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Published: February 17th 2008
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Colonial Pelligrini
Sunset over lake Ibera It was clear that this place was isolated. It is an amazing reserve of wildlife, but routes to get here are limited to two - the one we took, the four wheel drive was all over the "road" and the other, going south, we heard was passable. On the way down we saw two cars in three hours, but plenty of cattle, sheep, horses and birds. We were dropped off on a dirt road (all roads in this place were dirt) next to a house which seemed to be near nothing. It was scorching hot. The question to the driver of where the centre of "town" was, was answered with a waving hand pointing down another dirt road. So we stayed where we were... Later that day we walked down this other dirt road that had a house on it about two blocks down (1 block = 100 metres) with another dirt road intersection (nothing either way). We turned left and after 4 blocks reached another house, that sold food. The menu was pizza, milanesa (breaded meat escalope) and empanadas (Argentinian pasties). So we had pizza and found out from the owner that there was actually a tourist office in town...
Reserva del Ibera
Cute young capybara 10 blocks the other way. So we walked there and as it was siesta time we were the only ones about. It felt like a ghost town in the middle of a desert. The tourist lady was also siesta-ing so we had to walk 10 blocks back! Fortunately on the way back we saw another house...with two bicycles outside with a "alquilar" (for hire) sign. So we hired them for a day. Cycling on the sand roads was tricky especially as the seats were way too low and non-adjustable. But it made the town feel as small as it really was and we were able to explore. We went to the edge of the lake with Mariela, a tour agent from BA, and walked around the numerous paths, which included a monkey trail, overgrown vegetation and more capybaras than people. We saw a couple of howler monkeys and people picking up poo...for research they said...
That evening the three of us watched the beautiful sunset over the lake from a deck at the end of a jetty...cold beer in hand. We then met up with Thor, a Mexican guy, and all went on a night safari for two hours
Boat Trip
Caiman basking in the morning sun heading south out of town. We drove out on the back of the jeep, under the amazing starlit night. It was pitch dark but we had two powerful spotlights that we used to shine into the fields to spot the animals. We saw jackals, armadillo, large rodents and numerous capybara. There was also a fire raging to our right that spanned a few kilometres. Although they use burning here to regenerate the grass, we were told that this was started by a cigarette - accidental fires are a big problem here.
Despite our late night, we were up at 6 am for a private boat tour on the lake. Mariela had done the tour the previous afternoon so she had a lie-in. We saw a beautiful sun rise over/under the rickety bridge on the way to the reeded areas of the lake. Thor, who is a biologist, had a bird book and knew a lot about them. It was so quiet with only birds calls filling the air. We saw so many species of birds as well as dozens of caiman and two swamp deer, who are normally very timid. It was a lovely and peaceful way to start
the day.
Later in the day we decided to avoid the midday sun like normal people in this region and had a siesta of our own (which lasted about 5 hours!). Later we went to Mariela´s hotel and had sundowners there, even though the sun was not about. The clouds had filled the sky and rain was predicted. We went for a cheap meal up the road (5 quid for 3 chunks of meat, salad and two bottles of red wine) and sure enough, the heavens opened. After an hour it subsided and we headed back in the pitch black along the now muddy roads!
We had asked our hospedaje (hostel) to book the only bus out of town, the 4am to Mercedes (south). We got up at 3:30, 4 am came and went, so did 5. When 6 came, a lady came up to us and said the bus was cancelled...so we went back to sleep. At 9 we had breakfast and discussed how to get out of town. Henry spotted a ford sierra that we had seen at the tourist office and went to ask the guy whether he was going to Mercedes. He was, but
Colonial Pelligrini
Pelligrini FC unveil their new goalkeeper! needed more petrol (no petrol stations in town). They were a couple from BA and were on a short holiday. They kindly squashed us in which maximised the suspension. We drove around town sliding all over the roads to find petrol which we eventually did. The road to Mercedes was not too bad as it had dried out a lot since the previous night. We did bottom out a few times - with 2 km to go to Mercedes we reached a tarred road and thought we had made it...but guess what - another vehicle breakdown! A hole had been punched in the sump (bottom of the engine) and oil was pouring out! Fortuntely a passer-by told us the mechanic was just across the road....unfortunately he wasn´t due back until 9 that night. So it was a homemade patch up with adhesive putty covering the hole. Two hours later we were back on our way and said our goodbyes at the bus station.
The next challenge was getting to the border with Uruguay. We waited at the bus station for an hour for a bus to Paso de los Libres, where we had to change and wait again for
Reserva del Ibera
Cycling over the rickety bridge the bus to Concordia. We had to stand for the first leg of the journey as the bus was overbooked, but at least it was only 2 hours. By the time we arrived it was 11.30pm and we needed a place to stay. As the Argentinians only start going out at this time, there were plenty of people around. It was the weekend and a lot of hotels were full, which meant we were walking around in circles for an hour or so, until some locals took pity on us and phoned a couple of places and directed us to a vacant room. We were pretty exhausted by this point and went straight to bed.
The following day we walked around town in the morning - with everything closed as it was a Sunday. Sunday is still very much a day of rest in South America and pretty much everything stops including the transport. This meant there were no buses crossing the border bridge (over the Rio Uruguay) and no boats either. Our kind hotel receptionist organised us a very reasonably priced taxi and we headed off in the afternoon. Besides the extremely tedious border crossing (the longest yet,
Reserva del Ibera
Capybara providing lunch for a bird consisting of two queues with nobody really knowing which one they should be in) we had a smooth trip to Salta and we were in Uruguay!
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fiona and colin
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your awe inspiring trip
Great to see all the pics and to read the blog too, keep up the good work. Cannot wait to hear the remainder of the trip. keep on enjoying every moment. lots of love fiona and colin x