1113 pesos - $280 - that’s the cost of entering Argentina for two people; $140 each. As we come down the stairs and around the corner into the customs area, the first question an attractive, cheery, uniformed young woman asks you is: “American?” Yes. “Go there into that line”. And that’s it. Pay-up ( they take VISA), get a large sticker pasted into an end page of your passport (good for 10 years of free entry) and line-up for window #2 for the usual passport stamp and to hand over the little papers that we completed on the airplane. Now you are free to collect luggage, go to the ATM machine and withdraw some money, and hail a taxi into town. Only none of the three ATM machines (cajero automatico) have any money on this Saturday morning of a three-day weekend. It appears that the rest of the population decided to leave for the weekend and waited until they got to the airport to withdraw extra money! So we use a VISA card to pay a driver in advance at the little window in the airport and we’re on our way. It takes about 35 minutes to reach San Telmo.
By the way, the $140 is called a reciprocity fee; we charge Argentinians that much just to “apply” to come to the US, and they don’t get it back if they don’t pass muster! We get free entry for 10 years and no application or visa to apply for. That’ll probably be the next thing many countries will do to Americans. Call it more reciprocity. Thank our government for that one.
