We arrived in Buenos Aires without any misadventures other than a 2 hour long immigration queue. We spent our time before we departed on Sunday running errands and rearranging our gear (something we seem to do endlessly).

First task was to change some dollars into pesos. With rampant inflation at about 10% per month, the Argentinian peso is really suffering as well as the people who rely on it. We quickly learned that one gets nearly twice as many pesos per dollar if you change your money on the black market (actually referred to as the blue market). This is tolerated by officialdom and can be done on the street or in many unofficial locations. We went to a travel agency that we heard about from one of the other riders (a retired policeman). There, with a handy money counting machine, our dollars became stacks of pesos at an exchange rate of 275p/ 1 US dollar while the lovely woman behind the counter sang Jim Happy Birthday 😊.

Another important item on our agenda for the day was celebrating Jim’s birthday with dear friends from prior journeys

Off we go through the expanse of Buenos Aires, a city of 15 million people. We rode on every type of road: city streets through many residential neighborhoods, highways, cobblestone streets, dirt tracks. Along the way there were many signs of the famous Argentinian beef. Parillas, or grills are found along every road.

Once we hit the rural areas and our various campsites, we encountered many Argentinian dogs or perros. The dogs are everywhere and don’t seem to belong to anyone. Regardless they generally look well-fed and are very docile. There was one young dog however who decided that my pink bicycling glove looked like something fun to chew. He grabbed it out of my helmet on the ground and proceeded to play keep away from me and my fellow riders. The little scamp clearly loved the attention and thoroughly enjoyed himself until finally a rider was able to grab it from him

I have more that I would love to share but it’s getting late and we have an early morning. Will get back at it as soon as we have another break.