We have been repeatedly warned that Buenos Aires is a dangerous city. Kidnapping is common, pickpockets at every corner, don’t walk at night, don’t take the subway, don’t hail a taxi, don’t carry a purse, etc.
Our sense is that Buenos Aires is mostly just like any other big city (it has close to 20 million people, counting the sprawling suburbs). The newspapers always have crime stories – usually lurid and graphic – but that’s no different than at home. Tourists have to take a few precautions, and you have to be aware of your surroundings.
Pickpockets are the main hazard. The common technique is to ‘accidentally’ spray some liquid or stain on you, the person who rushes over to help wipe it off will also clear your valuables out of your pockets. Lonely Planet refers to these thieves as ‘Mustard Artists’.
We ran into a lovely couple ashore from a cruise ship who were exploring Recoleta on a Sunday morning. They were daubed with oil (the thief must have had a spray bottle), and a ‘passerby’ tried to help them wipe it off. It all happened so quickly that they didn’t have time to think. Luckily, they had their money and documents in travel wallets inside their clothes, their camera was secured on a lanyard, and they didn’t lose anything. But I’m hoping these stains came out.
Old-fashioned pickpockets are also around, and it’s not just the tourists that need to worry. Uncle Tommy tells the story of coming out of a building carrying a briefcase in one hand, and then his cell phone rang. So he pulls it out with his other hand to answer it. Both hands are full, and he’s not paying attention – he barely had time to say on the phone that he was being robbed before it was over.
Grab-and-run is the other property-crime hazard. The style for woman’s handbags in Buenos Aires is short handles, tucked high under the armpit. Satchels are strapped securely across the shoulders. Backpacks are often worn forwards across the chest in busy areas (eg: on the subway), so that you can see if someone is trying to slice them open. You never leave a bag hooked across the back of your seat in a restaurant or cafe.
In these cases, the petty thieves don’t want any trouble, and there are lots of available victims. So your risks go way down if you take a few precautions.
Most important – don’t look like a tourist. That’s probably not possible if you are 6-foot-3 and blond, but try anyhow. Tourists are the easiest pickings – they carry more cash and credit cards than locals, and probably won’t even notice that they are being robbed. And in the worst case, they are gone in a few days anyhow, unlikely to come back to testify.
If you want to look like a local: Don’t wear good jewelry – leave that wedding band at home. Don’t wear a hat (especially a Tilly hat), put the camera away, don’t hold a map in your hand. Teva’s or jogging shoes mark you as a tourist. Men don’t wear shorts here. That high-tech Cool-Max fabric might as well be logo’d with ‘Rob me, me, me! Here I am!’
Move your wallet to a front pocket. Put some money in different pockets, so you have cab fare home if you do get robbed. Don’t carry more cash than you need for the day, and leave the credit card at the hotel. Bring an extra debit card, in case you lose one. If the loss is small, then being robbed is simply an opportunity to tell a good story when you get home.
We brought some travellers cheques with us, but they are a terrible waste of time and effort. No one wants them, bank hours are tiny, and bank ATM’s are a much more convenient way to reload with cash.
The don’t-take-a-taxi story is more complicated. A few years ago, when the economy went into crisis, there was a wave of kidnappings. Most were small-scale – the victim would be driven to an ATM at gunpoint for a quick withdrawal. And in some well-publicized cases, taxi’s were used to lure unsuspecting victims – both tourists and locals.
So the advice is “Don’t use a taxi – only use a private driver.” Or variations – only use taxis that you have phoned ahead to pick you up, never hail one on the street. Never hail a taxi at night. Only use ‘Premium Taxi’ – they are the safest company (a message that is reinforced by Premium’s marketing campaign). And absolutely, positively never take a taxi from the airport.
This advice comes from well-meaning friends who never take taxis themselves. But if you don’t have a car, then taxis are a way of life here – there are more taxis here as in downtown Manhattan. They are cheap and ubiquitous.
This isn’t a taxi stand – these cabs are all occupied and on the move, they are just waiting for the light to change. There are more taxis on the cross street.
We have taken taxis everywhere we have gone in Buenos Aires, at all times of the day and night. In our experience, taxi drivers are unfailing courteous and friendly, which is amazing given the traffic conditions that they spend their day in. They have to worry more about thieves than we do.
We’ve also taken the subway. It is clean, modern, and efficient, but often over-crowded. A ride ticket is a peso (about 34 cents), you can buy a 10-ride pass for 9 pesos. The number of riders at all times of the day and night make it fairly safe.
We’ve talked to friends who live downtown – they say they have heard stories, but have never experienced or seen had any hint of a problem themselves. They consider a taxi the safest way to move around the city, and the subway an essential part of their daily life.
Outside the main ‘tourist’ areas (Palarmo, Recoleta, San Telmo, Belgrano, and the downtown), there is another problem – a more serious one. There is a particularly horrible form of crack cocaine called Paco that is available for as little as a peso per hit. It’s not cheap – you will go through a lot of hits in a day. Addicts will do anything for their next fix, usually starting by robbing their families and friends. They will scavenge anything that isn’t nailed down.
Paco addicts are not particularly a tourist problem – but they are a cause of the insecurity and high crime rate that has everyone here nervous. If you park your car on the street, it will be broken into. Your house will be broken into. We saw a statistic that 40% of Buenos Aires households were victimized by property crime in some way last year – no idea if that is true.
Those that can afford it flee the city into gated communities. Uncle Tommy lives in one. The armed guards at these communities are not the gentle, friendly folks at equivalent gated communities in the US where they casually wave you in after checking with your hosts. To enter here, you show photo id (which they log into a computer, along with your car’s license plate). When you leave, they inspect your trunk and look around the inside of your car, then verify you in the computer and log you out.
And once the wealthy are out of the day-to-day life of the city, the risks of daily city life become magnified to them. If I lived outside Toronto and watched CITY-TV every night, I wouldn’t visit my city either. The locals often are quick to tell you to be careful, but have to be pressed to tell you how wonderful and exciting Buenos Aires is.
We love Buenos Aires. We feel comfortable here. It’s one of the most wonderful cities in the world.