Travel Weeks 50-51
So, I think I can finally call myself a digital nomad, as I have moved from the stage of going through tutorials to actually coding and getting things to work on a real server.
Days 345-359:
| Vea Supermarket | 670 |
| Lettuce and tomato | 60 |
| Total: | 730 ARS (USD 5.60) |
After noting that the Vea sold packages of 8-10 jalepeno-like chili peppers in the produce aisle, I had a moment of brilliance when I realized that I could pickle them so that I wouldn’t be pressure to eat them all in one weekend. Furthermore, since I was already sitting on half a head of cabbage, I decided to make sauerkraut as well. The logical conclusion to these culinary insights was to make choripan over the weekend, stuffing the baguette with so many vegetables that I could on fit half a sausage in each sandwich.
| Carrefour | 1050 ARS |
| Total: | USD 8.05 |
The coup de grace came on Monday when I dedicated the third and final chorizo into a fried rice with two day old rice cooked in chorizo juices, sauerkraut, carrots, green onion, jalepenos, and egg. My mouth is watering at the memory of the dish that stretched three meals.
At the Carrefour, the most notable purchases were a new toothbrush and toothpaste, and a jar of dulce de leche. I’ve been craving a Hong Kong-style milk tea, but they don’t seem to have sweetened condensed milk in Argentina. Dulce de leche is not an appropriate substitute.
| Atomo | 556 |
| Starbucks | 750 |
| Lomoro Helado | 280 |
| Vegetables | 80 |
| Total: | 1666 ARS (USD 12.77) |
I finally got around to buying olive oil (250) for real at the Atomo, where I also picked up a bottle of wine (221 on sale) in anticipation of the next presidential debate. However, since I am still not drinking, I bought a half-kilo of gelato for the Veep debate at a much cheaper ice cream shop. (Not as good, but mostly because I ordered something I thought was chocolate-based, but turned out to be a white, pink, and purple cross between chewing gum and birthday cake flavor). Starbucks upped their prices so much that I won’t be buying coffee there ever again.
| Vea | 665 |
| Onions | 30 (?) |
| Total: | 695 ARS (USD 5.33) |
Decided to try a recipe for a warm lentil salad involving onion, carrot, celery, and chard (which I think is called “acelga” here). For some reason, the Vea has the best price on carrots, the acelga was cheap enough, and I appreciated the convenience of not having to buy a whole celery. I had to pop over to the neighborhood vegetable stand for some parsley (which they gave me a handful of for free) and onions. Of course, I’ve been forgetting to jot down these costs, but I think it was 30 pesos (rounding up from 20 something with one extra onion).
I didn’t need to show my passport at the supermarket because Friday is apparently the weekend and the province just adopted a new weekend liberalization policy so that people can go out Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and holidays without restrictions based on their document number. I took advantage of the “Covid holiday” to take a walk on Saturday up to and around the Central Mercado, which I had never been into before. I’ll have to go back to do some shopping because although there are maybe only 10 counters (2 for meat, one for produce, etc), I found loose leaf Chinese tea and whole dried chili peppers and other tempting items.
| Vea Supermarket | 564 ARS |
| Total: | USD 4.32 |
I guess Columbus Day, or Indigenous People’s Day, is a holiday in Argentina. When I checked the online newspaper to see if it was the case, I found that the President of Argentina had announced that Mendoza and some other areas would have to return to lockdown like in March, meaning no more running in the park for me. Within hours, the governor of the province (who is of a different political party) gave a live address rebutting the order.
I didn’t really need to go to the store, mostly shopping just on impulse–3 tomato purees for the price of 2! chicken hind quarters at 105 pesos per kilo! Tortillas! Peanuts! I swung by the vegetable shop to buy spinach (which, along with asparagus, is fresh and in season right now), but their supply hadn’t been delivered yet. I grilled the first chicken quarter to eat with a salad, but decided to cook the other two adobo style.
| Rent | 10,000 ARS |
| Total: | USD 76.65 |
I was supposed to pay on October 2, and I had the money ready to go, but I decided to wait for the landlord to ask me for it. It was a long wait.
| Carrefour | 1615 |
| Lettuce and tomato | 60 |
| Total: | 1675 ARS (USD 12.84) |
The chicken adobo was good, but since I was sitting on tortillas and leftovers, I wanted to make tacos. Fortunately, the Carrefour had a half pineapple (86) ready to purchase. It turned out to be a much more expensive trip than I was planning and I even had to turn back an item (684 peso bag of Starbucks coffee grinds) at the register to be able to afford the bill. I bought bananas, prunes, more of the breakfast mix, a big block of cheese, conditioner, and intensive lotion for my dry, dry skin. The adobo chicken tacos with diced pineapple and pickled jalepenos were amazing.
| Vea | 830 ARS |
| Total: | USD 6.36 |
The best part of making tacos is using the leftovers (after 2-3 meals) to make empanadas. Of course, that didn’t stop me from buying more tortillas as well. I’m noticing that the same brand of tortillas went from 68.63 pesos on Monday to 70.69 pesos of Friday! I bought some apples, discounted cheese (Carrefour is usually the best for cheese), and 3-for-2 bars of dark chocolate.
Running Total: 5927.60 USD (RMB 39,701)
Daily Average: 16.51 USD (RMB 110.6)
The Cost of Starbucks
The Starbucks thing annoyed me, so I decided to check the logs to see how much it has cost over time:
| Date | Price (ARS) | Cost (USD) |
| January 15 | 470 | $7.99 |
| March 12 | 520 | $6.71 |
| July 1 | 610 | $5.78 |
| September 7 | 650 | $5.56 |
| October 7 | 750 | $5.75 |
Inflation and devaluation are an interesting combination!