In Puerto
Varas, on New Year’s Day, it was hard to find a restaurant at dinnertime - most
of the handful that were open were so full that finding a table was impossible. My top choice was closing just as I started to open the door but,
walking a little farther down the lakeshore, I found a new restaurant, Mi Cuba,
that wasn’t nearly so crowded.
More a bar than a restaurant per se, Mi Cuba wasn’t exactly what
I’d planned but, at the same time, the idea of a mojito (instead of a pisco sour)
had some appeal, though the cold wet weather was less than tropical. I also remembered the hilarious song “Cuban Sandwich”
by Barrence Whitfield and Tom Russell. After a relatively large lunch, I
ordered a simple pork sandwich which was more than enough evening meal in a
place that had friendly staff, good service, and great music (though not
Whitfield and Russell).
In the course of writing guidebooks, I can rarely revisit a
restaurant multiple times to do a thorough review while sampling various dishes
(the way a food writer would), so this was clearly a small sample size.
Still, Mi Cuba passes the “would I go back” test and, when my brother-in-law
Carlos arrived in town with a limited budget, we did so last night.
Once again, the informal
rate for Argentine pesos has risen above ten per dollar but, despite the exchange
restrictions on Argentines, my brother-in-law Carlos and his family are
vacationing on the Chilean side of the Andes, and yesterday he joined me in
Puerto Varas. Wondering whether he had enough cash to be able to stay at my Casa Azul accommodations – most Argentines
have to pay with credit cards because of the difficulty in obtaining foreign
currency – I asked my hosts here about the situation if Carlos had no Chilean
cash (Casa Azul does not accept credit cards).
They don’t get many Argentines at Casa Azul– owner Andreas
La Rosé is German and most of his visitors are European – but Argentines have
found a way to obtain cash here even if they can’t use their ATM cards at
Chilean banks. Instead, they go the supermarket and wait at the checkout line
for somebody who’s making a large grocery purchase, and then offer to make the
payment with their Argentine credit card.
In return, the purchaser gives them Chilean pesos for the
amount they have paid by credit card so that, with typical Argentine ingenuity,
they have managed to evade the foreign exchange controls imposed by the
government of President Cristina
Fernández de Kirchner. They still have to pay the onerous 35 percent tax on
foreign credit card purchases, however.
As it turned out, Carlos already had acquired sufficient
cash to pay the bill here, so he didn’t have to resort to the supermarket
strategy. His cabaña rental in Chiloé required him to make a 20 percent down
payment but, when exchange restrictions made that impossible, a Chilean friend
in Osorno did it for him, and Carlos brought him half a dozen bottles of good
Malbec. Meanwhile, every time he fills up with gasoline, he asks the attendant
to add 20,000 Chilean pesos (about US$40) to the bill – the change is the equivalent
of a cash advance on his credit card, which he could not do at a Chilean bank.
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