Best laid plans

Deciding to grab a quick bite to eat before hitting the road proved not to be one of our better decisions. Both punting for the Noquis as the dish of the day (traditionally served on 29th of each month) we thought we were in safe territory.  Latin time caught us out but hey, should we really have expected a simple Noquis in tomato sauce to take over half an hour to prepare? Well, maybe.  Given both our natural tendency to want to be at any appointment very early (we really must do something about that) we then found ourselves up against time. Given our experience so far that the one thing in South America that does run on time is the transport we felt a need to get a shift on to Retiro.

We ordered a cab as we picked our bags up from America del Sud.  Our driver turned out to be from Lima and as he put it, Level one English! He was as keen to practice on us as we were on him, the upside of of running straight into traffic was the opportunity for us all to improve our language skills. Managing to tell him I once swam in Lake Titicaca caused him much amusement. Muy Frio!!! (very cold) we both exclaimed.  All of this took our minds (slightly) off the ticking clock so a call of Vamanos was certainly due when the traffic eased up and we made it in time.

Despite assurances that the bus was on it's way the fact there was no sign of our destination on the departures board made us slightly nervous but sure enough only a few minutes late we were on our way.

The journey was uneventful, though being fed Milanase a few minutes after departure making our pre journey rush null and void was amusing, a good nights sleep and a decent breakfast before arriving in Mercedes and we were ready to make our way to our destination, Esteros del Ibera, billed as the most likely place in the world to see Anaconda in the wild, the top item on my bucket list (give or take a World Cup).

We had no onward travel or accommodation booked in the town Colonia Carlos Pellegrini, the jumping off point for the park and arriving in the pre dawn it wasn't surprising that no ticket office was open so it was time for waiting and watching Mercedes come to life. It was great to sit and observe the day begin. Motorbikes and pickups the sensible transport of choice for the dirt roads. After speaking with a couple of other people it was clear there may be a problem with roads being open due to heavy rainfall.  We were made an offer of a lift in a pickup at 250 pesos per person one way which compared to 35 on the local combi would be severely budget blowing.  On our more recent shorter trips I'd probably have taken the punt but ending up stuck at the other end would remove your hand and who knows what the return trip could have cost so we decided to wait it out, there will be too many chances to blow the budget to lose control now. After a few hours the ticket office opened and confirmed no buses today and likely no busses or combis tomorrow either.  Not willing to risk the pickup we booked on the next bus to Corrientes aiming for an earlier than planned entry into Paraguay.

The lunch time bus gave us a chance to enjoy the landscape. This area is lush green and clearly showing signs of heavy rain, vast areas of standing water in fields with cows and horses wading through shoulder deep puddles. It was no surprise the dirt roads were closed for the foreseeable. Further evidenced on our next journey, the north east of Argentina is pancake flat with vast areas of open grassland. If I knew my birds I would probably have picked up some great new species for my list.  After a long day we were ready to se what Corrientes had to offer in contrast to the wetlands we had planned.