After 2 weeks travelling the length and breadth of Argentina, we discovered a few things we didn’t expect, here is a quick summary for those planning a visit.
- Buenos Aires is an amazingly beautiful city. It would be one of the most attractive capitals if it was in Europe. Big French and Italian influence come through loud in clear as you move around. I am sure that the grid system was great when it was first installed, now it is a well-established gridlock. The suburbs of La Boca and Palermo Soho are not to be missed.
- Italian influence. Speaking Spanish I was fully expecting it a lot of Spanish culture, but it is much more Italian. All over the country the local’s area speaking Spanish with an Italian accent, it is very noticeable when they speak English as well.
- British music – wherever you go in Argentina, you will find 80s and 90s Britpop playing. The thing that is weird is that it all the songs are cover versions of the tunes by alternative singers, I suspect this may be to get around music licensing laws.
- Lovely People – happy, friendly and lots speak enough English to get by. In fact, there is a lot more British influence than they realise. They also don’t like using shower gel, it is clearly a big luxury in that part of the world.
- Stunning scenery – we have also concluded once you have seen one mountain you have seen them all, even if it is in mystical Patagonia. We have some really beautiful places, but it is also rugged and wild, the Argentinian side of the Andes is barren desert as the mountains take the rain. Unlike Europe, there are no foothills that build up to the range, it goes from flat desert to mountains very suddenly.
- Vaping – basically they don’t, there are still a few smokers around, but vaping is non-existent.
- Cash and credit cards – getting cash out of the ATMs is really expensive, minimum £8 service charge and often a lot more. I also found using credit cards online is hard work as UK cards seemed to assume I was a fraudster.
- Internal Flights – the country is huge, so air travel is essential, but it is expensive and more unreliable than we were expecting. We had a very bad start with FlyBondi, but after that most flights were at least on the same day, but always late.
- Cost of living – it is pretty much the same prices as the UK, steak and Malbec is a bit cheaper but not massive. All their menus are digital as the prices are always rising.
- Homosexuality – Argentina is one of the most permissive countries from that perspective, they were the first to have same sex marriage, we even saw a gay pride march in Ushuaia, they all looked a bit nippy.
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