5 Things I Hate About Buenos Aires

It’s time for another edition of “5 Things I Hate…” This time we do Buenos Aires, Argentina! Now while BA is an incredible city and we’d go back anytime there are a few silly things that annoyed me. There’s a lot to love in the beautiful city and the steak and wine alone are reason to visit. But with all places there are some negatives that you may or may not share with me, some silly and some serious gripes. Here we go…

1. Slow LTE/Wifi

The country overall has embarrassingly slow internets and for their capital city to top out at 3 mb/s is ludicrous! I know most people will be out and about enjoying the sights but trying to do any work there can be a real pain. Their infrastructure needs some serious upgrades to match the rest of the developed world. Your SIM card won’t be spared either. Even though they boast 4G, a lot of their pay as you go plans will throttle your speed to mere kilobytes after using your allotted 50 mb for the day. We kept thinking that our cards had been shut off, nope, just silly throttling from Personal.

2. No ATMs / High Bank Fees

I know Argentina has gone through some serious economic issues but I can’t understand why the only ATMs are inside banks, and those can be hard to find sometimes. Where to Argentinians get their cash!? To add insult to injury, even after finding a bank with an ATM that has money, you’re still slapped with a ridiculous fee. At a whopping $9, the flat fee is probably the highest I’ve seen for cash withdrawal.

3. The Pretentious Accent

Argentina has an interesting accent where the double “ll” is pronounced more like a “j” sound. They know they’re different and very proud of it but they don’t need to make me suffer. I know my Spanish is horrible but nowhere else have I had a harder time being understood than Argentina. I might as well have just shouted in English. The frustrating part is that most people knew what I was saying but made sure to repeat it back to me accented in a very condescending way.

4. Dog Shit Everywhere

There are a lot of dogs in Argentina. The streets are filled with people walking their pups of all shapes and sizes. The sidewalks are also littered with their poops of all shapes and sizes. Argentines seem to delight in letting the pooch poop in the middle of the sidewalk and proudly let the pile steam for everyone to admire. I know it can be less than dignified to pick up poop with your bare hand separated only by a thin layer of plastic but the alternative is leaving your otherwise nice city smelling like poop.

5. Pizza with a Knife and Fork

I really don’t have to go into much detail here. Pizza is very popular in Buenos Aires thanks to the Italian population and I’ll forgive what they did to the tasty disc. What I won’t forgive is eating it with a knife and fork. It’s not fine dining, it’s pizza. Pick it up and stuff it in your face! I don’t see anyone eating empanadas with a fork and knife.