Sun 7.3.2010 by Liz
We've left Buenos Aires and are on the road in our little hire car. Hire cars were a little more expensive here than Australia, so we opted for one a bit smaller than what we would've normally gotten. Only two weeks in so far and boy, has it been an adventure.
We left BA heading north, our first touristy stop was Carlos Pelligrini. It's a small town on the edge of a wetlands nature reserve, next to a large lagoon. Much wildlife spotting to be done here.
After battling the precarious roads, we finally made it to the town's campgrounds - and a very well set up one too. Our first bit of wildlife we were indroduced to was a caiman sunbathing on the shore of the lagoon - which Jack initially thought was a fake put there for the tourists.... until it moved. ARGH!
After a dinner eaten under a gazeebo amoungst fire flies and frogs, we met a couple from Belgium, Gert and Charlotte, also camping there for the night. We got to talking for most of the night but during our converstations I noticed lightening n the distance and it was gettin closer.... hmmm. Jack: "Don't worry, it might not even hit us". Well, shortly after retiring to our tent(and getting a frog out of the tent) the heavy rain started coming down. Luckilly our tent kept us dry, as long as we didn't touch the sides of course. As for the Belgiums, they had a little tent with with no fly and had to move the tent into the bathroom to keep dry. They called it "a room with an ensuite". ;)
After the rain passed, not really getting any sleep, we emerged from our tents to watch some crazy lightening. After watching the lightening for a bit and I went back to the tent for much needed sleep, now that the storm passed... or so we thought. We were actually in what appeared to be the eye of the storm. Shortly after Jack returned to bed, the wind started blowing, and blowing hard. The tent began to warp and tear as the weight of the wind and rain thrashed down on me making the heavy rain from beforehand seem like a sprinkle. Our struggles to hold the tent into shape were proving to be a losing battle, so it was decided it was best to bail out. And then at this point, the storm destroyed our tent!
I grabbed the bedding and ran to the shelter where the care-taker guy was standing (who thankfully let us into reception for the rest of the night, and with blankets too!) while Jack attempted to pick up and move our tent to save it from further destruction. Running the 10m or so from the tent to the main building I got soaked so much I may as well have been swimming through the lagoon - and Jack getting more wet (if that was possible) saving items dropped from the tent from floating away. We were actually lucky with our tent, some other campers' tent was blown into the lagoon never to be seen again (not with them in it of course).
Well, the next morning (after not much sleep) it was still raining and looking as though our pre-paid boat ride on the lagoon wasn't going to happen. "Come back at 2:30 and we'll see" said the boat guy. With 7 hours to kill, the four of us walked through the now clay-muddy streets of the town barefoot (the mud kept claiming our thongs) to find a hostel for the next night - there was no way we would be driving out of there that day. After finding the first hostel only had one room free, the second came through for us; a cute little place that came with cute little dogs.
Later in the afternoon it eventually cleared up enough to take our boat ride, yey! We saw sooo much wildlife, the place is literally crawling with it. Caimans galore, an insane amount of water birds (large and small), Capybara (the world's largest rodent) and even swamp deer (who's ears looked like Micky Mouse ears).
The next morning Jack re-arranged the car to accommodate our two new passengers and we all piled into the car, bid adios to our hostel and away we went. As we were coming to the end of the road that already claimed one tyre, we hit the last bump just a little too hard and as we slowed to the inserection we hear "clunk clunk clunk" of another flat tyre. CRAP! Not again! We get the car across the highway and off the road and start our 3km walk into town, which thankfully was made much quicker by a local picking us up in his ute. (We rode in the back tray of course, South American style).
In town, we parted ways with the Gert and Charlotte and began our quest for rim repairs and tyres. After asking in many auto shops, and through much Spanglish and charades, we eventually get the car repaired and were back on the road - which we had to now make the 700km+ trek to Puerto Iguazu to get to our pre-booked Hostel. Since we called ahead, we luckily arrange our 3am arrival time and all was well - except the next morning we slept through breakfast!
Ah, the Iguazu Falls (or Iguaçu Falls, depending which side you are seeing them from). A massive array of 275 falls along 2.7 kilometers - and it's as impressive as it sounds. We of course saw them from both the Argentina and Brasil sides, both good for their own reasons. (Side note: walking to another country is weird). From the Brasil side you get a full view of the falls, a "panoramic view" they called it, as well as a platfrom to walk out on right next to the largest fall - the Devil's Throat. From Argentina, you could get up quite close to more of the falls on walking trails - but that wasn't close enough, so we went on a boat ride which went UNDER the falls. Pretty close, huh? The Argentina side also had a platform out to the Devil's Throat, but theirs crossed the tranquil (or seemingly tranquil) waters of the upper river to end up looking over the drop. It felt like it was going to swallow you up!
The amount of wild life around us was also amazing. Many many butterflies! We tried to get some photos of those, but for most of them we couldn't turn the camera to macro fast enough before they flew away. On almost every sunny patch lay a small lizard basking in the sun and the bandicoots were very curious about Jack's bag filled with cookies. (They weren't successful in getting any cookies oh but they knew they were there).
Well, after Jack's alligator dinner in Puerto Iguazu, it seemed his stomach wasn't dealing with it too well... we both agreed he sustained mild food poisoning. Mild or not, it still felt crap. Lucky our next destination was close. We went to San Ignacio to see the Jesuit Mission Ruins. Trying to find the camping place was a bit hard. After circling the town, and asking a small hostel where camping was in town, we were eventually directed to a hostel with camping... and bonus pool! Alright, that's what we needed and more importantly, a much needed lazy day for Jack and his tummy.
The next day we walked around the ruins, took photos, and listened to little information speaker boxes but the heat was mentally dragging us back to the pool. In for a quick dip we go again before we head off. After our swim, we look around for California (a Californian girl we met at the hostel who referred to people by their country rather than name... expect me. Jack was 'Australia' and I was 'Girlfriend'). We were giving her a lift to the next town, Posadas, a change for her from catching the bus.
We dropped off California and continued to a small town called Loreto, with camping by a lagoon. A nice and tranquil place for the night... well, until the local youngens showed up with their car stereo playing "doof doof" latin style music. Kids these days. Eventually the music faded away and a peaceful night was had by all.
The next morning Jack was feeling a lot better and after a quick dip in the lagoon we started to make our way towards Salta. Thanks Loreto for a nice little camping spot, and all your frogs and caiman!.
After leaving Loreto we had to do a long haul drive because the route we had to take to Salta had basically nothing in terms of things to see or places to stay (unless you count the loose horses, donkeys, goats and pigs running in the middle of the road every now and then) so we pushed on through. By morning, we arrive in Salta, re-fueled and headed up to San Lorenzo, a small town 12km out of Salta, in the hills. We found a very nice hostel set up in this old colonial mansion. We camped in the large open gardens - which had a fountain and a pool -and had our own bathrooms as we were the only campers there.
From San Lorenzo we headed further up into the Andes, to the Jujuy province. We were about to embark on a journey that would lead us to a higher altitude than either of us has been on before (well, on land anyway). Our little winding road out of San Lorenzo (almost single laned at times) took us up and up until we were in the clouds. The dense forest that surrounded us looks even more magical in the mist. We broke the trip up with stopping and taking many photos. We wondered what the views would be like through the trees when there was no cloud. I guess we might see that on the return trip.
Our little road widened eventually as we neared the main city of the Jujuy province, San Juan. We stopped off in San Juan to re-fuel and then pushed onward to Purmamarca, a small town in the middle of the multi-coloured hills. We were both quite excited to see what the Andes had to offer us. It's been quite pretty so far, but we're "pretty" greedy. Let's go find some more!
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