Tag Archives: Carlos Pelegrini

Scenes of Posadas, Capital City of Misiones, Argentina

httpv://youtu.be/pFav9fPO0lI

By Judy J. Pinegar

We decided to leave Carlos Pelegrini a day early, as it is so had to get around here, not a lot to do that we haven’t done, and very hot. We have three times eaten at the same restaurant, on two occasions it was the only open place in town, and it took a lot of walking to find that out. So we are giving the family a plug, when in Carlos Pelegrini eat at the Yacaru Pora Restaurante. See John’s picture of me with the mother and son, of obvious German or Dutch extraction which seems common in this part of Argentina, a few blond heads.

We are leaving in a remise (car for hire) run by Hugo Boccalandro, who seems to be the wheeler and dealer in town for transportation due to the terrible bus situation, and we are going direct to Posadas, which is on the way to Iguazu Falls, our next long stop. The trip was a LONG one a very bad dirt road for about 2 of the three hours.

We saw some farms and many, many huge dirt mounds right out in the middle of a field or near a fence, and a lot near the town of Posada were there were electrical wires. I found out they are Argentine fire ants which I have discovered  have mounds up to 12 inches tall and wider at the base. However when you look at them, you see absolutely no activity.  Apparently they access the outside through tunnels going out in the dirt all around the mound, opening up about 30 yards away from the nest. We didn’t go check that out because in Carlos Pelegrini, John was bit by some of these very tiny ants on the hand, and three days later they still hurt! Wikipedia says they are also attracted to electricity.

We traveled along the edge of the Esteros del Iberia marshes for a long way, then across dry land to the town of Posadas which is on the river Parana. On the other side of the river is the country of Paraguay. We arrived there about 6 PM, and stayed in a hotel across from the main square, with the obligatory church and a nice park where we saw children running through a sort of unique ground level water fountain of various timing and heights. it was hot and I wished I could go in too.

Posadas is a larger town with about 300 thousand inhabitants, but not much in the way of sights as we discovered after walking all over town the next day trying to find open museums. Posadas is sort of a stopping point to see area where there are ruins of an old Jesuit mission  system (30 missions in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina in the 1600’s and 1700’s. We decided to go to the small town of San Ignacio for a closer look… in our next blog


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In Carlos Pelegrini and Esteros del Iberia, Argentina

httpv://youtu.be/pZ-jeqN0KCI

By Judy J. Pinegar

I had planned our stay at a Hospedaja (rooms behind a private house rented by the night) and I had taken one without meals because we were so used to having food ALL around in towns, but this was not a town in that sense… as you will see…

But the place was very nice, clean rooms with beautiful peaceful grounds and the lady suggested we sleep until later in the day, as it was so hot, and that was a welcome suggestion!  At 7 PM, with it beginning to be dusk, we struck out for what looked like, on the map, several restaurants, a few blocks away. But as John has now repeated several times to my chagrin, “in this town each block is a mile” and, so it was, not to mention ALL the roads were dirt, sand actually, which at least did not raise much dust when motorcycles (mostly) drove by. So with the help of some local girls we found a restaurant after about 6 of these blocks. Very good food, and inexpensive too. Nobody else in the room the entire hour although we could see they were preparing for the 10 PM “rush”, But by then we were back in bed as the next morning we had requested a boat tour of the Estos del Ibera wetlands and lake with a 7 AM start.

For those who don’t know (and we didn’t either until this trip to Argentina, and we have been here four times!) Estos del Ibera is a huge nature preserve around several large lakes, marshes, and the associated wetlands, 800 square miles of protected wetlands. Here, about 80 inches of rain fall a year, and most of it is just expired by the plants of the wetlands, there is only one small river leaving the area. Within the protected area there are 60 lakes from three to nine feet deep. The lake we were on, Ibera, has TONS of floating islands of vegetative greenery which support a whole (endangered) ecosystem of plants, mammals, insects, birds (over 300 species), and reptiles; the town of Carlos Pelegrini is basically a peninsula, with a VERY high water table.

You can see John’s pictures for some of the creatures, although we did not see all that were in books on the subject as it was only a 2 1/2 hour trip. Some of our favorites were the Capybara, a mammal, and the largest known rodent in the world, which average 80 pounds when full grown! Also the Cayman, like an alligator, only smaller, of which there were tons in the wetlands and water (they eat mostly fish), and their numbers are high because after they are adults they have no natural predators.

A very common bird was the Southern Screamer (quite black with neck stripes and a little white), we also saw the White Headed Marsh Tyrant (the rest of her body is black) and her nest in a small bush, Egrets, Kingfishers and Cormorants.  I saw a Strange Tailed Tyrant  (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange-tailed_Tyrant) but John didn’t get a picture. We also saw a marsh deer but it was too far away for a picture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_deer). Anyway it was a wonderful experience  and I can see this area becoming great for tourist traffic once they put in a few roads and a transportation system.


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For all your real estate neeeds
Call or email:

John J. O’Dell Realtor® GRI
Civil Engineer
General Contractor
(530) 263-1091
Email jodell@nevadacounty.com

DRE# 00669941

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From Buenos Aires to Ciudad Mercedes Then to Carlos Pelegrini

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Ciudad Mercedes at night

By Judy Pinegar

Well we have started our north eastern Argentine adventure, and it was a little rough at the beginning. We took the Via Barouche bus lines from Buenos Aires to Mercedes, a small town in the central portion of the north eastern province (like a state) in Argentina. It left at 7PM and the travel book I had said it would take 12 hours. The seats are roomy and allow you to lay down and elevate your feet, much better than an airline seat. So we thought we would be on it for the night. A nice meal (also better than airline food) was served at about 9:30 to 10, typical Argentine dinner time. then the movie began and it was very loud, couldn’t sleep, so about 11:30 or so we got to sleep. The next thing I know is that we are in Mercedes, and it is only 4:30 in the morning.

Mercedes is a very small town and there were no outward bound busses to Carlos Pelegrini shown until about 10:30 AM, so we sat and compared notes with a couple of traveling German girls, on a break after college, but now living in Chile. As the time approached and more offices were opened it became apparent that the bus we were waiting for would not go, it was broken. Several people with cars (called remises) came by to see if we wanted to go with them, but it was cost prohibitive, and in addition we found some of them greatly inflated the price when they saw John and I with our I pads!

So later we found a bus leaving from a different location at 12 PM, but our tiredness was compounded by the fact that we could find no open restaurants (at this time it was 11 AM and lunch in Argentina begins about 1PM). So we get on the bus which turns out to be a local milk run, driving all over town picking up people carrying packages (mostly food and things) to take to Carlos Pelegrini. Then the actual ride began, three hours on a bumpy dirt road. Oh my… hard on the bladder too.

But we saw a lot of wetlands, and some vaqueros and cattle (albeit they were ON the road)… see Johns “moving bus” pictures.

In the next adventure things will get better!

 


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For all your real estate neeeds
Call or email:

John J. O’Dell Realtor® GRI
Civil Engineer
General Contractor
(530) 263-1091
Email jodell@nevadacounty.com

DRE# 00669941

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