Enter Carlos, population 500 (I swear)

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  Colonia Carlos Pellegrini, Litoral, Argentina
Friday, October 24, 2008

So like I was saying, we piled in a tiny bus (more a mini-van I guess) and bumped down a red clay road for about four hours. Nearly halfway there, the wildlife started jumping around outside the window. This section of Argentina is a birdwatcher´s Paradise for sure. One would need an entire field manual to catalog all the types of birds we saw during our stay. We got dropped off about 100 meters ahead of the campgrounds, which we found expensive (five dollars per person per night) but better kept up than most hotels we´ve stayed in (including the cleanest bathroom in Argentina) and full of young folks. Now, to be clear, I like young folks, and Argeninian young folks are fathoms better behaved than their American counterparts, but man, I´m trying to hang out with nature, you know? If this was the atmosphere I was looking for, I´d camp in a high school. The deal seems to be that young people around here use camping as their primary form of recreation, so a group of 80 or so high school kids will sign up for a camping club and go to different spots around the country, supervised by some college-age chaperones. As near as I can determine, none of these groups are religiously affiliated, and have no reason of exsistence other than pure fellowship. Great for the teenagers, but I just want to use the shower I paid 15 pesos a night for! We´re going to try not to arrive at our next campground on the weekend and see how that goes.
Carlos Pellegrini was incredible, despite the children (hereafter referred to as Los Estudiantes)and the torrential downpours we experienced. About a mile and a half from our campsite were two short footpaths, one through an island of rainforest in the middle of the marshes (complete with orchids and howler monkeys), and the other a path through some of the boggy marsh ground and capybara territory. Capybaras are the world´s largest rodents,are aquatic (think a beaver shaped like a warthog, or one giant nutria) and quite captivating. Nathan and I made it a priority to search them out. Another ubiquitous marsh animal is the caiman (a slightly smaller version of a crocodile), who the friendly, helpful park rangers assured us, were not dangerous. Good thing, for we saw one within 20 minutes of arriving, while we setting up our tent.
The second day it rained. And rained and rained to the point where one of the aforementioned friendly park rangers asked if we would like to spend the night in the ranger station, located directly adjacent to our campsite. In the ranger station? What on earth for? Since your tent is wet, he replied, obviously you can´t sleep in it tonight. (our tent was bone dry, owing to the exorbitant amount of money we paid for it) But what about Los Estudiantes, I inquired. He informed me that Los Estudiantes would sleep in the bathroom. Yes, in the bathroom, all 80 of them. And they did. It blew my mind.
Next day, the rain let up, we arranged a ticket back to civilazation for monday at some indeterminate time in the middle of the night, and took one of the infamous boatrides through the marshes. Expensive, but well worth the money for all the close up experiences with wildlife. And for the photo opportunities, of course. That evening, we stayed up until 3am (the bus guy vaguely indicated sometime between 3 and 5 am, more or less), hiked up the road a bit and waited in the quite creepy dark complete with creepy creaking window until the WWII era mercedes truck (not a bus by any extension of the word) picked us up. I of course, fell directly asleep and spent the next four hours careeening into the man across the aisle every time the bus took a sharp turn. I´m sure he got quite sick of it, but sleep was first priority for me. Nathan, being more considerate, stayed awake the whole ride to keep from crashing into his aislemate. Back in Mercedes, we then began our long, arduous journey to the Missiones province. Stay tuned for that one.
Hereyou will find lots of pictures.

I just added some more, for all you rodent lovers. So go look at them!

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