I convince myself that I’m flexible by not binding myself to a certain activity on a specific day generally, telling myself that I’m just planning guidelines and if we wake up and feel to do something different then we can change it up. I make lists three months before we leave, and one month, and the week of departure. I make packing lists and lists of places to get hot chocolate wherever we’ll be. I make lists of the best bakeries, of must-eat local delicacies, of sporting events and festivals, of beaches, and even rocks and minerals that I might find (I’m a bona fide rock hound).
So to say that I got caught short in Argentina is like saying I got hit by lightning. At least that’s how I like to think of it.
Years back I decided it was easier to get currency within our destination, at local ATMs. Our bank waives all fees and gives a better rate of exchange than other places. If I order currency before the trip at our corner branch they’ll charge me for delivery and then again for any unused bills I want to cash back in. I learned all of this when traveling to Morocco, which controls its currency so tightly that you can’t get dirhams outside of the country. Pre-ordering was impossible and it worked fine to just use airport ATMs on arrival.
As we were packing for a trip to South America Andrew mentioned that he thought he’d bring $100 cash.
“If you think you need it,” I said and then added, thinking of pickpockets and other security risks, “Though we’ll just get money when we’re there–it might just be a pain to carry it.” He felt better having something in his pocket–and since I usually carry all currency it probably made him feel like a grown up having his own bills on hand.
Touching down in Buenos Aires we got our luggage and just as we were about to flag our ride I remembered, “Oh we’ve got to stop at the ATM!”
It took a bit to find it tucked away behind the McDonalds, but we inserted our debit card and went through all the mental calculations to figure how much we needed to withdraw.
We took the cash and headed for the exit, rolling our luggage behind us.
We checked into our hotel on Tucuman Street south of the Palermo neighborhood, greeted by a friendly woman who spoke little English but with Andrew’s limited Spanish we somehow got along.
“Will we pay now or at the end?” I asked, seeing that it was a small operation, nearly like an Airbnb.
“Cash now,” she said. “U.S. Dollars.”
I blinked, “Dollars? We didn’t bring dollars–I didn’t know you wanted them.”
She indicated some of the local ATMs would dispense dollars and suggested a few places nearby, unworried that we couldn’t pay upfront. “We are like family!” She said with a smile. I smiled back but was uncomfortable. I didn’t like having outstanding bills. We’d have to get cash right quick and get her paid.
I hadn’t forgot the money thing and stopped at a Santander kiosk. I inserted my card, went through all the prompts, and the computer began to process my request. We stared at the spinning icon, waiting, waiting, until we began to wonder what was wrong. I canceled the transaction and tried again. And again. Then we tried the machine next to ours. A woman came in and, trying not to freak her out by looking as if we were stalking her, watched as she went through her own transaction successfully.
“Well she got cash,” Andrew said, “So it’s not the machine I guess.”
We wandered and found another ATM and tried again, all with similar results.
“This is so weird,” I said. “It’s not the card, I haven’t got any notice from the bank and it worked fine this morning at the airport. It’s like their network has problems or something.”
Just to be safe I called our bank. Was there anything wrong with our debit card? Had there been an error somewhere? I’d put travel alerts on the account.
No, the card was fine. The bank showed us getting cash that morning and nothing else. Nothing denied, no problems.
The next morning I decided we had to get aggressive and get cash first thing. We went down the road to the banking district, conveniently just down the street from us. The banks were just beginning to open and I went inside the entry to the ATM and inserted my card. All with the same result, only this time with the prompt, “You’ve exceeded your limit.”
What? Our daily limit was nearly $500, we had plenty of room still–what was going on?
I went inside to speak with a teller. English was again a problem (something we’d come to learn during the trip) and our Spanish was weak–especially given the extravagant Argentine accent that made Spanish sound more like Portuguese. They found someone who could speak English and the nice woman suggested just what the machine had–that we’d reached our limit. Sorry, not their problem. Check with your bank.
I explained we already had and that the bank insisted–and I knew it to be true–that we hadn’t come close to our limit. We were fine, it wasn’t on our end. What was going on? Besides, we hadn’t withdrawn any cash that day so how could we have hit a daily limit?
She was apologetic but hadn’t a clue what was going on, any more than we did. She ended by offering her personal cell number and said we could call if we needed anything more, which surprised me. We were strangers–her personal cell number? That seemed more than the situation deserved but it left us without options and we left, determined to find another ATM.
After another failure I gave up, not sure what to do.
That night I spoke with our hostess and told her our problem, or as much of it as I could convey with the language barrier.
She nodded energetically. “Yes, yes. That is right, there is a limit on how many pesos you can have.”
Confused, we asked her for clarification.
Argentina has money problems. Big money problems–inflation being just one part of a convoluted mess that has led to its citizens distrusting the currency. With the wide fluctuations people have turned to the dollar, and even more the Euro, preferring to not have their buying power depleted. Credit card fees and online exchange rates have made credit cards a problem for some–such as our hotel owner–so many have turned to cash-only transactions. In answer to this and other problems, the government has tried to control the flow by putting a cap on the amount of cash floating around, setting daily limits on the number of pesos that banks can give out. At that moment the cap was 5000 pesos per day. Since we had withdrawn (by coincidence) 5000 pesos at the airport at 9am Thursday we wouldn’t be able to take out any more until at least Friday morning 9am. We’d been trying all Thursday and early Friday.
Then, to add more of a twist to this crazy plot, people were so desperate for cash, given the monetary issues they were facing, that they would often withdraw cash immediately each day, leaving machines empty by the afternoon–don’t even think about getting anything out on Friday evening when you drew your paycheck.
As I grasped the situation and the implications began to sink in I wanted to whistle. Wow. Just wow. I had no idea–I mean, I’d heard years back about Argentina having problems in that vein, but I didn’t think it had evolved to this.
So there we were, wondering how we were going to make good on our debt with only being able to withdraw the equivalent of $50 in pesos each day? We had $100, but still needed another $150 approximately, and that didn’t include what it would take to do the things we’d planned.
How could we get more cash?
It’s actually an interesting question, really. America runs on credit and I don’t carry cash. Checks have become obsolete, it’s all electronic. We turned to things like Western Union but ruled out getting family members back home involved. We settled on Xoom, a way to wire yourself money and thought that seemed our best bet. Oh how naive we were! We went through all the screens, filled out the fields, pushed the “send” button and headed down to the bank on the corner to collect the money.
When we got there and said we were there to pick up our transfer they just looked at us like we were crazy. Cash? You want cash?
It hit me how stupid I was. Wiring money to yourself is only as good as the cash reserves available. The money might be in the vaults back home, but unless they had the cash at the receiving end the whole thing was useless. Friday evening? Cash? Yea, right. You’ve got to be kidding. They had nothing–hadn’t had pesos all day.
Buenos Aires is clean and neat–truly “Good Breezes” is the perfect name for it–but it was then I started to notice people on the corners. They didn’t appear to be begging exactly–they looked too clean and put together to be begging–what were they doing? As we passed they all seemed to be chanting the same thing. “Cambio . . . cambio . . . cambio” usually with outstretched hands and fanny packs open around their waists.
They weren’t homeless, and they weren’t begging the way you’d see other places, they seemed to be asking for cash. So yes, begging, but not destitute. Maybe it was to make rent until they could cash their check on Monday, who knows? That seemed to explain the situation best and it left me kind of sheepish. It was the first time when I’d seen panhandlers and thought, “Yea, I hear you–I need cash too!”
Saturday morning we went to the bank the minute it was open. We picked out the biggest, most prosperous looking establishment we could find, reasoning that bigger might mean better stocked. In went the card and we held our breath as the system processed. When five thousand pesos slid out toward me it felt as if I’d won the lottery.
“Yes!” we both said. Then I looked at Andrew. “I’m going to try again. You never know.”
I put the card in and went through the process a second time, wondering what would happen. Unbelievably, another five thousand pesos came my way. I stuffed them into a bulging purse. Do you think we could get lucky again? I’d discovered a glitch in the matrix.
A third time and with the same result. Fifteen thousand pesos! Woohoo! We had cash! We had a lifeline! Suddenly everything looked better. I thought about going for a fourth time but felt guilty–I didn’t want to drain the machine so that the next poor soul needing cambio would find it empty.
We went back to the hotel immediately, asking Estella to meet us there. Delivering our $100 and another 14,000 pesos we had enough to cover our bill up to that point. Then we politely but firmly said we were leaving. I found another hotel just down the road that took credit cards and we left, packing up and repeating over and over, “It’s not you, it’s us. It’s been lovely, you’re wonderful, it’s beautiful but we can’t pay so we’re going. Thank you for your time, we’re sorry but it’s going to have to end.”
She put up the culturally appropriate protests and how we were “like family” and could stay as long we wanted for free–what else was family for? I assured her that it was wonderful and beautiful and thank you and then we left, wheeling our luggage behind us. We walked a block to the Claridge with its lovely white pillars and checked in with sighs of relief.
When we explained all of this to people back home they were impressed, “Wow! That must have made your trip a mess–what a horrible thing to have happen!”
And as for the stress, we both agreed that part of the reason we like to travel is to learn and grow in our experiences. All my life I’d never worried about something as strange as cash or inflation. Sure, we talk about rising inflation here in the U.S. but we’d get very little sympathy from places like Argentina. “Inflation? You call that inflation? I’ll show you inflation!” The little variations we see are nothing like what much of the world thinks of when they say “inflation.”
It all made me very grateful for modern monetary policy while at the same time making me realize how tenuous it all is. It doesn’t take much to send an economy into severe problems, we live on the edge without realizing it.
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