Money! Meat!

Topic of Money: in Argentina there is an official exchange rate and a real one. The official exchange rate is the one officially recognized by the government and used by foreign providers such as car rental companies and hotel portals for their offers. However, the real rate is the one that everyone actually lives with. The problem was that you would get the official rate when exchanging money. So, we had already informed ourselves in various travel forums beforehand on how to exchange money at unofficial exchange offices on the street. However, all of this was not entirely legal, and tourists were often cheated. Shortly before we arrived in Argentina, that changed drastically. The government now allows payments made with foreign credit cards or by foreign customers to be exchanged at the real rate. This saved us the nerve-wracking adventure of an "illegal" money exchange.

So, we found a money transfer service and transferred around 200 € for cash withdrawal to Heike. When we arrived at the office, they told us that the money was on its way, but had not arrived yet. We were asked to be patient. And so, we waited. However, after another 30 minutes and still no sign of the money, we called the payment service provider. They told us that the money was still blocked because there was suspicion that I was a fraud. So, I had to upload a copy of my ID to enable verification. After 5 minutes, we were able to collect the money.

While we were waiting, Heike and the children were in the car. We parked in front of a yellow curb where parking was not allowed. However, since the entire street was full of parked cars, we thought it was common practice. When two traffic police officers approached Heike, she already knew it would be best to drive away. She asked one of them if she could simply drive away now. He said it was not a problem. In the meantime, the other officer had already started writing down the license plate number. The first officer then backed off and allowed the second one to proceed. This made Heike so angry that she started shouting at the traffic police officer. Christian watched the situation from a distance and chuckled. In the end, we took the fine and paid it right there where we had just collected the money. So now we also know how to pay fines in Argentina and in Japan.

Afterwards, we went to the Central Market of Mendoza to eat. The sight of a grill restaurant made us immediately forget about the fine. We ordered Entraña and giant cutlets. The meat was incredibly delicious.

Then, we drove to our next destination, Malague. Unfortunately, it turned out that we arrived there during the long Carnival weekend. We inquired at a few cabins, but unfortunately they were already fully booked. So, we resorted to the tried and true method and went to the tourist information. There, we got a list of vacation cabins that we could check out.

The tourist information was beautifully designed. A nice wooden house with huge screens. It was also paperless: you simply provided your phone number and received a WhatsApp message with all the information and links to all the tourist attractions in the city.

After another half an hour, we finally found a nice cabin where we wanted to stay for two nights.

Since it was already quite late, we didn't have a big meal but just went to a restaurant next to a gas station. There, we had the tastiest coffee we had had in a month and ate typical Argentine fast food dishes.