In The Spectator, Dave Seminara recounts his recent family vacation to Argentina and how far his dollars went in the country, which saw 94.8% annual inflation last year. He writes:
Planning a foreign trip is a bit like watching a trailer for a film. The research is a preview of coming attractions. I almost never made it to San Antonio de Areco, a charming country town about seventy miles northwest of Buenos Aires, because it seemed extravagantly expensive and complicated to visit. But trailers can be misleading, perseverance is a virtue, and Areco, as the locals call it, turned out to be the highlight of my visit to Argentina last summer.
With just a week to spend in the world’s eighth largest country by land area, my plan was to spend four days in Buenos Aires and three in a small town, a place I hoped would give us an idea of what the country’s gaucho heartland is about. Areco seemed promising, but our visit — I was traveling with my wife and two teenage sons — coincided with school holidays in Argentina and the best-rated estancias (ranches) were either booked or prohibitively expensive.
Argentina is generally a bargain if you bring crisp, new $100 bills and exchange them locally. But rental cars were $150 a day, and when I first started looking for a place to stay, several establishments told me it was too early to quote a price as the currency fluctuates too rapidly. Here was an early lesson about our destination, where the official inflation rate last year was 94.8 percent. A month before we arrived, the black-market exchange rate was about 250 pesos to $1, compared to 140 for the official rate, which is what you get if you’re foolish enough to withdraw cash from an ATM or use a credit card. By the time we arrived, the informal rate was up to 320.
The establishment I chose, Hotel San Carlos, which turned out to be excellent, wanted me to wire them 58,595 pesos to make a reservation (credit cards are useless in Areco). When I balked, they said, “OK, just pay in cash when you come.” An Ecuadorian friend who had just visited Argentina solved our transportation problem by linking me up with Hernán, a Porteño (native of Buenos Aires) cab driver who offered to drive us to Areco for $50.
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