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Published: March 1st 2013
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This is a 24 hour long bus trip from Iguazu to Salta. The plan was to see a bit of this beautiful country. Upto now all my travels had been by air and I must admit that I had seen very little of this beatiful country. Even the bus trip to the glacier walk was useless in this respect as it was raining all day and the windows were all misted up.
The first part of the journey starting at Iguazu at 1000hrs reaching Corrientes at 1900hours. There we have to change buses leaving Corrientes at 2100hrs and reaching Salta next morning 1030hrs. For the first 30 minutes (50km) it was through dense forest. Then the forest partially gave way to planned tree plantations. The country side was still green and lush. Within a couple of hours we got to the small town of Eldorado and the views were changing from forest to orange and lemon groves. The area was mostly populated by people of European descent. The road though only single lane was good and not busy helping the driver to overtake some trucks when required. It must be the 3 axle construction even when the road was not so good
the ride was smooth. The assistant in the bus gave us a lunch pack, nearly as good as the airline packs.
We passed a few more small towns and settlements and I could see the forests slowly turning to agricultural land. The ground was still brownish dark colour indicating the richness of the soil. It appears that anything will grow here, the main problem will be to keep the weeds at bay. Come to think of it, it could be the reason why the natives were not belligerent to the Spanish. They had everything in plenty did not have to fight for much, not a suitable condition to promote rivalry, agressiveness or a martially oriented society.
Very soon we were in the "ranch country", mainly grassland with cattle and horses everywhere. The names of the "Extansia"s were visible from the roadside. By 1430 we were in Posadas, a small sprawling city set by the wetlands and half way up our journey to Corrientes. On the ground there were a lot of birds and on drier areas small brown mounts, which I think are termite homes. The bus called into a few more small towns on its way into Corrientes. All this
time we were still following the Pirana river almost south and a bit to the east. Since we left Iguazu there was not a speck of cloud in the sky which made the journey all the more enjoyable. I wonder how things are still so green here. At Corrientes we had a waiting for the next connection about an hour. Here we changed to a "cama" (sleeper) bus. Cama seats were as first class sleeper beds in aeroplanes.
Corrientes and Resistansia are twin cities on each side of river Pirana and the bus took an hour to go through them. By 2300hrs we were treated to our dinner finished with a choice of Tia Maria or Jamieson. Then the the lights were off and we were "in bed". I had a sound sleep and woke up around 0700hrs as the bus was pulling into a small station 200km south of Salta. The trip further north took us 3 hours. Now the scenery was changing rolling hills. We could see snow capped mountains on the left. The land was. Partially cultivated. The difference in forest area was such there seems to be no big trees, probably already felled for timber. We also
got our breakfast by this time. Our hostess was busy making sure everybody was comfortable. Was able to talk to a couple of copassengers who could speak English one of them who had worked in Europe and USA who was upset with the state of affairs in Argentina who also warned me to look after things as thieves were everywhere. Bought another semi cama ticket to La Quiaca, border town with Bolivia.
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