If you ask the official banks in Argentina, they will tell you that 1 US dollar is equal to 350 Argentinian pesos. But if you ask in the right places, the rate doubles. At the time of our visit, the unofficial, mercado azul aka “blue-dollar” (i.e. black-market) rate was 1 USD dollar equals 772 pesos. (!!!)
The difference between those two rates is staggering — It’s more than double. Basically, the US dollar is more valuable to the people of Argentina than the government gives it credit for. Or put another way, the government thinks the peso is more valuable than it really is and thus extreme conversion rates are available on the streets to show the true value of the peso, which was in the process of tanking even more during our visit. I’ve never seen hyperinflation in action more so than when I visited Argentina. By the end of our trip, the peso’s value had fallen another 30%!
***NOTE: Since the election of Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, in December of 2023, the situation has changed. Upon taking office, Milei devalued the peso. The official and blue dollar rates have tightened. Milei’s ultimate plan is to dollarize the Argentinian economy, although this will be challenging and will take time and whether or not it will actually happen, remains to be seen. At the time of publishing this post, December 2024, 1 USD equals 1,013.38 Argentine Peso.
Anyway, for some reason, Western Union, a credible business, is also able to offer the blue dollar rate. We simply transferred ourselves money to a Western Union account so we could pull money at the good rate without having to go seek out a black market exchanger. For 772 pesos per dollar, Argentina was going to be a very inexpensive place to visit.
If this looks like a lot of money, it only kind of is. We pulled out $3,500USD and had it handed to us entirely in 500 peso bills, aka the equivalent of that amount of money being dished out in a note equivalent to 65¢ each. Ross was literally given an entire box of cash and we laughed because with that amount of cash on hand it looked like we had robbed a bank.
Unfortunately after landing in Buenos Aires and driving to a location 4+ hours away to a spot that we thought would be a great place to look for Pampas Pipit, we soon realized the area was not what it used to be and instead was overrun with mosquitos. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I was privy to this kind of mosquito carnage. Being outside was absolutely miserable and we barely saw any birds. We didn’t bother staying long and retreated back to the car after only 30 minutes. Of course we dipped the main target, Pampas Pipit, and moved onward.
On our initial night in Argentina, we marveled as a full moon ascended into the sky. It’s a distinctive aspect of birding trips for me to be aware of the lunar phases. On a typical day at home, I might not be as attuned to the lunar cycle, but I always find a heightened sense of well-being when I am. This evening, the full moon gradually climbed, illuminating the night sky. Then, on that first morning of birding when we rose before dawn, we watched as the full moon descended below the horizon, making way for the emergence of the sun in the sky.
Mar Chiquita
On that first full morning we visited Mar Chiquita and searched for Dot-winged Crake. Once again the target proved to be more complicated and required us to traverse over thick vegetation to get to the other side. (Basically it was comparable to a “high-knees” workout if you’ve ever run track.)
We did eventually manage good views of Dot-winged Crake (and saw Dinelli’s Doradito as well!) and even heard a few others but then we had to high-knee it back to the trail.
Ross joked we were doing all of the “hard stuff” first. Northwest Argentina is consistently described in birding trip reports as “easy” birding so Ross had marketed it to me as such, but so far it wasn’t. So far it was mosquito carnage and difficult walking.
When we arrived at another section of Mar Chiquita to search for Painted Snipe, the bird wasn’t visible. We scanned out into the wetland habitat and saw tens of thousands of flamingos along with a slew of other water birds including Two-banded Plover, Collared Plover, and Brown-hooded Gull but of course the main target was going to require some work. It soon became clear: either get your feet wet or dip the bird. An easy choice. Ross marched out into the marsh which produced excellent flight views of two males and one absolutely stunning female South American Painted Snipe.
Thankfully all of our bad luck had run out and when we visited, Quebrada del Condorito National Park, I could literally see all of our main targets from the car while I fed Roger his lunch. Streak-backed Canastero, Cordoba, and Olrog’s Cinclodes set an unexpectedly high standard for what one could expect to observe from a parked car while feeding an infant on the side of the road.
Later that evening, we decided to stop for dinner. I know I normally don’t talk about the food we ate on a birding trip, but let me just sharing this amusing story. We stopped for dinner around 7pm and the man from the restaurant who sat us at our table was excited to practice speaking English with us. We chatted a bit and as we were sitting down he told us we had the “breakfast menu” before he stepped away. At first we thought he had gotten his words mixed up, but as we looked at the menu in front of us, adorned with pictures of eggs prepared in various ways, we realized that since we were eating so early (it was 7pm!) it was still the breakfast menu! Dinner didn’t begin until 8pm. For those unacquainted with countries deeply rooted in European traditions, it may come as a surprise that dining late is customary. Apparently 7pm is just too early to eat dinner. So we ordered ourselves some breakfast. I will say the dinner plates looked amazing (at least from what we could tell based on the descriptions and pictures) and we were quite sad we couldn’t try any of them!
Chaco
One of Argentina’s vast ecoregions is the Chaco. It is primarily composed of low-lying thorn woodlands. This extensive habitat also stretches across Western Paraguay and southeastern Bolivia, forming one of the largest and most continuous expanses of arid woodland on Earth. The majority of trees and plants in this region boast thorny characteristics, and due to its size, the Chaco can technically be subdivided into six specific Chaco habitats. The region is known for its unique biodiversity, including various plant and animal species adapted to its arid conditions. Our birding expedition in Argentina would entail spending numerous days exploring the diverse landscapes within the Chaco because there are so many birds specialized to this area.
Ross referenced multiple trip reports and multiple people made sure to mention how important it is to get all of the Chaco birds early because you never want to scramble at the end. Black-bodied Woodpecker, essentially a lookalike cousin of one of our favorite backyard birds, Pileated Woodpecker, was our main target on the morning of September 30th. Ross had hatched a plan. Since we didn’t have many bird targets, we would go to a spot outside of Cordoba to tick the woodpecker and be back to our hotel by 11 so he could try again for the Pampas Pipit that we had dipped on our first day and Roger could have the rest of the day to relax. But as anyone with a plan has come to learn, there’s no guarantee it will work out.
Black-bodied Woodpecker can be quite a challenging bird to get. In our case, it was ten hours of trolling over countless kilometers and one very mediocre waterfall hike later, that we finally had Black-bodied Woodpecker in the bag. Let me repeat, TEN HOURS. There was no Pampas Pipit to be had and no day of relaxing. This particular species is known to give birders trouble so we were thrilled to FINALLY have seen this stunning bird. Luckily, the day of searching for the woodpecker had plenty of other highlights including Spot-winged Falconet, Chaco Sparrow, Scimitar-billed Woodcreeper, and Blue-tufted Starfrontlet and at least we did end the day with point blank, stunning views of our target woodpecker.
We packed up and headed on our way. We had more birds to see!
The travel mentioned in this post took place in September 29th-30th, 2023
Sample eBird checklist from Mar Chiquita-Lomas de los Indios HERE and Mar Chiquita – Bahia Laguna de Plata Camping Marul HERE, Cinclodes spot HERE, Chaco birding HERE and HERE