Argentina: Travel tips and fails

Tips:

Argentinians are of course wonderful people overall, but it is a often said thing amongst other South Americans that Argentinians can be very sneaky. So when someone tells you or sells you something, think and verify yourself and don’t just take their word for it.

A lot of places don’t take card, but also ATMs don’t seem to have enough cash in them ever. The Argentina banks won’t accept foreign cards, and at night, many ATMs will be out of cash. So if you need cash, make sure to get it in the morning when the supply has been replenished.

Everyone uses Whatsapp to message each other. And often instead of texting, they will use the voice message feature to send each other voice texts.

Claro, Movistar, Personal are three large cell service providers. There are a few other smaller ones, and all of them will offer free Whatsapp credit or even unlimited. BUT. If you get Claro or Movistar or any of the other ones, you will have to find a location to go and validate yourself with your passport. Personal is the only one that you can immediately use the services from. Internet is actually expensive for South America in Argentina.

Fails:

I mention the SIM card thing because I went to a grocery store in Mendoza, asked for a Claro SIM card (I heard it was the best) and asked how much I should load up for ~1gb of data, and he said some ridiculously low number, and so I charged it and walked away. Put in my SIM card on the way to the bus stop, and set up happens all fine. I get to the bus terminal, try to look up something, and alas — no internet! I get a page that says I need to go to a physical store to confirm. So i end up texting my farm host (I was on my way to San Rafael) saying I will be late, and after 10 texts, I ran out of credit! Apparently 1GB would have been something like 25 times what I had been told to charge.

The reason this SIM card was more of a problem was because I was trying to get to San Rafael. I bought the bus tickets online at Busbud.com, and weirdly enough the bus ticket there was $2, and the bus back was $7. And amongst the buses that went there, there were some that cost $7. So i figured it’s just the different times, and of course bought the $2. I get to the bus terminal with my nicely printed bus ticket, but i have no idea where I am supposed to get on. I see the booth for the company who runs the bus, but the ticket says some weird street. I’m trying to look up the street on Google maps, but I have no internet. So I go to the booth and ask where I go for this bus, and guess what. There are apparently two Mendozas. One is the city Mendoza, and another is an area in San Rafael. Who was in charge of naming these places? So I had to buy a new ticket that left 1.5 hours later, and obviously took way longer than the original 1 hour drive from one end of San Rafael to the other.

Also I tried to dry my swimming suits in my hostel and left them there. RIP.

Here is a more awful travel fail. I had a similar incident when I was couch-surfing in Japan, where, (tldr) I got taken to under a bridge, got verbally harassed by a group of men, sat and watched a drug deal and ran away pretending like I was getting something from my luggage.

This time it was in Cordoba and for a farm. Having lost my phone in Colombia and unable to access my gmail, I had to find a new farm to work at instead of my already contacted farm. So I went on Workaway and looked up some farms, and found a family owned one in the middle of nowhere that sounded amazing. I take a bus to Capilla del Monte, where the host of the farm said he was for a few days until driving to the farm. He also mentioned that he goes paragliding often and I was keen to try! He seemed like this regular strict dad, and we went on his motorcycle to his house that was shaped like an igloo. He had two racist though adorable daughters who were 8 who did not speak English. Though I mentioned that I speak Spanish the guy kept trying to speak in English. He was recently divorced and his daughters spent a week with him and a week with his wife at the house 20ft away. So red flag number one: it wasn’t yet clear whose property the farm was, but he said we would go in two days when his daughters would stay with their mother. He brought up weird topics like how his American college was the biggest party school (it’s not), went into detail about weird sex rituals that happen in the town, mentioned he liked skinny dipping at least ten times in the first day, and while I was helping him cook I said, “I don’t know how you want me to cook this — I only know the Asian way of making these and you don’t have Asian ingredients” and he said, “wow a woman to marry”. He also wanted to show me photos of the waterfall that was near the farm, and told me to keep swiping, and of course there is a fully nude photo amongst them. I kept assuming this guy was super hippie and had no filter — and if you’re in this town you would see why I thought this.

Earlier in the day he mentioned he was a masseuse and offered me a massage and I thought it would be rude to deny, so I said yes. Then the big creepy thing happened at night while his daughters had gone to bed and he was giving me a massage. To cut the details I was extremely uncomfortable and I told him so. Then he said he wanted me to give him a massage. I tried to get out of it and say no, but he was persistent. So I attempted at a Thai massage (elbows and a lot of pain. Very non sensual) and he kept asking me to use oil and I denied. He had taken his clothes off (why tho) and covered himself with a towel. Then during the massage, he removed the towel, and I was very upset and asked him to cover himself. He chuckled at my discomfort.

The igloo is shaped weird to begin with, but there is one room where the girls slept, and the ceiling of the room formed a loft, where he slept. I was sleeping in the living room ish area, and when he sat up in his loft, he could see me. Very uncomfortable. He asked me to come sleep next to him, and I said no. He asked me again after explaining that he wasn’t going to do anything weird, and I said no. I grabbed my pepper spray and held it in my hand under the sheets.

This town is very small, and the houses are very far apart. People have asked, why didn’t you leave? Or why didn’t you get angry?

Because I was fucking scared. It was a tall male and me in the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t just take a taxi to the city center — there were no taxis. I couldn’t walk there either because it was dark and far.

Earlier in the day, he also mentioned that he didnt think it made sense for people to not travel. He said, people who say they are scared to travel alone are coming up with an excuse because they are scared of leaving their comfort zone. I didn’t agree and said so, that as a woman traveling alone I had experienced some bad things. And he was surprised and seemed to not believe me, and kept telling me that it was still safe.

I left as soon as his daughters woke up to say bye, and he messaged me after, asking if I was sure I didn’t want to go paragliding and to apologize. But he knew exactly well what the hell he was doing.