Tuesday Topics: Patagonia, Reopening Chile, Vaccines, Masks & Linguistics, and Falklands Flights

When I arrived in Santiago de Chile in late February of 2020, to begin updating Moon Handbooks Patagonia for the upcoming sixth edition, what we now recognize as the COVID pandemic had barely begun and few of us appreciate what was a transformative event it would be. A couple weeks later, after I had crossed into northern Argentine Patagonia, its significance had become apparent and I managed to return to Chile before the border shut down and then, after various delays, to home in California.

When I landed in Santiago during the pandemic's earliest days, there were only the most basic temperature checks for airport arrivals.

After that lengthy delay, I’m once again planning—tentatively—to return to Chile in November. While I did travel to Buenos Aires and surroundings in March and April, I didn’t even consider a detour into Chile because its government had been slow to acknowledge foreign-administered vaccinations—an approval that’s necessary to obtain a pase de movilidad (mobility pass) permitting access to museums, restaurants, and other sites of interest to non-resident visitors.

Chile's acceptable vaccines list, according to Minsal (Health Ministry)

At that time, it was taking weeks to obtain the obligatory homologación, requiring an extended quarantine that made tourist travel inconvenient at best. Under pressure from the tourism sector, though, it has now instituted a process that should take no more than 48 hours through the Health Ministry’s vaccination website. Unfortunately, this does not (yet?) appear in English or any other foreign language but, since the policy in question is barely a week old, perhaps that’s just a short-term glitch? For those of us competent in Spanish that’s not an issue, but for the upcoming season it would seem essential.

 

What Is a Mask? A Linguistic Digression

A Chilean mascarilla

Ever since the pandemic started, we’ve been wearing masks and, when out in public, I still wear one (Alameda County, where I live, has only just rescinded its indoor mask mandate). I was in Chile when the pandemic started but before the mandate but, after I returned home quickly, the mascarilla soon became universal there and is still obligatory indoors and in outdoor spaces where it’s not possible to maintain one meter of distance between individuals. Mascarilla, by the way, is a diminutive of máscara, but I think the latter implies something that covers the entire face. In English, of course, we have just one term that covers both, though there qualifiers—“surgical mask,” for instance.

Instructions for your barbijo.

In Argentina, where I recently spent a month-plus, there are no mascarillas—rather, there are barbijos and tapabocas, two words that seem etymologically or otherwise curious. Barbijo derives from barba (beard), which feels odd since both men and women wear them, so perhaps it should be “barbijx” in interest of inclusive language?

This tapabocas covers more than just the mouth.

Alternatively, Argentines use tapabocas, which literally means “mouth covering”—oddly inappropriate, one would think, when masks are supposed to cover both the mouth and nose. Nevertheless, during my time there, Argentines were pretty conscientious about wearing their masks properly—both indoors and outdoors.

 

SCL to PUQ to MPN

Mount Pleasant International Airport (MPN) in the Falklands

Meanwhile, flights from the South American continent to the Falkland Islands will resume this coming Saturday, July 2nd. Since the Islands—insular Patagonia, if you will—form an important entry in the book, I’m very keen to return. Also, having lived there for more than a year in 1986-7 and revisited half a dozen times, I have many friends and acquaintances whom I am keen to revisit.

The Offices of International Tours and Travel (LAN has since been rebranded as LATAM)

According to an email I received from Sally Ellis, of Stanley’s International Tours and Travel, “The LATAM airlink with Chile will resume on 02 July with its normal route of Santiago - Punta Arenas - Falklands roundtrip, and a roundtrip possible from [the Argentine provincial capital of] Rio Gallegos if you travel to the Falklands on the second Saturday of each month and return on the third Saturday of each month.” It’s worth noting here that anyone flying from Punta Arenas to the Falklands and disembarking in Río Gallegos on return could run afoul of Argentine immigration—since Argentina consider the Falklands to be theirs, they may not give you an entry stamp at the airport and, when you try to leave at another border post, officials there might say you entered the country illegally.

 

Before the pandemic hit, there was an alternative route via Brazil and the central Argentine city of Córdoba but, according to Sally, “The Brazil route has no resumption date yet but will not be before the summer - maybe November?” I’ve never taken this route, but I wouldn’t rule it out at some point—especially since it would give me a chance to revisit one of Argentina’s most historic provincial capitals and its nearby Sierras.

Argentina Opens Its Skies

One deterrent to travel in Argentina—the world’s eighth-largest country—has been the deplorable state of its air services. Throughout my lifetime, the state-run Aerolíneas Argentinas—occasionally under private ownership—has dominated a Buenos Aires-centric system that, with unavoidable stopovers, sometimes made flights as time-consuming as bus trips. The arrival of Chile’s LAN (now LATAM) improved the scenario, but political obstacles kept it from challenging Aerolíneas’s dominance.

State-run Aerolíneas Argentina now dominates the country air services.

At one level, there’s a logic to this pattern, as roughly a third of the country’s population lives in and around the capital, but it also re-enforces the city’s primacy. Traditionally, even important cities with upwards of a million inhabitants, such as Rosario, Córdoba and Mendoza, can only make connections to other provincial destinations via Buenos Aires. It works against the tourist industry as well, when flights between popular visitor destinations such as Mendoza and Bariloche require lengthy detours via the capital.

Many domestic flights require changing planes at Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, the Buenos Aires city airport.

It’s about to change, though. Earlier this month, the administration of President Mauricio Macri approved 135 new routes by five new or expanded airlines, including the budget carrier AirBondi. Bondi will not begin operations until September, but Neuquén-based American Jet, Córdoba-based Alas del Sur, and the capital-based Andes Líneas Aéreas may begin immediately. Tucumán-based Avian, an affiliate of Colombia’s Avianca, should soon join them.

The idea, according to Macri, is to more than increase the number of flights and more than double the number of passengers by 2019. Given that distances are so great, that long-distance trains barely exist, and that bus services are time-consuming (although the quality is generally high), there’s potential for modernizing Argentina’s transportation system and the tourism sector in particular.

In a perfect world, AirBondi would live up its name by adopting the color scheme of this classic city bus.

Whenever Argentina announces great changes, it’s always advisable to retain a certain level of skepticism, but greater competition in the transportation sector should be a welcome development—even if part of that is a budget airline likely to charge for checked baggage and other “extras.” For what it’s worth, Bondi’s name derives not from the famous Australian beach, but rather from a lunfardo (slang) term for city buses in Buenos Aires.

Emptying the VAT? Argentina, Chile & Uruguay Offer Tourists Tax Breaks

Recent developments in tourist taxation, in the Southern Cone countries of Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, should interest readers of this blog. In the near future, though, I’ll also be addressing potential visa complications in the face of the United States’ new xenophobic government.

CHILE

For many years, I’ve advised visitors to Chile that, when paying for accommodations in US dollars or by foreign credit card, they are entitled to a 19 percent discount. That’s because foreigners on a tourist visa are exempt from the country’s Impuesto de Valor Agregado (IVA, or Value Added Tax).

Termas de Puyehue, an historic spa hotel eligible for IVA discounts

For those unfamiliar with VAT, it’s a sort of sales tax that levied on products and services within Chile, but not on those intended for export. For some reason, Chile has chosen to define accommodations and some related services as export items, though it’s always mystified me that sleeping in, say, a Puerto Natales hotel might qualify as an export. It’s a legal fiction that also applies, in some cases, to meals and even tours that are part of an all-inclusive package at destinations like Termas de Puyehue Wellness & Spa and the Puyuhuapi Lodge & Spa.

The remote Puyuhuapi Lodge & Spa can also grant IVA discounts.

It’s not quite automatic, though. In the first instance, not all hotels can take advantage of it—they must apply to Chile’s Servicio de Impuesto Internos (SII, Internal Revenue Service) for a franquicia tributaria (export permit) and, in the process, prove that a minimum percentage of their clientele comes from outside the country. In reality, this requirement excludes many modest but perfectly acceptable hostales (B&Bs) and hostels from consideration, even though such facilities could probably use the tax break more than their far wealthier counterparts.

Modest accommodations, like Puerto Natales's Hostal La Cumbre, are often ineligible for IVA discounts.

There’s a recent change in the law that merits noting. Generally, on arrival, foreign visitors receive a 90-day visa, and hotels must make a photocopy of your passport and tourist in order to provide the IVA discount. Though the immigration policy itself has not changed, however, visitors who have been in the country more than 60 days are no longer eligible for the discount.

While the great majority of visitors are unlikely to stay longer than 60 days—even a brief detour in Argentina or another country restarts the clock—it’s worth noting. If it’s more, though, you might as well be a Chilean resident. Note also that the discount depends on an exchange rate that the hotel may have set early in the season, and could be less (or perhaps more) advantageous than the current daily rate.

URUGUAY

To receive an IVA discount at Jacinto, pay with your foreign credit card.

I spend far less time in Uruguay than I do in Argentina and Chile, and only recently became aware of developments in their tourist taxation regime according to Ley 17934. Set at 18 percent, Uruguay’s IVA discount benefits tourists not only in accommodations refunds, but also services such as car rentals and meals. Last year, while dining at Jacinto in Montevideo’s Ciudad Vieja neighborhood, I was surprised to find the discount applied directly to my bill when I paid by credit card. In some cases, though, the discount appeared only when I received my credit card statement at home in California.

My receipt from Jacinto indicates the IVA discount under Ley 17934

For none of the transactions in question did I have to show proof of tourist status—merely paying with a foreign credit card was sufficient. This makes the Uruguayan policy far more convenient than its Chilean counterpart but also potentially vulnerable to abuse—in theory, I suppose, a foreigner could pay for a large dinner by credit card and be reimbursed by Uruguayan friends who would thereby receive the benefit indirectly.

It’s worth adding, though, that the IVA discount for accommodations is only 10.5 percent, and it has seasonal limits—this year, for instance, it is available only until April 21st. Still, the policy benefits everyone, or at least these able to pay with the proper card.

ARGENTINA

Stays at Camping El Bolsón - which has its own brewery - are now eligible for IVA discounts in Argentina.

Both Chile and Uruguay have been doing IVA discounts for some time, but Argentina’s a latecomer to the party. The law’s been on the books since 2001, but only this summer did the government of President Mauricio Macri declare that foreign hotel guests would not have to pay the 21 percent IVA that applies to all other products and services in the country. It’s also applicable to all accommodations, ranging from campgrounds to five-star luxury hotels, though clients will have to show their passports or other identification (visitors from neighboring countries may not need passports). The only acceptable means of payment, though, is a foreign credit or debit card, or a bank transfer. Cash is not acceptable (though Argentine hotels often provide cash discounts).

A stay at Bariloche's classic Hotel Llao Llao also means an IVA discount for foreign visitors.

As always, there’s a strange twist in Argentina’s new measure—it applies only to provinces with international borders. Thus, the interior provinces of Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Santa Fe, Córdoba, San Luis and La Pampa will not benefit from it. All these provinces probably draw more in-country visitors than foreigners, but Córdoba, San Luis and Tucumán especially could be at a disadvantage to neighbors which do have foreign borders.

Because Córdoba province has no international border, guests at Hotel Sierras in Alta Gracia - Che Guevara's boyhood home - cannot receive IVA discounts.

One final note. The current issue of Condé Nast Traveler misleadingly says that “Argentina did away with its 21 percent hotel tax for foreigners.” This is simply wrong—there never was a hotel tax for foreigners, and Argentine tourists and residents will still be on the hook for that 21 percent IVA (presuming they’re not paying cash under the table).

This kiosk poster in Santiago de Chile promotes Argentina's new tourist tax refund.