Day 12, Buenos Aires Yarn District...and the Peso Problem

This morning we head to the Yarn District. Yes, Buenos Aires has a district for all things yarn! So the start of this blog is only of interest for other yarnies and knitters...read further down for our experience on money in Argentina.

It is along Av. Scalabrini Ortiz, starting on Av. Cordoba and extending toward Av. Corrientes, most of the shops are pretty close together within 4-5 blocks, both sides of the street!

We take a taxi, and I am thrilled with the windows and little shops full of yarn. But it is confusing. The yarns are generally unlabeled, they are bundled in bins with headings that mean something to locals, but not much to me! Fiber content may or may not be listed, nothing about gauge, needles, yardage. Just price per kilo.

I just wander the shops and finger the yarns, not sure what I want. No one speaks English to answer questions. But I know algodon is cotton, seda is silk, and lana is wool.  At Hilados Reina, I settle on a nice multicolor dyed cotton for 44 pesos, calculated as .45 kilos at 98 peso per kilo. It looks like a lot of yarn for a short-sleeved sweater, about $9.

Now we are running short on pesos (more on that below), so I look for a shop that accepts credit cards. At Yanabey, hard to select from that gorgeous wall of color, but go with a 50/50 cotton/silk, 1.42 kilos at 195 pesos, $56. Enough for 3 sweaters.

Postscript here...since returning home I found someone online who works in the Buenos Aires yarn district who answered some questions.  While seda is spanish for silk, they are actually referred to rayon "artificial silk". No silk is made in Argentina, so they are loose on labels because they all "know this".  But the good news, the unlabeled yarns are made in Argentina for that store, so I have some unique yarns!

Okay, I'm done with knitting heaven!

Hot day, we nap in the afternoon, and go to a local restaurant Piola's for dinner. The forks in the cement outside the door point us in! It's an amazing space, narrow and deep into the block, 3 large rooms and an inner patio, that have brightly painted walls, lively music, english menu options. Even the tablecloths and napkins are distinctively printed.
And the pizza was delicious!

About the Argentina Peso.  We heard about inflation and currency problems before we got here. When we first arrived in Bariloche, we were able to exchange $US at cambios for
between 6 and 6.5 pesos per dollar.

The official rate, what our credit card purchasing convert with, is 4.9 pesos, established by the government.

When we get to Buenos Aires, we are mystified by the lack of cambios. Our hotel tells us to go to the Citibank...but they will not change currency.  We go to another bank, they say
they will only exchange for their Argentine customers.  We learn that the cambios have been going out of business over the last few months due to government pressure. Hotels are no
longer allowed to exchange currency.




The crux of the problem is...the prices of goods and food are way too high at the 4.9
rate. For instance, we would peer into a window of shoes that are 500 pesos.  That is $100,
for a pair of shoes that we might pay $50-60 here in the states.  So the "unofficial" rate,
if we could get the pesos, would be more in line.

BUT, we can't get the pesos at that rate! Apparently, we should have been able to use
dollars and get the rate, but that just never seemed to be agreeable at the particular
merchants we asked. Sigh...

This all left us feeling that Argentina is not a good place to visit right now, cost is too
high.  Let them work out their issues, and be more visitor friendly on this currency
exchange! The costs in Montevideo and Chile were less of an issue, in line, not cheap.