Up and Up

Prices have been on the rise ever since I first came here back in 2005, but they've been really jumping up in my last couple of visits. Food prices are especially vulnerable to inflation, and going grocery shopping is a bit disheartening. Restaurants, too. Back then, it was hard to spend $10 in the kind of restaurant I'm likely to go to. Now it's hard not to spend $20 or $30 on a meal.

You see this around town: the sign-painters haven't had a chance to catch up to the new prices, so they have to slap on an update.

FYI, that's a hamburger patty for 6 pesos, or about $1.50, a milanesa (breaded veal cutlet) for twice that, and a choripan—sausage on a roll, like a hot dog but greasier and nicer, if you like that sort of thing. So we're not talking crazy prices, but partly that's because the dollar exchange is good right now. Yes, they use the $ for pesos here, which has confused many a U.S. tourist heartily, myself included. Especially because they still list real estate prices in dollars, for which they sometimes (but not always) abbreviate U$D.

Yesterday I was treating myself to some ice cream at my favorite local place, Cadore. There's a new heladeria closer to my apartment and it's actually pretty good, plus it's cheaper and has some new flavors for me to try. But I like to be faithful to Cadore, which has been here on Corrientes since 1957. So my plan has been to eat twice as much ice cream as usual. That's been working out pretty well, so far. But yesterday I ordered my usual "cuarto" (1/4 kilogram, which sounds like a lot but I could probably eat a 1/2 without much trouble) and handed her my 14 pesos, pleased to be giving her exact change (they like to get exact change here, because coins are still scarce, or at least people think they are, so are stubborn about giving them up). She said "It's 15" and nodded to the sign. The price had gone up sometime in the last three or four days, while I was busy getting my 12-peso cuartos from the other place.

I doubt the increase will have a noticeable negative effect on my ice cream intake, but it's definitely a sign of the times.