Blogs from Corrientes, Argentina, South America - page 4

The overnight trip from Corrientes turned out to be even longer than planned. The rain started about an hour after we left Salta and was torrential at times, when you woke up in the night you could hear it hammering on the bus roof and the swishing of the wheels. Awoke in the morning to see a very green and lush landscape - with lots of water. Arrived in Corrientes a couple of hours late but by the time we had checked into our hotel and had showers we felt re-humanised. It doesn´t seem that many European tourists come this way but the city has got some really nice early 20th century buidings and a scenic river front. We did the usual which included walking to find the cinema (the usual horror movies are still on), ... read more

Righty ho, time for our first blog, and so far we’ve made it from Sao Paulo, Brazil to Buenos Aires and onward and upward to a sweet little town called Mercedes. But let’s not jump too far ahead of ourselves just yet. Stopping over in Sao Paulo is not something we’ll be putting on the recommendations list. Let’s just say we were a pair of chicken lickens, more worried about the sky falling down than much else. Our Taxi driver was anything but reassuring and the TV news reported nothing but murder, kidnap, stabbings... The reality of the day was far less frightening, and we had to laugh at the overly conspicuous porn cinema next door. Perhaps we over reacted, but it made for a comfortable and worry free stay in Buenos Aires. The cobbled streets ... read more

Well you could not do one side of Iguassu Falls and not the other so we hopped on a bus and headed into Argentina. This side of the falls, we think, were more impressive as you can walk across a bridge that ends at a viewing platform where you are sooo close to the thunderous falls - all in all, pretty impressive! The Argentinian side of the national park seemed to have a much better layout with lots of different walks you can do where you see various different falls, there is also a little train that you can take, plus no stupid anteaters that attack you! We also saw some cool wildlilfe - a toucan and a very lazy crocodile who was bathing itself in the sun. Unfortunately we did not get to go on ... read more

The past week has seen a vet from Corrientes university (the province capital) come over to synchronise oestrus in all the cows (a PRID and oestrogen inj for those that want to know), castrate some colts, and scan a few more mares (just when the breeding season had promised to be over). The good news is that one of the 3 embryo transfers was a success, I will one day upload photos of Negra Mia's 8day old embryo, and a scan at 3 weeks. Got to do a bit of mare scanning, found a few heartbeats, which is always rewarding. I've been promised more playing with cattle on Tuesday and Thursday, so looking forward to that. I'm reminded of a song by an Australian band that I fell for when I was 19 (the Whitlams* ... read more

Reserva provincial esteros del Ibera is a large wetlands with hundreds of different types of birds, as well as caimen (small alligators), black howler monkeys, capybara (the largest living rodent!), neotropical otters and different types of deer. It has converted Angus and I into bird watchers! We went out on several boat rides to explore the wetlands and enjoyed seeing several bird species (including herons, egrets, comorants, humming birds, kingfishers, woodpeckers, hawks, caracaras, woodrails, terns, parakeets, cuckoos, owls, martins, swallows, cardinals, finches, blackbirds, marshbirds, Southern Screamer, ducks, limpkins, gallinules, jackannas, tyrants, vultures.......sorry to go on). We particularly enjoyed taking the hostel owners canoe out to explore ourselves. It is made us of several lakes with channels leading off. The lakes are surrounded by marshland and floating islands. One... read more