Walk­ing On 9 De Julio

Have you ever tried to buy a $2 bot­tle of water, let´s say, with a $100 bill (or 100 €, or what­ever cur­rency you use)? Chances are, you won´t be wel­come. Most shops don´t like to change big bills — they might think it´s a fake, or they just want to keep some change in the till.

Now, in Argentina, if you try to buy a 3 pesos bot­tle of water with a 5 pesos bill, you will get the same kind of unhappy look as if you were hand­ing out a $100 bill. There is just no change in Argentina.

There are coins: 5 cents, 10 cents, 25 cents, 50 cents and the less com­mon 1 peso. Then come the 2 pesos bill, the 5 pesos, 10 pesos etc. We have a lot of bills. Just no coins. It´s a vicious cir­cle: shops don´t give change, so we don´t have any.

Every­where there are signs: “¡no hay mon­eda, no insista!” (we do not have change, don´t insist). So instead of receiv­ing, let´s say, 25 cents for change, you will get a bub­ble gum or a candy. Great. But we still don´t have change.

If, and if, the shop keeper is in a good mood, you may get your 25 cents back. But the coins won´t be in the till (which always looks empty). The shop keeper will either leave for a few sec­onds and go to the back of the shop, either bend to reach a safe below the till. Argentina is the only coun­try I know where peo­ple seem to care more about coins than bills. I can imag­ine a rob­ber com­ing in: “gimme the change, keep the fuckin´ bills!”.

It could be funny if some­times, we didn´t really need change. For exam­ple, we wanted to take the bus in Buenos Aires. Now sure of how much it was (or where it was head­ing to for that mat­ters), we hopped on, a cou­ple of 2 pesos bills in hand. No such luck. The ride was 1,10 pesos, and only change was accepted. There are no bus tick­ets sold at the con­ve­nience store, for exam­ple, and you are sup­posed to drop your change in a machine, one coin at the time, the bus dri­ver super­vis­ing (and dri­ving through a red light at the same time, but nev­er­mind). After 200 meters, we were kicked out of the bus, because we did not have enough coins. Ooops.

We went to buy a Coke in a store nearby, hop­ing to gather the 20 cents miss­ing. I got can­dies. Great. I don´t think it would fit in the bus´coin machine… Nobody had change. We ended up walking.

How do locals do? Do they keep a jar of change at home, just for the bus? Why aren´t more coins made?

“Es un mal Argentino”, we were told. Ah.

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