Last year at Monerotopia in Mexico City, I learned that somewhere at the end of the world, in the north of Argentina, in the province of Formosa, there is a small town called Ibarreta, where they accept Monero. I found it unbelievable that such a thing could exist, so after watching Douglas Tuman’s documentary, I went straight there on my last visit to Asunción.

I want to see this Monero miracle for myself!

Road to Ibarreta (Monero City)

Ibarreta can only be reached from Formosa, the provincial capital, either by land (from Asunción, Paraguay, for example) or by air from Buenos Aires.

In Formosa, you have to rent a car, which I recommend if you want to visit other parts of Formosa, such as the Río Pilco Mayo National Park, or if you’re going to visit Monero City, you can take the bus.

With a car rental in Formosa, it’s not rosy – AVIS and Budget are usually entirely booked out; we finally managed to rent a car at a local car rental company, Diego Bregant Viajes & Formosa Receptiva.

And if you want to take the bus from Formosa to Ibarreta, you can buy tickets through this company. But if you’re going to see the beauty of Formosa, I recommend renting a car there.

In Formosa, you can stay for one or two nights. The best accommodation with a lovely pool is at the Howard Johnson by Wyndham Hotel, where you can save money if you book through booking.com.

Getting to Formosa by land (from Asunción)

Although Ibarreta is officially only 4 hours by car from Asunción, getting there is not easy. Paraguayan vehicles have to have compulsory Argentine car insurance to enter Argentine territory. Paraguay has no such thing, and almost nobody (including Paraguayan car rental companies) takes out this insurance there. Hence, entering Argentina with Paraguayan license plates is virtually impossible (the only exception is from Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, to Puerto Iguazú, Argentina, where you tell customs that you’re going to take a detour to see Argentina’s Iguazú Falls, but that won’t help you in this case).

So if you’re traveling from Asunción, you’ll need to call an Uber / Bolt / Yango to the Paraguay-Argentina border (near Clorinda, Argentina), walk across the border, and from there take a taxi / Uber to Clorinda, or straight to Fomosa. You can also take a bus from Clorinda to Formosa, a fairly frequent service – you can buy tickets through this company.

Getting to Formosa by air (from Buenos Aires)

If you’re not traveling to Formosa from Asunción, the best way to get there is to fly direct from Buenos Aires on a local flight via Aerolíneas Argentinas, where if you book a ticket a few months in advance, you can get it from as little as USD 80.

Contact Monero Guide

Before you come to Monero City, Ibaretta, contact Alessandro Dmitruk, the main ideological Monerista in charge of the Monero community in Ibaretta.

Alessandro is a charming young Monero enthusiast who will happily care for all other Monero enthusiasts. Ibaretta is at the end of the world; you drive 3 to 4 hours from Formosa to get there, and there is hardly any civilization along the way. His family in Ibarretta runs a great little shop (address here) with traditionally produced food. Of course, Monero pays for everything.

The next day, Alessandro took me on a “Monero tour” – to a little shop called Tor Indumentaria (address here), where I bought a t-shirt with Monero.

I’m buying a cool T-shirt with Monero.

We went on a more extensive shopping trip from the Agustex store (address here), where they had everything, and again, we paid with Monero.

We also visited the local market, where I bought a new cap with Monero, as I had lost my old one with “Taxation is Theft” written on it, which I had also bought with Monero on Monerotopia.

On the last day, we went to see the local stadium where the COPAMONERA – Monero football championship took place, which is how I learned about Ibarreta.

And to make matters worse, you can buy a plot of land in Ibarreta with Monero. I filmed it with a drone, and it’s enormous.

Conclusion

Alessandro has achieved something that no one in the world has managed to do before – to conduct a small but significant social cryptocurrency experiment.

He managed to convince all his friends in the city to start using Monero.

Ibarreta thus became the first city in the world where Monero broke out of the virtual environment of dark markets and into real life.

I confess that what I admire most about Alessandro is his courage – he didn’t deal with regulators or the approval of government bureaucrats. He just got on with it.

At a time when Monero is considered a controversial anonymous cryptocurrency in the EU and all central exchanges have withdrawn it, Alessandro and his friends certainly deserve credit.

And I believe that Ibaretta will be an inspiration for other communities in the world because Monero is the best anonymous digital cash in the world 🙂