After tomorrow it’ll be a week since we arrived in Buenos Aires. I’m traveling with my son Martin. The first time Martin traveled to Buenos Aires was about 15 years ago. He’s 18 now so he doesn’t remember a thing from that trip.
One of the matters that has struck Martin the most about the country is how cheap it is. We went to a store and checked out some neat Christian Dior shirts. The price of a shirt was 50 pesos, or about $17. There were other name brands that were in the same price range.
At the railway station outside Buenos Aires, a kiosk vendor was selling Windows Vista for 20 pesos, about $7.
I told my son that it’s not possible that what costs many times more in Europe or in the States costs only a fraction here in Argentina.
The Argentineans have a great word for it. Whenever something is fake or an imitation they call it trucho. It must be one of the top-ten nouns used in Argentina.
There was an article in Clarín, the biggest daily in the country, that reported that 70% of all CDs sold in Argentina are pirate, or trucho, copies!
With salaries being much lower than what people make in the so-called developed world, it’s no wonder why the government isn’t doing anything to clamp down on this illicit trade.
Buying a real Christian Dior shirt or Windows Vista progam would not be possible, unless a middle-class Argentinean didn’t eat or pay the rent for a few months.
my sister in law was down in argentina a few month ago and couldn’t believe how far the us dollar went, she did the typical tourist thing and bought leather goods home.