I just completed a wonderful 6 week holiday in Argentina. Being a recent retiree I am always looking for maximum value while enjoying great vacations. The currency situation in Argentina certainly attracted my interest as we planned our trip.

My internet research led me to find addresses for 4 different cuevas, currency exchange shops. None of them are the places that have touts outside yelling cambio. The latter you encounter every 5 metres along Florida. I never used one of those.

I started on January 3, the day I arrived, visiting a cueva on Arenales, between Talcahuano and Libertad in Recoleta. It is called Jewelry and Exchange, has jewelry display spaces in the window facing the street with the rest of the windows covered in a white opaque material. You buzz to get in and then walk to the back of a well furnished waiting area where there is a bank-like wicket where you exchange your cash.

I decided to start with US$500. I watched like a hawk as they counted out the Ar$100 bills. The counted them with the silver stripe down. I recounted them there with the stripe up. They all looked OK and the count was accurate.

For the next couple of days I kept wondering if some retailer or restauranteur was going to hand me one back and say it was fake. It never happened!

Throughout our 6 weeks I paid for our apartments in US$ cash because that's whats requested and how apartments are priced in BA. Everything else was paid for in cash in Pesos, all acquired at the blue rate at cuevas.

Over 6 weeks I used 4 different cuevas, the Arenales one was used the most. I also used one on Junin opposite the Recoleta Mall, one at Cervino and Scalabrini Ortiz and one in Mendoza. The most humourous experience was arriving at the Scalabrini Ortiz cueva to have the door opened for us by two policemen. Very polite.

As mentioned above, I received Ar$6.50 to the $ on my first day. At that time the official rate was about Ar$4.90 to the $ which means I might have got Ar$4.75-4.80 at a regular exchange counter or bank. The advantage exceeded 30% on the official exchange rate.

During my vacation the blue rate kept rising and my best return was $7.65 to the $. It later dropped back to Ar$7.35. At the peak my advantage exceeded 50%. Over the course of the holiday I estimated I averaged at least a 40% advantage.

Over the course of 6 weeks we exchanged about US$8,500, all of which we brought with us is good quality US$100 bills. That means we received about 650 AR$100 bills from cuevas. Not one proved to be a fake.

Everything in my background says don't use a black market because you will get scammed. But my background also says look at the evidence. I was a little nervous during and after my first cueva visit. But as the holiday progressed my comfort level with cuevas increased. I still watched them count bills like a hawk and doubled checked every bill they gave me. But I also realised that scamming customers wouldn't be a good business practise for these operations.

Every time I saw another tourist produce a credit card to pay for something I felt sorry for them. They were paying far more than they needed to pay.

We literally paid for everything except apartments in cash in blue market Pesos. I produced my credit card for check-in at hotels and for pick-up of a rental car. But when I received the final bills for those I just produced my Pesos and paid for them in cash.

Based on my estimate of a 40% advantage using the blue rate, I estimate that the $8,500 I converted to pesos secured us an extra $3,400 in value. We would have paid $3,400 more for the same holiday if we'd used the official exchange rate. That's not chump change.

I have shared my experience so other travellers can consider my evidence. I'm not suggesting using cuevas is risk-free. But I do suggest the risk is minimal. And I suggest anyone spending more than a few days in Argentina may want to consider using cuevas.

Toward the end of my holiday I began to realise that even if 10% or 20% of the bills I was given by cuevas were fake, I would still be ahead of the game compared to using the official rate. But not one bill that I received was fake. We had a great holiday. And it was fabulous value.

Thanks for sharing your story in the cash is king land of Argentina.

If only you could convince the rental properties to take pesos, that would really be a game changer.

But I thought that cuevas were giving rates much higher than what you were getting on your trip but maybe I am wrong.

A good resource for this type of info would also be BAEXPATS.ORG. They can be a bit rough around the edges but its a great site for all the info on traveling to Buenos Aires and the rest of Argentina.

I was checking my rates with those quoted by guys on other sites and I was getting the same or within 10 centavos of others. I never tried to bargain at a cueva. I think some guys bargain and get a better rate for large US$ trades.

The rate you get at a cueva is 30 to 40 centavos less than the rate published in the BA Herald. The Herald was heralding an Ar$8 rate when I was getting Ar$7.65.

Thanks for the BAEXPATS tip.

The difference is because of the existance of the buy/sell spread, something that exists in all markets, formal and informal. Because the Blue ForEx market is an informal market, this spread is much larger than it would be if this were a clear formal market where the financial institutions and normal money changers would also participate. Its not that the BA Herald is wrong... its just that the only rate that makes the news is the SELL rate for the Dollar.

I just went into the first tout's cave on Florida. 7 to 1 in late Jan. No problems whatsoever.

Thanks for the info. It's definitely true that a cueva passing counterfeits would destroy its long-term profitability, so an established cueva should be fine.

I was in Bs As in November and used this cueva twice for significant amounts (x 1000 USD and Euros) and had no problem at all, everything smooth and efficient, no false. Allow me to thank jimmac for this great tip.

Euros are accepted without any difficulty. There is however indeed a hit in the exchange rate. Whereas in November they easily gave you 13AR$ for 1US$, I could not find better than 15.5AR$ for 1�.

Thanks. The USD/EUR exchange rate was typically hovering around the 1.24 mark in November, so, at comparable spread, one would have expected somewhere around 16.2AR$ to the �. Based on your figures, therefore, it sounds like I should expect taking a hit in an order of magnitude of 4 to 5% if I want to exchange EUR rather than USD.

Great post! How do you find cuevas with the blue market rate? Or do I solely assume the exact same cuevas are open when I arrive in Feb 2015?

My experience with euros is that the hit is more variable, and may depend generally on how much volume of everything (including dollars) there is, which tends to follow demand levels. That is, when demand for dollars gets high, the discount to the euro is smaller than when demand is low. In September or October I was getting rates on euros that I actually considered better than going rates on the dollar (I changed euros for as much as 18.55, and dollar rate was hovering above 14). More recently, the euro rate was below 15 when the dollar was still around 13...

Going to BA in two weeks so I will definitely check this place out. Based on google maps, I am assuming it is this place, no? http://tinyurl.com/kc66alr

That's the place. I'm looking forward to visiting it again next month.

Is it possible (and as easy) to find cuevas in Mendoza, Cordoba, Bariloche, Ushuaia and other smaller Argentina cities? If not, will Xoom work in those smaller cities?

I'm considering entering Argentina in either Ushusaia or Mendoza and then bopping around the smaller places first (before BsAs). But I'd hate to burn money if I can't find cuevas.

I can give you the location of a cueva in Mendoza, assuming its still there.

There are a bunch in an arcade on San Martin near the intersection with Sarmiento. Sarmiento is the pedestrian street.

If you were to stand at the end of Sarmiento and look across San Martin, to the left you will see a MacDonald's. To the right of MacDonald's is the open front of a small arcade. There will be touts outside offering you cambio.

Ignore the touts, walk straight into the arcade, down a half staircase and directly in front of you is a stall/shop offering Oro, gold. Walk up to the counter and ask the rate to change US$.

That's where I went. The transaction was very professional and the rate was within 10 cents of what was current in BA at the time.

Hope that helps. Enjoy Mendoza.

Can't help on the other cities.

In Cordoba I changed money on the street next to Plaza San Martin on Calle Bs Aires, there are quite a few banks in the area so relatively guarded. I tried to send by Xoom while I was in Mexico in May and the only payer in Cordoba was sketchy and refused to pay out for various reasons but mainly because he didn't have the money. They later closed. I've used Argenper in Miami Beach for years to pay out in Cordoba at Blue rates with a 4% fee. You can PM me for more info.