Where to exchange currency in argentina
Black market currency exchanges in Buenos Aires - Money changers using Argentina's famous Blue Rate
[Music]
hey everyone welcome back to first hand
globe-trotting
most of the time when I travel
converting money into the local currency
is pretty straightforward you just go to
the bank or currency exchange hand them
some money they hand you something back
easy I mean it's pretty standard stuff
right if you've traveled internationally
he's probably converted money dozens of
times you probably have a whole pile of
foreign money sitting in a drawer
somewhere at your house but when I
landed in Argentina I learned that
exchanging money there was a whole
different story I thought it was pretty
cool and interesting so I wanted to tell
you all about it first a little back
story Argentina had been having some
real ups and downs with its economy a
bit of a roller coaster and lots of
inflation so you had a lot and I mean a
lot of people there who didn't want
anything to do with the Argentine peso
because of all of that inflation it was
losing money faster than they could earn
it so instead of saving their money in
pesos they'd convert it to US dollars
euros whatever other major international
currency they could get their hands on
well the government really didn't like
that kind of embarrassing when you're
citizens don't want your country's money
right so they put in laws that the
citizens couldn't convert their money
they wanted to force everyone to keep
their money in pesos so that's a back
story it's kind of weird but it wasn't
all that new to me I've been in a few
countries before where currency
exchanges are highly restricted here's
where it got really interesting though
as you'd expect a few pesky regulations
didn't really stop the people from
wanting to cash out their pesos and if
they couldn't buy foreign currency at a
bank well why not just buy it from all
the tourists who come to Argentina every
year as a tourist I could head over to
the ATM pop in my card take out some
pesos at the official exchange rate just
like just about every other country I go
to but the people of Argentina obviously
wanted my money more than the banks
because there was a second rate the blue
rate the black market rate you get for
your cash
and it wasn't a small difference between
the rates either as a tourist you'd get
about 40 percent more pesos using the
blue rate huge savings
way better than the banks and this
wasn't some super-secret rate where you
need to know someone who knows someone
who knows someone to learn about it you
could just pick up the newspaper and be
printed right there for you everyone
knew it but this is a black market rate
it's technically illegal so it must be
really hard to find someone to do the
exchange with right nope not at all in
one of series you could walk down any
tourist area and come across dozens of
people yelling cambio cambio change
change offering to exchange your money
for you I'm not even exaggerating on
Florida Street which is a popular area
with tourists almost every 15 or 20 feet
you'd have a person there they were
everywhere and not hiding at all I mean
just look at this guy here he's standing
in the middle of a busy area offering to
exchange money even if it is illegal it
wasn't hidden at all
so here's how it worked you'd go up to
one of these black market money changers
yelling cambio and you take them up on
their offer but they were just a sales
people out on the streets they'd walk
you over to another spot usually some
store that had a back room and in there
you'd get to the real money man he'd
have a big pile of pesos a calculator
and not much else in there you tell him
how much you wanted to exchange he'd
show you how many pesos you get and if
everything seemed okay you'd make the
exchange and go on your way
it may seem pretty weird or back alley
but it was actually a super easy process
other than it taking place in a back
room it really wasn't all that different
from any other currency exchange and
that was a really cool thing about it
even though these were black market
exchanges it really wasn't hidden at all
with all these sales people on the
streets trying to get business from just
about every tourist in the city but if
you're going to Argentina and we're
hoping to get in on some black market
money exchanges you're probably out of
luck recently the government removed the
law that prevented people from buying
foreign money so the blue rate has
pretty much disappeared I haven't been
there since but I'm guessing that all
the money changers are out of business
now
but it was pretty interesting while it
lasted that's it for this video I
thought the whole Argentine money
exchange thing was pretty cool and
hopefully you did too
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