A four day trip is enough to fill the blank of this page. Argentina is endless, there’s a paradise on every corner, yes people and nature… and yes, mainly nature.
Arrived at Resistencia in Chaco province after an hour and a half flight, and ended 48 x 2 hours later flying back from Iguazú.
The trip was considerably eclectic, as a rough synopsis, arrived at Chaco, a friend called Valeria fetched us from the airport, we traveled the 20 minutes between Resistencia and Corrientes, she gave us the most qualified improvised city tour I’ve heard in my life, and we had a great family dinner. Next day morning in Corrientes, we visited the soon-to-open hotel called ‘La Alondra’.
Bus from Corrientes city to Puerto Valle 200km north east, in the northern side of the Esteros del Ibera by the Paraná river, a super and beautiful old Estancia that became a luxury lodge received me with open arms, activities, great dinner and great sleep. Next morning a four-hour horse ride, it was Sunday, and I decided to hitchhike for the first time in my life (a pending issue for a 36-year-old solid, never late dude) after nine hours, part in an old bus converted to truck, part in a car with a lady who wanted me to marry her daughter who was in the back seat, and the main part beside the road under the 40 oC sun I finally arrived at an absolutely non-touristy town called El Dorado, Misiones. I downgraded to worst hotel you may imagine, but really that was part of the plan, getting to know the Mesopotamian idiosyncrasy and be more in contact with reality.
After bizarre activities that night (which I will develop soon), I woke up, left town in a bus, paid for a ticket, though I ended traveling stand up as seats were occupied. Three hours later Iguazú falls, one night, Iguazú falls and back to Buenos Aires as if I had done a 40-day trip by the Amazon remaking the odyssey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, who, by the way, was the first European to discover the falls.
Except describing this trip chronologically (recommendable by the way), I have decided to do a ‘written photo album’, snapshots of the different scenes I experienced so that each paragraph represents a photo. So, here go the pictures:
Inoffensive dreadlocked youth being caught by 16 policemen in the centre of Puerto Iguazú while looking for a place to buy cigarettes (the cigarettes were Uruguayan and were cheaper than in Uruguay)
Bizarre couple (him with curly hair down to his ass, her a very fat Argentine blonde) cut across a street, where a band of drummers and dancers for next week’s carnival were getting organized. About 20 boys with high school behaviour, ten 15-year-old girls, ten of ten, and ten of five, and one transvestite (still without fake breasts) 42oC, 10pm, complete disorganisation. Great drummers, truly bad dancers.
Me on a Mercedes Benz truck model 1968 after an hour and a half of hitchhiking, an old dirty bus. ‘Double cabin’ front seats with dad and mum, in the back seat a deaf older son, two little brothers and said writer, 55 mandarins on the floor, dirt saint situation, all very “Historias mínimas” (movie). Sounds? Very loud engine noise and a surreal conversation between me and the deaf son. Only phrase from the father: “This truck has been in all the country.”
Puerto Valle, best estancia hotel in Corrientes, amazing menu of activities, guide tells me: we are inventing a new excursion, do you want to test it? My reply “music to my ears, I’m in.” Two hours later, me, two guides and the hotel’s chef under an Hiroshima-shaped cloud, in the middle of a lake, under aggressive rain and lighting bolts, fishing bogas.
Dead Yarará (lethal snake) in the middle of the boiling pavement road, hitchhiker completely sweaty after two-and-a-half hours at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere after deaf-truck-ride experience.
Eating a suspicious sandwich at Corrientes bus station, morning after dinner with number one senator of Paraguay and Pini and wife Valeria, friends and owners and mentors of one the next Top 5 hotels in Argentina called ‘La Alondra’.
Writer on bloody catwalks (at the falls perimeter), surrounded by lots of noise and non-cool human beings of all nationalities and sizes and colours, blaming himself for being part of that obscenity against nature and feng shui, willing to be somewhere else.
Absorbed and open mouthed, watching the beauty and power of the ‘Garganta del Diablo’ (devil’s throat), the biggest of the Iguazú falls. Welcome to the jungle!
Eating a ‘pacu’ fish surrounded by backpackers whilst writing this article.
The next ten snapshots of this short trip are for next edition…