fire question yeah right yeah. So what is the popular religion in Argentina?
Speaker 2:It's mostly Catholic. You'll see the various churches, kind of similar to what you'll see in Europe that were especially built in the 1900s, that you know, even in the small towns you'll usually have a town center, which is a square, and it'll be a park and there'll usually be a statue in the middle and then always on the on the side of one of the squares will be a church, and so it's predominantly Catholic.
Speaker 1:Okay, I've never really realized that. So a lot of piazzas in Europe probably usually have a church around it. It's very common.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm thinking of the just when I guess when I was, when I've been in Europe, they just have a lot of churches that were built more than 100 years ago, that kind of have that classic European look, you'll see that a lot in Argentina.
Speaker 1:Yes, there's always a lot of churches. We already talked about food, so what do you have for breakfast there? What's common breakfast in Argentina?
Speaker 2:Some places it'll be. They'll have waffles, eggs, yogurt their yogurt is really interesting. Some, some places they will have a thicker yogurt with fruit and there. So, even like at the grocery store, if you get a yogurt on the lid, it'll be cereal, so it'll be like frosted corn flakes and so instead of granola, and some of the yogurts are really liquidy and like yeah, even like on tours, they'll have a. Sometimes they'll set up like a little breakfast thing and it'll be a big get with eggs, and then they'll have this yogurt, this big canister, and it's so liquidy you just pour it into this bowl, you don't even. So that's been interesting. But they, they don't tend to eat a huge breakfast. They tend to because they eat dinner so late and then they go to bed. They don't tend to like locals don't tend to eat a big breakfast and then they'll eat a decent size lunch and then the big dinner at nine o'clock, so breakfast is not.
Speaker 2:I asked, like a lot of locals and tour guides.
Speaker 2:They said, oh, usually just have my mate, or yeah, they have cappuccinos, flat whites, um cortado, um, very similar to what you would see in Europe, nice, and they love their. They love their ham and cheese. Um, like, actual like. What you would see is like lunch, meat, ham and literally you will see ham and cheese ravioli, you will see ham and cheese croissants, you will see ham and cheese empanadas for breakfast at hotels. They will just have slices of ham, slices of cheese and you'll have your croissant. I'm not a big fan of sliced ham, so I'm really tired of sometimes your only option is that so you end really tired of sometimes your option is that.
Speaker 2:so you end up eating a ham and cheese croissant.
Speaker 1:Okay, and have you heard any? Like you eat a lot of ham and cheese, oh cool. And what about music? Is there like a specific unique music, or yeah?
Speaker 2:some places you'll hear Western music, you know, from Western countries. Other times, especially in Buenos Aires, they'll have tango. So you'll see some tango dancers on the street and they'll have tango music. And the history of tango is actually really interesting. Yeah, because I think it was in the early 1900s. It was a lot of immigrants in the port city. They came up with tango, the dance and the music.
Speaker 2:And the aristocrats who were in Buenos Aires, who you know, they didn't like tango because that was for the commoners, those were, you know, but they very much looked up to Europe. And so when the aristocrats and the rich went back to Paris, they found out that there was this one kind of famous singer and dancer who had picked up and really liked tango and they were performing it in Paris and they saw and they always wanted to be like Paris is what I was told by tour guide. So when they went to Paris and they saw that they were doing tango and singing tango, they suddenly were like, hey, that's from Buenos Aires, I am from the birthplace of tango. And suddenly these aristocrats and the rich people came back to Buenos Aires and they started hiring these people to do tango in their clubs and the rich area, because they realized oh, actually, europe really likes us. So now we're going to embrace tango and that's kind of how it became a thing, but at first they were rejecting it. As for the commoners, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:I would assume it's not a surfing culture, just depending on where this it's on, like the eastern side and it sounds so cold. Is this is surfing very popular?
Speaker 2:no, that's a good question because even like the water outside of buenos aires, they call it the river, because it's a huge river that comes from the land and, I think, goes through Brazil, comes through and empties into the ocean. And I was so confused because I kept hearing people say the river and I said what are you talking about? The river? That's an ocean, that's a, that's a bay between here and Uruguay. And even when I went to Uruguay, I took the ferry across the ocean and they said, no, we call it the river.
Speaker 2:And then in Uruguay he explained there's actually a point where you go out onto the land where on one side they call the river because it's more freshwater, because it is actually coming from the river and so it's much more freshwater, and on the other side of the peninsula they call it the ocean because it's saltwater. So it's salt water, so it's really interesting. And then it kind of made sense that, oh, that's when, and it's really muddy, and there are some beach areas, but it's further south than Buenos Aires, so there was nowhere, like I didn't actually go to a single beach. Um, actually all in.
Speaker 2:Argentina, and when I was on the plane and I could kind of see it, it was very brown, it was very like murky and muddy, um kind of like the river. So yeah, they, they surfing's not a thing yeah, okay, right.
Speaker 1:And then the money is the peso, right, which sounds like you need to study up. Yes, before you go. Okay, very good. Well, thank you so much, christy. Oh, my gosh, we probably have you on here for for hours.
Speaker 2:Oh, I still have more questions. Yeah, so many stories.
Speaker 1:Well places to go. I know we try to do anything off the beaten path. That's not like your standard Google thing. I don't know if there's a one or two places that you found that you didn't, that you wouldn't find on um if you Googled it, but that you've really enjoyed.
Speaker 2:Um, that's a good question. I think in the North and Salta I really didn't know anything about that region. Um, you know, I knew, you know you hear about Buenos Aires, you hear about Patagonia and the area. In Salta there's a lot of really small towns and a lot of beautiful mountains and salt flats and different landscapes that I had no idea were there, and that's the place where almost all the tourists were either Argentinian or Brazilian and so it does kind of feel like a place that hasn't really been discovered yet by a lot of travelers and like in a really small town Kachi, it's a couple hours from Salta there's actually this UFO port that.
Speaker 2:There is a Swiss guy that a couple decades ago said he was told by a UFO which in that area they have had more UFO sightings than anywhere else in the world. This Swiss guy decades ago said he was told from a UFO to build a port, a landing port for them when they return. So there's, he spent years building, and it's in the middle of nowhere, on the outside of the small town and it's just all these rocks in this geometric formation and it's just things like that where I thought that's awesome. There's a UFO port that, so that you can see it from space. You can see this, yeah, this geometric design, and that's near yeah, there's, there's definitely what's?
Speaker 2:yeah, kachi c-a-c-h-i and it's a couple hours from salta and yeah, it's just the weirdest thing. Like I walked up there or took a taxi back and you know now there's some homes being built near it, but things like that I had no idea. So a lot of the souvenirs they sell are things that have to do with UFOs. They'll sell creams and stuff that have to do with aliens and UFOs and that's what they said. They've had more sightings of UFOs than anywhere else.
Speaker 2:And then just across the, I mean it was like a 10-hour bus ride over to Chile in the northern desert, but it's the same kind of latitude and, um, in Chile, there they have the highest planetarium in the world and so they are doing major experiments and studies because you're so high up and it's really clear and so sunny, so you can see a lot of the sky. So even in Chile you can do these astronomical tours and they have. Like when I was hiking the volcano, they said there is the world's tallest? Um, you know telescope type thing. Um, it's like the world's tallest, second, third, fourth, fifth. Um, cause they're all right there and it's literally countries around the world that are working together and including the U? S and NASA and universities in theS funding this research to investigate space. So I had no idea, but all of that kind of in the northern of Chile and Argentina had UFO activity and then also scientists studying space from there. So don't know what's going on over there, but the locals will tell you it's UFOs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. Maybe they're not aware of all the satellites, or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why I tend to think that well, Chile is not that far and they're doing all these experiments, so it's not very surprising that you know, 10 hour bus ride or so away, that they're seeing these weird lights and things in the sky, which could very well be having something to do with all these experiments over across the way in Chile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:And then and and now I'm in the Iguazu Falls, which I've only been here a couple of days so I haven't gotten to see the waterfalls yet, but it's already I can tell, compared to the rest of what I've seen is very tropical, as I saw lizard in my Airbnb, where the rest of Argentina has been more like. Buenos Aires was more kind of like a Southern California weather, salta is more desert and hot, patagonia is cold, and now in the North it's much more tropical. And I'm right on the border of Brazil and Paraguay. So I didn't realize how large Argentina is and how diverse the landscape is from one area to the next. And it kind of makes sense on why you have to fly, because between cities and between areas there isn't that much and it's difficult to get around, so your best option is probably to fly to each place.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Yeah, I think we heard that from someone else in Chile. She was saying too like oh no, no, no, you can't. You can't just take a train. Yeah, all right, excellent, well, thank you so much. This was such a fun call and learning so much. I'd love to definitely keep in touch. You're doing a lot of pretty courageous and amazing things and definitely so glad to have you on here and to get to know. You Love what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Thank you I really appreciate you guys having me on. It's been fun getting to be out and exploring abroad again and being able to talk about it, because it was definitely Argentina was a place that I didn't know much about, to be honest with you, until I arrived.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very brief, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 1:All right, well, have a great weekend. Yeah, we'll be in touch.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 1:Okay, bye. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, can you please take a second and do a quick follow of the show and rate us in your podcast app, and if you have a minute, we would really appreciate a review. Following and rating is the best way to support us. If you're on Instagram, let's connect. We're at where next podcast. Thanks again.
