Colonia Pellegrini, Reserva Provincial Esteros Del Ibera
It seems I am stuck. It is really a shame because with just over a month to go I feel like time is running out and I have to be more careful.
I am in a place called Colonia Pellegrini at Reserva Provincial Esteros Del Ibera. It is in Argentina. It is an area rich in wildlife, especially bird life, and is basically a big wetland of aquatic plants and floating islands. I currently have a German travel companion and after a long day of buses yesterday we arrived here last night just before dark. This morning during our boat tour (one of the few things there are to do here) it started to rain. And 6 hours later it hasn't stopped and the roads have now been declared impassable. This is a shame because we had intended to do the boat tour, then a hike or two, (the boat tour was at 6am) and then hit the road.
I hope the weather clears soon, but it looks set in. And I don't want to just keep moving because I only have a month left, I also didn't bring enough cash to this town.
Oh, golly gee! It just starting bucketing down!
This mornings boat tour, rain aside, was actually very good. We were accompanied by two keen bird watchers and I always find it a bonus to have people of a particular interest in a group. We saw lots of birds (whose names I will not remember), caimans, and capybara. I particularly enjoyed the lightning across the wetlands; my travel companion didn't like it though, saying that she would prefer to be a home during a thunder storm than in a boat. No sense of adventure in that!
When the rain clears we will have to wait for the roads to dry, so maybe I will do some walks then. Until then there's company, reading, and blogging (no photos as I am writing from iPhone).
Next day....
At 3pm I decided the whether had cleared enough to go for a walk. My timing was good, I only had to put my raincoat on once. I was able to complete 3 short walking trails they had on offer. I was delighted when I finally saw an armadillo! And pleased too that I also saw a deer, howler monkey, some big lizards, and more capybara.
Some other tourists were also keen to leave town, so we contracted a man with a 4 x 4 to bring us out of Colonia Pellegrini this morning. It was a slippery boggy path, but the man did well and got the 5 of us out just fine.
The road in, from Mercedes, took about 3.5 hours. It was dirt all the way, but ok.
On my first walk to the lagoon I couldn´t get close to it, but I still thought it was pretty.
Cute huh? Well I like them... this is a Capybara.
Caimans too.
Small Deer that was wary of us, but didn´t want to abandon the berries either.
Armadillo! This fellow was so cute, he was busy digging his nose in the dirt, hop and dig, hop and dig, and then he smelt me and the others and left.
Orchids and Bromeliads abound in this forest.
Sun coming through onto the view on marshlands.
The marshes had a lot of flowers you might find in a garden at home.
The road out, slippery and boggy, but we made it.
Our driver, Hector and his 4 x 4 which got us through. Great job Hector!
I loved the reserve and would definitely recommend it to anyone else thinking about it. Transport is tricky but there are transfers direct from there to Posados, or you can hire a 4 x 4 like we did (it cost us $AR1000, so $AR200 each, but was a third of the time needed to go back to Mercedes and via Corrientes and that option would have cost about $AR175 each and required changing and waiting for buses 2 times.) The contact in Posadas in Hector email: coatihector@hotmail.com . Phone 0054-03752-15528258.
Accommodation: the first place we tried was booked up. We stayed our first night at San Cayetano $AR60, the second in Hospedaje Ibera $AR50 both were fine.
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