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Published: July 24th 2010
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Well, we decided after spending a couple of days in Puerto Iguacu to head for the Jesuits ruins in San Ignacio Mini.
We took a bus early in the morning (0800) and arrived only three-four hours (mas y menos) later..
The towns (was it a town ?) main draw is the ruins which was build in the end of 1600.
These ruins are decleared as a world heritage site on UNESCO's list, and are quite impressive!
For the moment, there was not much else to do in this city. During the summer, or at any other normal winter... there are said to be alot of adventures in the area.
We stayed at "San Ignacio Adventure Hostel", which is a very pleseant and nice hostel. When the temperature is warm, this must be a fantastic place to stay!!
After visiting the ruins, we spent most of the remaining day in the common area at the hostel- where they had lit a fire at a fireplace in the middle of the room. Very nice!
We decided to get some vine, to warm up our bodies - and so it did!
Afterwards we took a stroll through the city centre, and bought dinner -
i.e Hamburgesa con queso y huevo through a window of a caravan. The locals can do it! Very good, and muy economico, only 5 peso.
Earlier that day, we had made a deal at the local turist office to go with a 4WD to a town called Carlos Pelligrini nearby the natural Reserve of Esteros del Ibera. This because normally this trip will take a whole lot of time by bus!
With the 4WD we were able to go "off road" and make a shortcut which only took us 4 hours, insted of 10+ by bus..
We shared this car with of course our driver - Hector (very robust chap) and a very nice couple from france/spain (Julian and Veronica).
The shortcut was very bumpy, and after disembarking we could hardly feel our butts.
Anyways, we decided to find a place together with J&V.
We found us a hospedaje, since this is the more budget-friendly option. There are some "hotels" there as well, but thus more expensive!
The house though, was not build for this winter. Ayayay! Freezing, to say mildly!
All the Argentinian people talk about these days, is the polar-wave which is very abnormal.
Hector told us that
normally it would be around 25-30 degrees (75-85 farenheit) at this time of the year..
Well, that's our luck in a nutshell!
Anyways, our host at the hopedaje was a funny weird little man.. He had alot of parrots, and also kind of looked and talked like one!
One of the first things he told us was that there was a festivity in the town. The whole city were celebrating the virgin of Itatà (16th of July) at the local church.
He handed us a plastic bag with some dishes and two oranges, and commanded us to join the party, and get something to eat!
Supposedly there was gonna be a huge barbeque, and all you had to do was show you plate to the chef(s)..
Very strange for us northlings ( J&V were also dreading this), we didn't exactly look like natives!
Did I mention this was during broad daylight?!
Anyways, we got our half kilo of meat thrown on our plate and sat down in the outskirts from the villagers..
The collection to the church was taken up after the meal, so of course we contributed to this!!
This festivity was not like any other you'll see arranged
by the church (at least not in Norway)
There was a cowboy there (literally and figuratively) which was so drunk!!! I've never seen something so comical in a long time!
He staggered around, diagonally with his poncho and cowboy hat on sideways - his eyes were in fact crossed, no kiddin!
We agreed that he looked like one of the "Dalton brothers"(go Lucky Luke!)
He was not the only one drinking.. We saw young children/teenagers with 1.5 litres of beer, while the local priest stood with a mic and sang some pretty upbeat songs :o)
This experience was so surreal!!
The city of Carlos Pellegrini is not actually a city. It's more like a little village build around Esteros del Ibera -that are sayed (according to Lonely Planet) to be similar to the Pantanal in Brazil.
Later the same evening we were all hyped to see alot of different animals!
Unfortunately the hoard of animals were not to be seen.
Maybe it was too cold for them as well. All we saw was a few birds, caymans, one anaconda (small one) and the Carpincho or "chupa" as I call it.. The latter is a rodent with the size of
a dog!
I can imagine that a boat trip on the Reserve would be magnificent during sunrise/set, IF the polar wind doesn't blow your extremeties off!!
When we came home, we were so f-ing cold. A good thing we had warm water in the shower, or so we thought!
Halfway into lathering, the water was NO MORE!!
Oh my I was furious, Thomas (happy go lucky) just smiled.. Imagine!?!
We didn't get much sleep that night, as we had to spoon to keep warm. Thomas tried to wash his hair the next day, A picture says more than thousand words, so I'll leave it with that!
Next on our plan was to get further north, in search of warmer weather.. "Stay tuned" for the exiting quest!
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