May 12th 2019: Brazil, lalala lalala,

In Argentina you can drive without a license, without quite usual car parts, without license plates or with completely worn tires, etc. Using your phone or even watching a movie while driving (we've seen it), no problem. A seat belt? That is for wankers. We've seen many police driving around like that. But we got fined for not having our full lights on. It was at one of the about 75 police road checks we encountered. They'd seen it on the camera he said (which they most likely got from the regional council in order to contribute a bit more to their account).

Anyway, we made it from BA to Itazaingo where we enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the Paraná river.

We were there to visit the Esteros de Ibera, a wetland that was given back to the Argentinian government by Doug Tomkins (The North Face owner) who bought it to preserve the nature for future generations. Just like he did in Chile. We decided to book a driver so we both could enjoy the views. We saw hundreds of storks when we drove from BA to here and were pleased to see more of them here.

Nice to see the Garza blanca (white heron in English, albino reigah in our Dutch town The Hague), here accompanied by an alligator.

This is a rather big guinea pig, the capybara who enjoys swimming, amongst the alligators. The capybara is the biggest rodent around. They get about 7 young twice a year of which 50% is alligator food!?!

Me and my friend.

Lovely creatures, who clearly liked the dirt road we were on and only seemed to be prepared to move from the road when the car completely blocked the sun.

I had to get out of the car several times to open gates and occasionally, like here, to chase away some alligators blocking the road. I'll show you my new boots when I'm back in New Zealand.

You don't see these two very often in one picture.

We even found a matching pair of boots for Nienke.

This guy thought I was making a joke......
And then, just when you want to be home again in time for drinks, ......
Nice view though.

Nevertheless, we had a great time and can recommend this rather unknown park to anyone.

We went to the Toyota garage in Posadas as our car had developed a nasty tremor (the whole car started to shake when we reached about 80 km an hour) for which we could not pinpoint a cause. I thought it had to do with the alignment of the tires after our mishap on the narrow bridge on the Carretera Austral. After that we drove for 3 days with one slightly smaller tire until we could buy a new one. Well it turned out that there was a nail hidden inside our brand new tire. No puncture, just a joke by a bored staff member of the gomeria in Punta Arenas. 

In the area where we were (Missiones), a lot of Jesuits settlements were established in the 17th and 18th century. A kind of sociological experiment where the Jesuits tried to mix Catholicism with indigenous traditions, basically food and a roof for work (a bit like (woofing). It sounds quite nice, but looking at the size of the prison on the first (Unesco heritage) site, it makes you wonder....

Thanks to the native work the Jesuits became quite successful and of course European powers became jealous. They 'convinced' (no money involved) the pope to condemn them and expulsion of the Jesuits from the Catholic church started.

So we moved to a small part of jungle near the Paraná river. In this park there was a trail to the ruins of the house of Bormann, a famous Nazi who disappeared at the end of the war. The Argentinians (like many other countries in South America) offered residence to Nazies who fled Europe after the war (Mengele and Eichman being the most famous ones). It must have been some other Nazi as it was later (in 1972) established that Bormann had committed suicide in 1945 in Germany. By the way, we did not honour the Nazis with a visit to these ruins, The other tracks were much nicer.

The last Jesuit site we visited was used by locals as a cemetery for years. Amazing what nature does when you do not maintain the property.....

Posadas was a pretty boring town, but we managed to walk in to a party in honour of the 'Mujeres de Tierra Rojas', the women of the red earth. Some nice food, artisan beers and music. Good talk with some locals. Like in Australia the earth here is red and so is our car now.

Walking back to our car we saw many Argentinians who parked along side the river, got the camping chairs out and start sipping their mate. Mate is a caffeine rich infused drink Argentinians sip all day. It's fair to say that if you see a person walking around with a thermos flask it's 99% sure an Argentinian. Not surprisingly it is sometimes difficult for us to find a cafe/bar as the Argentinians always carry their own drinks.

Travelling without a plan means we do not aways know where we'll sleep that night (or at all for that matter as dogs are always around). This night we were very lucky. Found an amazing nice and quiet spot on the Rio Uruguay.

This is butterfly country. All colours and sizes.

And they have their favourite spots as well! We were on this side of the Missiones to see the Mocona falls. It's a 2 km long waterfall, perpendicular to the river, it's a canyon in fact. Because of a dam upriver in Brasil the height varies quite a bit. If you're there on a Sunday or a Monday the falls are quite high (they told us on Tuesday). But because the dams had just opened and it had rained a lot there was a lot of water.

A few small tracks in the park were nice to walk. Saw some monkeys (or they saw us). No jaguars though.

Next stop were the famous Iguazu falls on the border with Brazil. We did visit it some 20 years ago when visiting Rio de Janeiro for a  congress, but our memory fades. The falls did not change, but the tracks did. These are Coaties, a type of raccoon. So accustomed to humans that they just roam around the feeding areas for the food deprived idiots who can only think of cola, chocolate, fried food and ice cream when 'visiting nature'.

Luckily there were enough beautiful things to see, although the occasional whiff of fried empenadas is annoying. Here you see the Brazilian side on the left and the Argentinian side on the right.

The falls used to have clear water, but because of deforestation upriver in Brazil the water has turned red/brown. Pretty sad come to think of it. Bad for fish (who find it difficult to breed in the murky water) and also good for the fish, as birds can't find them anymore. Maybe that is why there were not that many birds around.

A short rest during our 10 km walk around the park.
Made a short video clip of some of the falls in the park. Like with all the pictures you can click on to enlarge, click on the square in the right lower corner to enlarge it.

Some nice birds in an animal rescue park close to our 'home'. Mainly pets who were abandoned by their owners. What a silly bunch of creatures we are ay?

Two types of toucans.
And then it started to rain, a bit more and then even more. Quite fitting as an extremely cruel last second made an end to the success story of my football team Ajax. Thanks to the love for football in South America I have been able to watch all the games. I'm still not over the sick making goal in the very last second that shut the door to the Champions league final for Ajax.

Time to leave Argentina and enter the fifth country on our journey, Brazil, where we are staying in a nice country house.
Next blog will start with a view from the Brazilian site of the Iguazu falls.
Cheers.