Hey there followers, it’s been some time but I’m finally back to chat with you about another trip. After 27 hours of flights and another 6 hours of layovers, I finally arrived at Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires at 11:25 AM. It looked sunny outside, and according to the information screen, it was 15 degrees Celsius outside.
Getting off the plane and doing all the formalities was incredibly easy, and by 11:44 AM I was already through immigration and out in the arrivals hall. I had several tasks to get done before leaving the airport: change a small amount of dollars to Argentinian pesos, get a local transit card, and hopefully also get a local prepaid SIM card.
Paying attention to advice I had read online, I avoided the local exchange house, and headed over to the Banco de la Nación branch which was to the right, just as one enters the main arrival hall. If you have problems seeing it, just ask someone, and they will be happy to point you in the right direction. Also, remember to only change the MINIMUM amount of money you will need to get from the airport to your lodging. While the exchange rate at the bank is better than what you will get at the currency exchange counter at the airport, it’s still much worse than what you can get at an exchange house downtown. The line was short, and I exchanged $20 USD for 17,640 ARS (exchange rate of 882).
Then at 12:09 PM I bought a SUBE (public transport) card at the Open25 shop which was to the left as I walked into the arrival hall. Again, if you get turned around, just ask someone for help; however, it’s fairly easy to manage. I paid 5000 ARS total in cash for the card itself and 4120 ARS of transport credit. So far, things were going well. The next order of business was to find a prepaid SIM card.
I had read a lot of conflicting information about this online, so I wasn’t too surprised to find that you can no longer buy cards in the airport. However, if you have an ESIM enabled phone, you can scan a QR code and start the process of activating a local personal flow card. The whole process is easy, but seems odd, since you do it via email rather than through an automated system. The only problem is that they don’t tell you how long the activation process will take.
So, not knowing whether it would be 30 minutes or 3 days, I went ahead at 12:52 PM and got an Airalo data ESIM online with 1 GB of data and seven days of validity for $6 (I actually only paid $1.73 USD since I had Airalo points) before heading out to find the bus to the center. Incidentally, taking the public bus like this only makes sense if like me, you only have a medium size backpack; mine is maximum size carry on. Most travelers will either opt for a private car costing about 30 USD or a shuttle which costs like $10 USD. The public bus is clean, comfortable, and less than $1 USD, so that’s what I had decided to use.
At 1:40 PM the bus departed from the airport. I didn’t pay attention to exactly how long it took but it was about an hour. Part of the reason I was distracted is that while on the bus I discovered that my personal flow eSIM had already been approved at 1:30 PM. Given that I had sent the activation request at 12:32, that’s a pretty impressive turnaround time. However, I couldn’t activate it on my own, since they had ironically sent a QR code which has to be scanned with your phone camera in order to activate. There’s probably some way to make it work, but I couldn’t figure out how to do it by myself, so since I already had the Airalo card active, I decided to wait until arriving at my AirBnB to take care of activating the local eSIM.
Again, I wasn’t paying close attention to all the times, but the bus let me off fairly close to my apartment in San Telmo, and the owner of the place quickly helped me to take care of getting the local eSIM installed. While it’s still much cheaper than the data only eSIMs like you get with Airalo, as with most prepaid plans in Latin America, they go out of their way to make it a complicated choice as to which plan to choose.
Since I was going to be in the country for 15 days, it looked like the best option for me was a 2 GB of data (unlimited Whatsapp) plus unlimited calls and texting plan which was good for 30 days; it had a cost of 5 ARS, which when I paid online with my Indian credit card was about $4.07 USD. So, now with all of the initial needs taken care of, it was fine to get started with the vacation!
My first order of business was to change some money. On a Facebook page I had seen a couple of recommended places. The one I decided to go to was at Florida 656. It seems like many of these places aren’t “official” but are generally considered safe. Most people online at least also seem to prefer these less official exchange houses. I left my apartment at Avenida Colón 13800 block, at 4:04 PM, and by 4:42 I had already completed the 3 km walk and was walking into the locale. There was no clear sign, but someone noticed me looking and directed me to a little closet office which seemed to be formally set up for financial transactions. The place was well lit, and “seemed safe”. They offered me 1200 ARbly close to the Blue dollar (unofficial dollar exchange rate) which I had checked earlier. I gave him one of my crisp 100 USD bills and he pushed me over a stack of Argentinian 1000 peso bills. Noting the “check your money before leaving” sign, I counted that I only had 112,000 instead of 120,000. I indicated this to the cashier, and he quickly corrected the amount with no complaint. Given the nonplussed manner in which he recognized the error, I suspected that this type of “mistake” might be common, but as he immediately fixed it, I wasn’t upset. Whereas the bank at the airport had asked for my passport and boarding pass, here they asked for nothing.
From there I walked nearby to Buenos Aires tickets to get two tickets to tonight’s showing of Brujas, as I had invited my old coworker and friend Beatriz to go with me. I had tried to buy the tickets online ahead of time, but as is the case with many countries, it seemed impossible to buy the tickets online ahead of time from outside of the country, using a foreign card. The good news though is that while it’s an overly complicated system, buying the tickets in person at Buenos Aires tickets is significantly cheaper than buying online. Had I purchased from the official site, it was 23000 ARS for a ticket, but doing it this way it was only 14800. However, as indicated, it was a weird system in which one first pays 3300 to Buenos Aires tickets and then walks nearby to the theatre and pays 11500; note, the second payment had to be done at least one hour before the show. In summary, for the sake of convenience I can see why many people buy online ahead of time, but the savings are significant if one can do it this way. Of course, not all tickets have the same cost, but I imagine that the percent savings is similar for all tickets.
I had bought the second part of the tickets at 5:15 PM and then decided to quickly go back to the apartment before the show, as I didn’t want to have my passport and all that cash with me. At 5:35 PM I was on a bus headed back to the apartment. I left my things and headed out again, but had problems getting the bus back to the area so ended up taking an Uber for 4000 ARS at 6:40 PM, just barely arriving at the theatre at 6:50 to meet up with Beatriz and enter for the 7:00 PM show.
It was amazing to see Beatriz again after 14 years! While the show was nice, they frequently spoke so quickly that I at times had problems following along. I suspect they were also at times using some local slang. If not obvious, the show was in Spanish, which in itself is not a problem for me. Most of the audience seemed to think it was very funny, but I just thought it was pleasant; however, I recognize that it is more a function of my understanding of the local slang and local accent than of the show itself. Still, I was happy to have gone.
Departing the theatre at 8:46 PM, Beatriz and I continued hanging out until 11:43 PM at an elegant, very picturesque bar/cafe called Petit Colon which was nearby. For my very large sandwich, a beer, and two teas, the total cost was 26400 ARS. Based on the cash rate I had got at the second exchange house, that means it would have been $22 USD. It gets a bit tricky though since whenever possible I’m paying with my Indian credit card, which was 1901 INR; this is equivalent to $22.75 USD. Still, you get the general idea. Regardless, we were at the bar/cafe for more than 2.5 hours, without being hassled at all to give up the table, so it seemed like a good deal.
I then decided to walk the three kilometers back to the AirBnB apartment I had rented for 12276 INR ($147 USD) for 7 nights, finally finding myself in bed at 1:00 AM.
So wow! It’s been a great time so far, and I’ve discovered many things along the way. I don’t have an exact plan for these next few days in Buenos Aires, instead choosing to make decisions along the way and to slowly start to get a feel for the city. Keep following along with future entries, and you’ll find out how things went. As always, thanks for reading along and feel free to put any comments or questions in the comment section below.
Travels with Jay 