To understand the currency crisis rocking the Argentine economy and threatening to sink the government of President Javier Milei, just cross over the Andes mountains and descend into the Chilean capital of Santiago.

There, you’ll see scenes like the one Carolyn Perez witnessed the other day outside a Courtyard by Marriott hotel.

There were these two Argentine couples, recalls Perez, a security guard at the hotel, and they were loading all these bulky items they had just purchased into their car to drive back into Argentina. First, they wedged in a TV; then another TV; then a full-sized refrigerator; and then they squeezed their bodies into the car, one by one, and drove off as Perez looked on, dumbstruck.