Money Exchange & Other Hustles on Florida St.
Walking along Florida Street near LaValle on downtown Buenos Aires’ pedestrian mall, it’s inevitable to come across some shady-looking characters yelling out or whispering, ‘cambio, cambio!’ These ‘unofficial’ (read: illegal) money changers, known in Lunfardo as arbolitos, do offer dollar and euro exchange rates that are lower than the banks, but it’s not recommended to [...]
The Buses of Buenos Aires
The buses of Buenos Aires are like old men in a bar – loud, smoky, rough around the edges, but dependably, they always show up –usually sooner rather than later. The buses, called colectivos, or bondis in the local lingo, lunfardo are quite reliable, inexpensive and comprehensive, moving six and half million passengers a day. [...]
How to Take a Bus in Buenos Aires
The Buenos Aires bus— so noisy, so smokey, but so darn affordable and practical they’ll get you anywhere. Here are the steps to take a bus in Buenos Aires: 1. Figure out your route First you’ll need to figure out which bus you need using the Guía T or the internet. Look at this post [...]
The Guía T — The Buenos Aires’ Bus Bible
At first figuring out Buenos Aires’ complex bus system can seem like a harrowing task. There are 110 bus lines; each with their own complicated routes crisscrossing the city. Get your hands on a Guía T, a guide to the bus system that can be bought in a handy portable version at any newsstand for [...]
Radio Taxi Companies in Buenos Aires
It can happen so easily in Buenos Aires — you need to call a taxi but have no numbers handy. You look in the phone book and the numbers listed are out of order or just plain old not answering the phone, you need to get to the airport and time is running out. When [...]
Taxis
In most major cities of Argentina taxis are abundant. Buenos Aires in particular, with its 40,000 cabs is one of the best cities in the world to take taxis. The black and yellow cars abound and it’s fairly easy to hail one on any major avenue, rain or shine. The only exception is when, due to [...]
Lunfardo
(← cont. from Argentinismos) Lunfardo is a jargon of about 5,000 words that emerged among the lower classes in Buenos Aires in the second half of the 19th century. It first grew out of cocoliche, a pidgin used by immigrants during the first wave of immigration to Argentina. The Argentine Creole was born out of [...]
Argentinismos
(←cont. from: ¿Spanish, Castellano, Lunfardo?) Perhaps the most Argentine word in existence is che, a filler word that was maladapted from the native Mapuche language and has since become widely used across the country. It’s commonly used to call someone’s attention, express surprise or emphasize a statement; it oddly seems to resonate with the English [...]
¿Spanish, Castellano, Lunfardo? — Intricacies of the Argentine Idiom
Those who come to Argentina to learn the language will find that its interpretation of the Spanish language is every bit as unique as the country itself. Visitors quickly find out that those textbook Spanish classes can serve as a comfort but not a compass when trying to navigate this country’s Italian-flavored version of Spanish. Argentines [...]
Current Exchange Rates
With its wealth of natural resources and fertile land, Argentina enjoyed an abundant beginning to the 19th century as one of the world’s richest countries. Through the years a chaotic political landscape, corruption and free-for-all privatization in the 80’s and 90’s has wreaked havoc on the economy since the golden (or in Argentina’s case, silver) [...]
