Street murals found during our Argentina trip

We are now back home in Cuenca, Ecuador after traveling through Northern Argentina for the past month. The last six blog entries have covered our time in Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Salta, Iguazu Falls, and finally the Estancia Don Joaquin.  I will close out the entries on this trip with some overall impressions.

Perhaps the most surprising thing for me was how expensive Argentina is to travel to.  With an inflation rate of 40% per year, prices are being increased constantly.  We had heard there was also strong devaluation of the peso, which we thought would counteract the inflation, keeping it inexpensive for those with US dollars.  Nope. The Argentina government has put an official lid on the conversion rate, even for the “blue rate” you can get on the street.  Last October, friends were able to get 15 pesos per dollar, but in March we could only get 12.5 pesos maximum (the official rate in the banks is 8.7).  Thus, both the inflation and the conversion rate are working against us.  Don’t plan a trip here anytime soon unless you are willing to pay a lot of money for most things.

Cuenca is well known for its street murals.  We found them in Argentina too, particularly in Buenos Aires.  However, they were more rare, and often rundown, on the sides of buildings that were cracking and had plaster falling away.  Though there is certainly beauty in this country, it has a certain shabby appearance if you step off the main shopping areas.

Argentina is a really large country!  When we first thought about this trip, we thought we would rent a car and explore the entire country in one month.  We soon realized the distances between our main destinations was huge, and decided to fly instead.  Even then, it was simply not reasonable to see the entire country in one month.  We limited ourselves to the North, and I think it was about the right amount of time.  We would still like to see Patagonia and the South, but that will have to be a future trip.

Mendoza was our favorite part of Argentina that we visited.  This was partly because of the excellent wineries and the pleasant countryside.  It was also a monument to hiring a truly excellent guide though, who took care of everything and made sure everything worked smoothly.  As I stated on the blog from that day, if you ever want to visit Mendoza, we highly recommend Roman as a guide.  This also really showed the difference between a true guide and a simple driver — the Salta experience could have been more enjoyable had our driver done the job of guide that he had been hired for. 🙁