Long bus journeys and swapping cash

Today we arrived in Puerto Iguazu after a whopping 18.5 hours bus journey (which was meant to take 17.5).
Overall we felt it went OK, but we had some key items that made all the difference:
- good ear plugs and good eye masks
- battery packs
- spare clothes in our carry on for when it got cold
- some snacks cause surprisingly we didn't stop for food at any point

Without these, we would have probably hated it. I guess we have done these things wrong so many times in the past, we finally learned. We managed to sleep most of the way and finished season 1 of Vigil on BBC (very good watch!). We booked buses and tickets to go see the waterfalls tomorrow.
We also exchanged a bunch of USD into Pesos, which is a whole thing. Argentina runs multiple exchange rates in parallel: the official one is not really used by anyone except for ATMs and it's a terrible rate. The so called blue rate is used "illegally" by randoms on the street who are desperate to buy dollars (given the Pesos finished 2023 at 220% inflation). We were told in recent weeks the government also allowed a new rate called MEP, which is given if you pay directly using a debit/credit card in foreign currency - as well ad given by banks if you can prove you're a tourist. The MEP rate is as good as the blue rate, and they're about 35% better than the official rate. Sadly the economical reform of the current Argentinian president just passed, so protests have started in BA e the Pesos we just got are likely gonna be worth half tomorrow 🫠. Thankfully we didn't exchange much, the stack in the picture is 100,000 Pesos which is around $85 (at the MEP rate).
We are pretty isolated from the protests here but will be back in BA on the 5th - it might get interesting there. Fingers crossed the situation doesn't escalate! Czytaj więcej