leaving Paraguay, lots of wildlife in Argentina and into Uruguay

Back on the road again😊

After the course i went to Encarnacion which is on the border of Paraguay and Argentina. There I visited a jesuit ruin and the beach of Encanrnacion which is next to a river, you could swim to argentina if you would want to… 

Here a funny anecdote how i am learning spanish at the moment: A guy from Argentina showed me where the supermarket was and asked me after a while why i was reading all the labels, so i explained that I was vegan. Than I saw the word “mani” on one of the labels and as i never heard of this word i asked him what it meant. He thought for a second and as he did not know the english word he started a story. He asked me if i knew the advertisement with the elephant and that the elephant got a reward. After a minute I said peanut? And Bingo “mani”= peanut. Well I can tell you I will never forget this word😊

After a few days i packed my bags and left for Argentina according to the internet my bus left at 11.00 in Posades, a border town in Argentina. So I took an early bus over the border allowing time for the bus not waiting for me at immigration etc (learned from the past). But everything went really smooth bus waited at both borders, got to Possades nice and early. But than it started…

There they told me there was no bus at 11.00… but at 18.00, meaning i would not arrive till 3.00 in the morning, and the bus was also not direct to Mercedes but via another town. As I had not much choice I waited all day at the busstation (boring☹) reading the lonley plant and playing with my phone. Luckily i did find a cheap hotel with 24 hour reception, so at least i had a place to go to in the middle of the night.

The next morning I wanted to catch a bus to a very small and remote village called Colonia del Pelligrini which is in national park Esteros de Ibera. Well that was the next challenge! at the busstation everyone told me something different one person said the bus was not going, the next one said its at 11, than other people said 12, 12.30. 13.00 14.30 etc and all this while there is only one bus a day. In the end I met someone local and in my best spanish I asked and found out he was also waiting for the same bus. So there we were waiting for a bus we did not know what time it would be comming or if it was actually going to come. An English lady started talking to me and it appeared she also wanted to go here so she joined us. And if it was not for our local guy we would have missed the one bus that day. It stopped around the corner, had no sign on it so I would have never guessed, hahahaha.

On the way over a bumpy dirt road the locals started pointing out the wildlife for us which was very nice (after they realized how excited I got when we saw “rhea”). Rhea is an ostrich like bird but smaller. We also saw a big group of capybara’s and swamp deers. We found a very cheap place to stay with a local woman, who had the best male cat ever. His head was so big as he was not castrated and full of scars and wounds of the fighting. But so sweet, he was the boss over the dogs, no messing around with this boy😊

In the evening we went on a night walk with a guide which was really cool, when we just started I heard a howl and when we looked a crab eating fox turned around and ran away. Later we saw another fox.  But we also saw an armidillo, so cool never saw one before. Lots of capibara, and here they are not afraid of people at all, a swamp deer and the eye of a kaaiman.

The next morning I went on a boat as its a wetland national park, I was on the boat with some very nice people from argentina that gave me a lift the next day. During the boatrip we saw lots more capybara, kaaiman, birds but also a yellow anaconda…

Late in the morning I did the 2 self guided walks that were there, but did not see much, it was too hot. So when I came back I had a siesta from all the sun, hihihihi

When i woke up again we walked around the village; to give you an idea the shop we went into had 5 dusty shelves and a refrigerator. On the shelves was some washing up liquid, some sponges, few tins of beans and in the fridge were some tomatoes and onions and of course coca cola. Not really what I was looking for. There were a few places were you could eat something so I just got a plate of chips instead and than we watched the sunset which was very pretty over the lake.

At night all hell broke loose with lots of thunder and insane rains, it was so loud I could not sleep anymore… We would leave that morning and I got a bit worried as the local people had told us that the bus would not go after rains like this and that the only way to get out would be a 4x4. As I did not know what kind of car the argentinian people had i just waited. The english woman got a lift into the other direction with a 4x4 so that was good. And than my lift came no 4x4, but they were optimistic as father and son were both working in the race industry and knew how to drive. So off we went… he did now how to drive but the road was bad. These dirt roads become like ice you just glide everywhere. At one point we even saw a 4x2 having trouble getting through the mud and than it was clear we were not going to make it. Luckily there were some roadworkers close by that offered help and they pulled us out and towed us through the mud.

Still we were going from right to left gliding everywhere, crazy but we made it safe. The car was not recognisable anymore (as you can see on the pictures). But after all it was nice lift with nice people and if it was not for them I would have had to stay in the park another 2 nights. This time I had a good connection with the bus so off i went to Concordia, a border town between Argentina and Uruguay. As it was still relatively early I decided to continue to Salto, Uruguay.

As soon as we crossed the border the scenery changed reminding me a lot of Europe, very tidy lawns, organised etc. And also price wise the prices are more like European prices, there were no hostels in Salto so i ended up paying $US 26.- for a room. But they were very helpfull and sorted out my next part of the trip, as of course I wanted something else than what most people do. I wanted to go across in the north, where most trafic goes to Montevideo (south). On the Sunday I went to the famous hot springs here, but it was a very turistic attraction (local turism but still) so i did not really like it. Another thing in Uruguay is trying to get money from an ATM is a real challenge. Everywhere are really long lines of people waiting and than when it is finally your turn it will not give you money. If it does you can only get $UR 3000,- which is 80 euro, and that does not last very long here. Or sometimes you can only get US dollars which you than have to change at another desk. From the 10 times i tried so far i succeeded twice…

The next day my adventure accross the north started and I am really glad i did it this way as I got to see rural Uruguay, which is Gaucho (cowboy) country. It was a pleasure to sit on the bus and watch the locals getting on and off the bus, saying hello and catching up. All of them wearing their  cowboy gear whic here exits of a baret, a big shiny belt and leather boots. And of course enjoyed  the scenery…

After 3 bus changes and a pick up I arrived at my next destination which is a national park called Quabrada de los cuervos . The place i was staying is the back country and has got the cowboy touch too, horses in the back yard, sheep skins to sit on, fire place, doggies that herd the cattle, etc When i got here there were 3 more people and guess what 2 of them were from holland (I hardly meet dutchies) so we were talking all night which was nice. The next day after breakfast i was dropped off at the entrance of the national park, so i could do some of the walks. I ended up doing one as this was 7 km in total. Very nice views but most wildlife here is nocturnal so did not see much.

Although 50 meters from where I am staying there is a nutri mum with babies😊 and some big nests of parrots.Just half an hour before the guy from the place was going to bring me to the bus a German couple turned up. And when I started talking tot hem it appeared they were going to Punte del Diablo. As this was also my next destination and i felt shit with flu I was hoping they would offer me a lift. And YES they did😊

So half an hour later I was in the car on my way to Punte Del Diablo…