March 26/27/28 - Cafayate

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I never thought I´d be so excited to run into tourists in rental cars.  But after almost a week on the edge of the map, Cafayate was a relief.

Getting off off the beaten path is exciting, but travelling alone, with limited Spanish, and with limited access to the outside world can be tough.  I didn´t realize how tense I had become until I landed in Cafayate.

It´s Argentina´s second wine region, far smaller than Mendoza and also much less discovered.  Most of the tourists are Argentinians looking for a relaxing weekend, or backpackers on long trips through South America.  A lot of bikers also stop in the area.

Some of the wineries are small, but there are also some big multinationals in Cafayate.  Diageo owns a big vineyard.  Pernot-Ricard owns another.  There are new vineyards on the outskirts of town - clearly investors are betting on Argentinian wine.  And with inexpensive labor and growing demand internationally (Diageo exports 70% of its production - much of it to Russia and the US), it could be a good bet.

Unfortunately all this investment hasn´t made a big impact for the locals yet.  Wine is all capital and no labor.  The investment in land, equipment and inventory are enormous.  Vines have to grow for more than a decade before producing decent wines.  Fermentation tanks are expensive but spend most of the year idle.  And top end wines are stored for almost 3 years before being sold.  Visiting a winery is like visiting a ghost town.  There were 2 employees at the Diageo operation when I visited - the tour guide and a security guard.  Most of the jobs are seasonal and unskilled.

I spent a few days visiting ruins and wineries before realizing I needed to keep trekking north.  Cafayate is the sort of friendly, cheerful and sunny place that is hard to say goodbye to.

Still dry, but with vineyards and tourists just over that fence.

More amazing drives... 200km through a winding canyon.  Great roads.  Almost no traffic.

At about 7,000 feet with 15,000 foot tall peaks in the background.  I also finally found cacti that look like the ones in cartoons - big day.

It´s like ten thousand pesos when all you want is a dollar

As a footnote to the Bolivian visa story, it also turns out it is very difficult (impossible?) to get dollars in Northern Argentina.

The Bolivian government requires payment in dollars. So if you want a visa you´re going to need to change pesos into greenbacks.

But where?

Salta, where the consulate is located, is a city of about a half million people in Northern Argentina.  It´s on the main transportation routes north to Bolivia, and West to Chile.  It has dozens of banks and cambio offices.

But none of them can change pesos to dollars.

Dollars to pesos?  Yes.  But not the reverse.  Why?  ¨Because we don´t have any.¨

Why they don´t have any is a little bit of a mystery.

Firstly, presumably there is some steady demand for dollars in a city of half a million people with tourism and international trade.  I´m presumably not the first person to ask for dollars.

As for supply, there are lots of tourists.  These tourists probably change many more dollars into pesos than the reverse.

Maybe I just visited a few that happened to run out?  It seems unlikely, since some of these banks and cambios are large chains with offices around the country.  Businesses that big likely have the infrastructure to manage inventory and move dollars to where they´re needed.

So what´s the cause?  Is the peso overvalued, so people change as much as they can into dollars?  Is the sale of dollars to individuals prohibited?  Is the supply of dollars limited because of exchange controls?

My specific issue was resolved when I explained that I wanted dollars to pay for a Bolivian visa.  For this, the Banco De La Nacion Argentina had dollars.

This one is still unresolved, but it seems there are a number of controls around foreign exchange in Argentina.  They make life unnaturally complicated, so folks have had to figure out a way to get around the controls to get things done.  Here is some color from an expat living in BA...

http://expat-argentina.blogspot.com/2006/01/bringing-money-into-argentina.html

There is no problem bringing money into the country. If you're a legal resident you can transfer money to your bank account. The problem is that property here is priced in dollars and that's what people are usually bringing the money in for.

This presents a dilemma. The Argentina Central Bank converts all incoming wires into pesos. You can't wire-in dollars. That means when you convert the pesos back to dollars, you've lost 7-10% of your money, depending on what rates you get. That's a huge sum of money to lose on a wire transfer. To further complicate matters, the central bank sometimes withholds 30% of the amount of the transfer for a year, to make sure you are not a speculator.

There are various financial firms, private parties, money brokers, etc. out there that will let you do a wire transfer in dollars. They maintain a bank account in the U.S. and let you make a transfer into that account. After receiving the sum in the U.S., they give you cash in a bag here in Argentina.

Even though the financial firm you are dealing with may be a well respected legal entity here in Argentina, the operation they just carried out for you is extra-legal. The law of the land is that all transfers must go through the Central Bank. Someone told me the term for this is "blue money" -- not quite black money from drugs or something else illegal, but not exactly 100% legal either.

Despite this, virtually everyone transfers their money using one of these firms.

Man vs. Food

Chile delivers again on world-class junk food.

Adam Richman, where are you?

I was intrigued.

Yup, this is the sign.
Yup, it´s weirdly suggestive.

It´s the Starbucks of hot dogs.
Give me a grande double mayo with light guac and extra cheese sauce.

I accidentally ordered foot long hot dogs.  Oops.  But they were delicious.

I´ll take being lost in the desert over that third footlong.

March 24/25 - 900km through Northwest Argentina

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The highlands are a big, empty and beautiful place.

Long gone is Chile with its cows, orchards and towns.  Even Mendoza feels like a different world.

This is big sky country.  You can see for nearly a hundred miles.  There´s no sign of human life all the way to the horizon.  It´s liberating and terrifying at the same time.

After the close call outside of Mendoza, thankfully this stretch went by smoothly.  900km of road road road.

Maybe being alone in the open ocean feels similar.

Glamour shot courtesy of a family headed the opposite way.

Make sure you disengage the parking brake before driving!

There used to be people here... but no more.

Sorry, we don´t have any visa stickers

Americans not welcome.

A Bolivian that wants to visit the United States has to submit a lot of paperwork to get a visa.



There are two reasons for this.  

The first is to discourage illegal immigration.  Because lots of people applying for tourist visas actually intend to stay in the US, the US asks for evidence that people will return. This means a return ticket, a hotel reservation, and bank accounts or a house in Bolivia.


The second is to discourage drug trafficking.  As the coca capital of South America, this can be a problem.  Applicants are interviewed and fingerprinted.


Bolivia´s government is offended by this.  So they require all the same paperwork for Americans, putting them in the same bucket as folks from Angola, Sudan or the Congo.  The same policy doesn´t apply to European or Australians, who are presumably less problematic visitors.


The bureaucracy is bad enough.  But to add insult to injury, their consulate in Northern Argentina doesn´t have any visa stickers.    They can´t issue any visas.  But the staffers also don´t know that they don´t have stickers.  And they can´t ask their boss, because she rarely shows up at the office.  

So they say ¨come back in 3 hours¨, hoping their boss will be in the office so they can ask.  Two wasted days later they finally get an answer.

It is an incredible example of pointless policy that benefits no one.  It wastes tourists´ time and taxpayers money.  And with per capita income hovering around $1,500 a year, you don´t need many tourists to create jobs. 


While the Mongolian government just waved visa requirements for most of the world, and 2011 is ¨Visit Nepal Year¨, Bolivia´s government is insisting on getting revenge on America through their visa process.  Americans can easily change their vacation plans.  Sadly, most Bolivians don´t have the same option when it comes to earning a living.