Want to visit Western Europe on the cheap? Buenos Aires is a pleasant surprise and possibly a cautionary example. Architecture rivaling historic Madrid and Paris, restaurants, parks, and history galore. Steaks for $8 bucks that are second to none and prevalent to the point you soon tire of eating beef. Tango dancing in the squares, the wine, empanadas, and assados. Wonderful people, predominantly Western European, and a lack of tourists from abroad (likely due to the Pandemic) made you feel like the city was still original. In any given neighborhood, you guessed it was either the 1870s or 1970s.
My cautionary comment was about the economy. Years of debt, default, and currency controls have taken their toll. The locals freely talked about the economy and the lack of anything imported. You couldn’t pull more than $80 out of an ATM in 24 hours. It seemed like every corner had several money exchangers soliciting dollars at more than twice the official rates. The peso was constantly falling and wasn’t accepted at any rate of exchange when we returned to Brazil. You didn’t see new cars on the streets or get any sense of “new money”. It was the 1970s there, alright, and Cash was King. It certainly made you think about home, socialism, and “what if”?
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