Swamplands
Trip Start
Aug 03, 2010
1
114
152
Trip End
Feb 01, 2012
Where I stayed
Camped in Rover
Colonia Carlos Pellegrini, Corrientes, Argentina
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
We're traveling route 101 (makes me think of home because it happens to be the highway through Humboldt County). First stop was Urugua-i Provincial Park. We had a campsite on the Uruzu River where the ranger said tapir regularly come for water. Tapir are an odd looking cross between an elephant and a deer, definitely something we’d like to see. We stayed for two days, enjoying the warm weather, trails along the river, watching birds, thousands of bees, millions of butterflies, but unfortunately no tapir.
After another long day of driving, we thought we would go through Yaboti Biosphere Park to the campground on the other side. The dirt road reminded me of how much I’ve been appreciating the fine paved roads in Argentina. Rover shook, rattled, squeaked, and clanked and I worried that something might fall apart. Fortunately, nothing did. When it began to get dark, we found a beautiful spot overlooking the Guarani Reserve and stayed a couple days playing scrabble, reading and lounging in the sun. Continuing on the dirt road to the other side, it appeared less and less traveled, got narrow and overgrown. We came to a long, steep, rutted, muddy hill that we attempted to climb three times. Even with momentum, all four wheels just spun on the slickery mud and we realized that we’d have to turn around.
More driving… around sunset, we pulled into a campground and discovered recent rains left an inch-thick layer of slick mud over hard, clay-like earth, creating a near impossible driving situation. On a perfectly flat surface, all four wheels spun and got us nowhere, tire treads filled with mud that looked exactly like chocolate frosting (yum!) we slipped and slid as if on ice. Steve lamented not having mud-tires on Rover (a big debate he had with himself before leaving, he decided on tires that would be better on sand and road than in mud). A traction mat placed just right and a lot of pushing allowed us to get free and find a place that would be easier to negotiate. We found a campsite along the Uruguay River and celebrated our mud escape with a whiskey and coke. We sat overlooking the river, enjoying the mild climate, listening to cows mooing and roosters crowing in Brazil, on the opposite bank. Rain descended on us in the night and all the next day, everything was wet.
The heat of driving helped dry everything out. We found another campground near another river, a nice family welcomed us and gave us a big fish they caught earlier, we wrapped it in foil with butter, garlic and onions and cooked it in a fire. After dinner a man came whistling into our camp nonchalantly carrying a rifle (we didn’t feel threatened although at times it aimed at our faces, he made no attempt to point it away). From his high-speed Argentine Spanish we gathered that he was a policeman living up the road and would we want to join him for lunch tomorrow. Well, OK. Turns out Robby was there hunting capybara (the worlds largest rodent) on his vacation and he’s an excellent cook. He made capybara milanesa from a 100 pound capybara that he caught and it was delicious. We stayed a few days, experienced more rain, and more Argentine generosity as he ended up feeding us lunch three days in a row.
After five days of slowly meandering, we made it to Ibera, but not without some more driving excitement. The road was muddy and slippery after the rain. Again, we slipped and slid as if on ice, I’m glad I wasn’t driving, Steve managed to keep us from going into a ditch. Ibera has a great campground including wood-heated showers (much appreciated after many days of camping) and quinchos with parrillas (thatched roofs with bbq’s) making for a comfortable camping arrangement. Unfortunately both of us had colds and just convalesced for a few days. It was nice to have somewhere to hunker down during more wind, rain, lightning and thunder… we vowed to go inland where the weather is dryer.
Ibera is a popular spot, bringing visitors from all over the country and beyond. During our stay, dozens of friendly people stopped to check out Rover, talk to us about our trip, share travel stories and wish us a safe journey.
When we were feeling healthy again, and skies cleared, we hung all our gear out to dry. We took a boat ride on Ibera Lake to see what was to be seen. It reminded me of our Galapagos visit where the animals don’t seem to mind us getting a close look at them. It’s exciting to get within a couple feet of wild critters. There were piles of caiman (crocodile-like critters that eat only fish) sunning themselves, barely moving. Deer walking through the water, munching on the tall grasses, capybara (the large rodents we’d recently eaten) looked as interested in us as we were in them. There was a wide variety of birds, large and small that weren’t quite as bold. We also saw a large anaconda curled up in the grass, it brought a big smile to Steve’s face being the reptile-lover that he is.
Our next destination is a National Park on the other side of the estuary. It’s a short distance as the crow flies, but we’re not crows, so we’ll have to drive around the swampland to the other side.
Comments
What a wonderful place this is!