The Travel Chica

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5 Things I Do Not Like About Buenos Aires

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Since my last post was about what I love about Buenos Aires, I figured I should be honest with my readers and admit that Buenos Aires is not always rainbows and sunshine.  Here are the five things that are not so great about Buenos Aires.

1.  Dog shit on the sidewalks.

Porteños love their dogs, especially large dogs.  In fact, when I was in Bogota and did a city walking tour, there was a group of 4 people visiting from Buenos Aires who actually brought their dogs with them on vacation.  I have nothing against dogs, even in big cities where people live in tiny apartments.  However, in Buenos Aires it is not customary to carry plastic bags to “clean up” after your dog when you take it for a walk.  When you are in this city, you must develop a special radar.  No matter what you are doing, you must always have one eye a few meters ahead to look out for doggie bombs.  The neighborhood you are in determines your risk level.  San Telmo is the worst I have seen out of all the central barrios.

Miraculously, I have not stepped in dog shit since I have been here nor did I step in any during my last visit in 2009.  (I just knocked on every piece of wood within reach.)  When I witness what I call “slip and slides,” I give a little nod to the sky as a thank-you for sparing me once again from the inevitable.

2. Giant stealth mosquitoes.

The mosquitoes here are the largest I have ever seen, second only to Nicaragua in my experience.  I thought that since it is Autumn, the mosquitoes would go wherever it is they go when the mornings and evenings start to get cold. Nope. Not the case here.  The worst part is you do not know you are being eaten alive until after the damage is done.  One morning I was with my running group, and I happened to notice the woman next to me had about 10 mutant mosquitoes on her legs.  I looked down at my own legs, and I was being swarmed as well.

3.  Air pollution.

This is a big city, and it has big city problems like air pollution.  It is not nearly as bad as in some other big cities (Quito), but when there is this much traffic and this many buses, you will be breathing exhaust fumes in the air.  I try to avoid walking on the main avenues as much as possible and take advantage of the numerous green spaces such as Bosque Palermo.

4.  Spanish is harder.

I realize this is a personal problem and not really the fault of the city.  However, the accent in Buenos Aires is much more difficult for me to understand than any other Spanish-speaking country I have traveled.  It is not just the slang (although that is different too).  The double “L” is pronounced with a “SH” sound.  The “Y” is pronounced with a “SH” sound.  With just these two adjustments to pronunciation, the entire language sounds different.  It allows the words to flow together more easily.  It sounds prettier, but it also makes it very difficult to distinguish each word.  And don’t even get me started on their use of “vos” instead of the “tu” verb conjugations.

Porteños also seem to have their own Spanish words for things that are not used in other countries.  I encountered this in other Spanish-speaking countries, but not in the same quantity as I have here.  One of my favorite quotes from my travels comes from a friend I met in Panama City. In response to my rant about how they have a different word for “pen” in every country I had visited, Carlos explained,

“Latin America is 20 countries separated by one language.”

5.  Getting robbed at the ATM.

No, I do not mean a thug robs you when you when you walk away from the ATM.  The banks rob you by charging a ridiculous amount of money for every transaction.  The worst part is that you cannot take out more than 1000 pesos (roughly US$250) at a time.  I have been charged an average of US$12 for every US$250 transaction.  I am lucky because my bank does not charge on top of that.  By the way, if any of you expats living in Buenos Aires know a secret to avoid or at least reduce this ATM robbery, please, please, please tell me!

Related to this annoyance, I will add a sixth thing I love about Buenos Aires. You can use credit cards in quite a few places here, including grocery stores and some restaurants (although you have to ask if there is a percentage added to the bill for this convenience).  Since I have a credit card that does not charge me foreign transaction fees, I take advantage of using it when I can.

Comments

  1. Well, regarding #5 we found that Citibank does not charge a guest-use-fee for our bank. But that could be because it has deals with our home bank (ING), and you can take out AR$ 2500 per transaction. Though, use the cajeros specifically for Citibank customers, since the banred ones have indeed a limit of AR$ 1000 per transaction, and the AR$ 16 fee. Yep, for us too.

    • Citibank ATMs won’t take my card. I have no idea why. Other people that use the same bank as me have no problem with Citibank, and my bank has told me that they have no record of the transactions being declined. So frustrating!

  3. The most interesting thing about this post was your desciption of the spanish spoken in Argentina. I was married to the daughter of an Argentine immigrant so I am very familiar with the language differences. Many Argentines believe they speak the proper dialect of Spanish (My Ex-father-in-law believed this) and that many of the other countries speak Slang Spanish, even to the point of referring to them as the Latin version of “hillbillies”. I always think of all the other Latin countries as the different regions of the US and how English differes from region to region. The Mexicans are like “southerners”, the Spaniards are Californians etc. I would consider Argentines like The UK of Latin speaking countries. There language is Dramatically different and I could NOT understand them at all.

    • Yes, the Argentinians are quite proud people I have learned :-) I like your reference to them as the The UK of Latin-speaking countries. I’m going to steal that line.

      But what is interesting is that I have had a few of them admit that they do not speak very well here. Officially, Colombians speak the most correct Spanish, according to the Royal Spanish Academy.

      • Oh, far as i’m concerned some of there pronunciation is un intelligable! it’s more like a mumble as far as i’m concerned. No offense to any Argentinians reading this, after all I where I am from in the US I am considered a Hill Billy!

  5. what i remember most there were the missing brass clean-out covers for various water or electrical access on sidewalks in front of buildings/stores/residences… all due from economic downturn – the brass sold in market – even the aluminum light posts on roads and highways were stolen at night and sold creating eerie travelling conditions at night.

    • Wow, that would be strange to see. How long ago was this? I have heard from a lot of locals that politics and the economy are not so good right now, which has increased crime.

  6. be weary of stores who accept american coin in exchange for pesos – overall argentina was lovely place to visit and i will return there one day

  7. Look at you, all fair and balanced! You sure this wasn’t written by a ghostwriter? The Stephanie Ockerman I know would begin all snarky comments with “Sooo…”, yet this post does not.

    • The nice thing about blogging is that you can edit your bad talking habits out of the post. I do type “Sooo… ” a lot in my drafts. I’ll consider leaving a few in for you next time I’m being snarky.

  9. I am sorry to say but AGAIN, and about the language that it is BETTER to learn the HARD way of Argentine Spanish (it is not spanish and certainly not the UK of SPanish – please do NOT say this to them, they might think they are better cuzz you call them the UK – UK = Europe = better in the Argentine thinking – or they might fake they are offended cuzz of the Malvinas War thing – just fake, they have to show they are offended when in reality they would prefer to be English, hence my first advice on not telling them this).

    If you learn the hard way, then you understand better all the other ways. Even though you have to have it clear that you are NOT learning SPanish.

    • There are definitely quite a few words that are specific to Argentina. I would only put the time into learning them if I was actually moving there. Same with the different pronunciations for “y” and “ll.” If it’s easy for me, I’ll use their pronunciation, but I do not get upset with myself if I pronounce it the way I learned.

  10. “Wow, that would be strange to see. How long ago was this?”

    Read a bit. The “last”crisis (before the actual one) was in 200/2001.

    But Argentina has managed to be almost 80 years in a crisis, since the 1929 downturn. Think of it.

  11. Wow Ladylady has certainly an issue with Argentines, she dislike them but can’t keep her nose out of them, weird isn’t it? Anyways, i’ll comment to your post which is what really matters:
    Number 1: Totally agree with that, is totally bothering walking around and keeping an eye constantly at the sidewalk to avoid step dog shit.
    Number 2: I hate mosquitoes too, no matter if they’re big or tiny, they are the most useless creature in the world. But hey, why complain at all?, with the green house effect and global warming you’ll be enjoying these type of mosquitoes in the states sooner or later too! Haha
    Number 3: Pollution seems to be an issue here.
    Number 4: I found that they have lots of slang here, the accent is hard to catch too.
    Number 5: You have to use your own bank operator ATMs to avoid those extra charges.

  20. Ha, the same thing happens with French, all over France, and then in Canada. As if learning a foreign language isn’t hard enough! I think it’s normal for anyone to have a few things that bug the daylights out of them about being in a foreign country for a while… even if it’s “great” and “fun” and all that stuff, it’s stressful!
    Margo recently posted..The Italian Hot Chocolate Difference

    • Don’t bother learning it. It’s so similar to the tu form that it’s easy to understand, and people will still understand you. The only word you need to learn is the only irregular form of vos and that is “sos” which is equal to “eres.” As in, “De donde sos?”

      Yep, I stepped in poo finally…. twice in the same day. Luckily I had my tennis shoes on and NOT my usual footwear (flip-flops).
      Stephanie – The Travel Chica recently posted..One for the Bucket List: Trekking on a Glacier

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