We arrived home from Los Esteros del Ibera on Friday night, and it has taken me all this time to settle down and post. That’s because, first, it was a long drive home, but more importantly I had to think about everything again because I want to try to convey to you what a wonderful experience it was. I have quite a few photos here, so I hope they will help illustrate what a great time it was.
Outward Bound
Argentina is a huge country, and we covered just one part of it here, but nonetheless it was a journey of 800 kilometres. We set out last Sunday morning at 7 am, with a plan to stop in Mercedes, a town in Corrientes Province where Cecelia had a friend (Cecelia has friends everywhere!). We stayed at a lovely little hotel called La Recova, and had a chance to visit Cecelia’s friend Claudia.
The journey to Mercedes took 9 hours, and the last hour was on a less-than-optimum road. We complained about it a lot, but that’s only because we didn’t know what was in store for us next morning. People had told us it was a bad road and we would have to take it slowly, but really you had to see this to believe it. The journey from Mercedes to Colonia Carlos Pelegrini is 115 kilometres, and it took us 4 hours — these pictures of the road will explain why!
Apparently they started to build the road, got 40 kilometres done and then for some reason the government took the money and stopped the road. If this was in Canada, there would be a yellow tape across, warning people not to go on the road construction site, but here it was just the way to get there!
Colonia Carlos Pelegrini
Anyway, we arrived in the small “settlement” (the best way I can describe it) around the middle of the afternoon. We were staying at a cabaña, which turned out to be a lovely vacation home with big bedrooms and enough beds to sleep a family of about ten! It had a good kitchen and — thank goodness – a pool! All three of us jumped in there before anything else, as the heat was so intense.
Our time there included three excursions — one on a boat and two walking. I don’t have pictures of the walking tours because we were too busy gawking at all the animals, and (seriously) avoiding the crocodile that was eyeing us from just beside the path!
My favourite was the boat tour on our first day. Our guide, Pedro, told us the laguna we were on was 5,000 hectares, and the entire ecosystem of Ibera was over a million hectares. If you look at the map of Argentina you can get a good idea of the size.
“Ibera” is a Guarani word — Guarani are the indigenous people of the area — meaning “brilliant waters”, and it is certainly appropriate.
We saw so many animals, birds and flowers I’m just throwing in a representative bunch of photos here to give you an idea.
Donna in the boat with our wonderful guide, Pedro
My quick sketch from the boat on the laguna
Cayman, known here as Yacares, were exciting to see
Beautiful water lilies were everywhere on the laguna
Even though we have deer in Canada, I was excited to see this beautiful stag right in the laguna beside us
Capibarras, commonly known here as carpinchos. These are so common they are kind of symbolic of the region. We loved them!
Sunset over the wetlands, sketched from the pool at dusk
I loved these trees with the beautiful red flowers
Carpincho skin makes beautiful leather which is quite distinctive, but Donna said she liked the little guys so much she wasn’t going to wear them. I, on the other hand, have my eye on some red carpincho ankle boots I saw in a shop in Buenos Aires …
Social Life in the Wetlands!
For such a small place, Carlos Pelegrini has an active social life — although you won’t find it as easily as at home. That’s because every building looks like a house. There are butcher’s shops, general stores, artisan studios and restaurants, but at first glance they all look like somebody’s house. We went to buy meat for our barbecue, and we followed the little map we got at the information booth. When we got there, we weren’t sure if we were in the right place, so Cecilia called out to the people sitting in their front yards across the street, “Butcher meat?” And they told us that was the right place and we should just knock the door. Sure enough, that’s where we bought the meat!
Our cabaña had a great open air barbecue area — not a pit, but a traditional Argentine asado, with a built-in charcoal platform and a grill over it. We had decided to have our barbecue on our last day, and we liked Pedro so much we asked him to join us. He agreed, and said that in fact he would do the cooking. Even better — we said we’d just wait in the pool until he was ready!
In true Argentine style, Cecilia bought enough meat for twice as many people, mainly ribs and sausages. We all looked forward to the ribs, which looked fantastic. They did taste excellent, but unfortunately they were so tough we could hardly chew them. Pedro explained to us that the cattle there have no place to go because everything is swamp and marsh, so they just hang around by the sides of the roads — which we had already seen. That, of course, means they don’t get any exercise and that’s why their meat is tough. Makes sense to me. But the sausages were good and we had a good time anyway.
Happy Birthday, Cecilia!
The main reason for our trip was to celebrate Cecilia’s 65th birthday, and she didn’t hesitate to tell anyone we met about it! We arranged to go to one of the local restaurants for dinner on her birthday. When we went in the afternoon to look at the place, she told the owner and she said she would welcome us there for this big event.
We had a delicious dinner, with no tough meat! I had taken a bottle of champagne, and when we arrived we found the owner of our cabaña had sent another bottle, and the owner of the restaurant gave us yet another. So there were were, three people and three bottles of champagne. Cecilia wondered if we should share with the other patrons of the restaurant and we decided we should.
There were two other tables with people, one a young couple and one a couple with two young children. Cecilia called out to the world at large that it was her birthday and they were welcome to share the champagne. What happened next was so-oo Argentine!
In Canada, people would probably have smiled self-consciously and maybe some would have accepted the bubbly. But here, immediately everyone was swarming our table, kissing Cecilia, kissing us and raising their glasses of champagne to toast the birthday girl! As everyone was around our table, we thought we might as well have the waiter and the owner too, so they joined in and made the party complete. What a great night!
The Oldest Inhabitant
Pedro told us about an old lady of 104 who was famous for having her own private chapel, so we decided to pay her a visit. We followed directions to her house and found her sitting outside with her caregiver and the latter’s grandson. We just called over to say we’d come to visit, and they welcomed us with the usual kisses all round. We looked at the little chapel and said how lovely it was, and they invited us to pull up a chair and have a chat. A few other people saw us and decided this was too good to miss, and soon we had a little gathering. It was just lovely, and the old lady actually bestowed a blessing on each one of us before we left, which I found very touching.
After we got home, we were all in the cabaña getting cool when there was a knock at the screen door. A young boy had brought round some craft items made by his mother and sister and asked if we would like to see them. We did, and of course we all bought things from him.
His name was Jonathan and he was eleven years old. Here he is, posing with Cecilia and me and the baskets we bought form him. He was lovely.
On Thursday we left Los Esteros, but our adventure wasn’t over yet.
Traditional Asado on the Way Home
We stopped again at Mercedes on the way home, and Claudia’s husband Jorge was delighted to give us a traditional Argentine asado at their second house. Although it is a little small to be called an estancia, it did have a big field at the back with two horses.
Jorge did us proud. The meal included home made sausages, blood sausage (which in Scotland we call black pudding — sounds much more appetizing I think), ribs (not tough at all!) and lamb. It was absolutely delicious and we all ate way too much. We had a traditional dessert of a local fruit called mamom, which I really enjoyed.
And here was a little bonus surprise! After dinner, Donna and I were chatting with Jorge when I looked down, and there sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor was this enormous toad! These guys are at least eight inches long (not counting the legs!) We had seen them on our night excursion with Pedro, but never expected to see one up this close in this setting. But what really made me smile was Jorge’s reaction. “Oh, don’t worry, he lives around here. Sometimes he passes through on his way to the back garden.”
We had a long drive back on Friday, and in the end I was happy to get home to my little Buenos Aires apartment. But it was a wonderful trip, and I’m grateful to Cecilia for taking us to a place we would never have found by ourselves.
It truly is a “different Argentina”.