No hablamos mucho espanol: Waterfalls and pushing buses

So, we arrived in a little one horsed town called Mercedes, not knowing how to get to Colonia Carlos Pelegrini or where to stay. To add to the mix, we had just entered a town where 99.9% of the population did not seem to speak a word of English, what a great way for Susan to start speaking the local lingo. Luckily, a unique character appeared in the local phone office (here if you don't have a mobile, you have to a modern operator), going by the name of Gabrialosa, (Note, in the future, our second meeting would be her greeting us with one booby hanging out and her trousers and belt undone, mascara everywhere, at 9am after she had just finished partying with the local boys).

Gabrialosa soon helped us book a hostel in Pelegrini and after a short walk around a lovely town, we were on our way on a clapped out 1980's bus.

Three hours of intense red road dust (Susan was covered head to toe), we arrived in Colonia Carlos Pelegrini (CCP). It's a dusty little town, about 8 roads and about as removed from civilisation as we have been in a long time.

We stayed with a lovely family, in Casona Ibera and were fortunate enough to have Jorge, the man of the house, as our guide. He took us on two outings, one a nocturnal walk in the marshland to which we had to take a moonlit boat ride across the lake. This was the moment that we discovered the Capybara. Susan was in her element giving the local Capybara epilepsy with her camera flash. Once we turned off any torches or headlights, the number of fireflies pretty much lit up the area.

The next morning, bright and early, our boat was awaiting us at 7am to take us into the depths of the marshland on the hunt for the Caiman, Capybara and various species of bird. We saw an incredible amount of wildlife including the rare deer and it was a great way to start the day. The rest of the day was consumed with strolling the sandy roads of CCP, and enjoying the tasty Hamburguesa of one of the local Kiosks. Later that evening, for the first time in a while, we both straddled a horse for a 2 or 3 hour ride around the local area. Nice relaxing ride, where Susan's horse seemed to trott ahead and my horse had some fascination with the arse of Susan's horse. Weird.

So, that ends our time in CCP, apart from one noteable journey to get us back to civilisation. At 3am in the morning, we had to take a local bus. The evening beforehand, Gordon asked Jorge if, due to the severe rain, we would have any problems getting out. A big smile and a 'No problemo' followed. We begged to differ. It turns out that our bus was the only bus to leave CCP that morning, the other two bus companies decided to stay put. The bus was worse than the bus to CCP; older, slower, fuller, smellier - you get the gist. About 2 hours in to the journey, Gordon woke up due to a slight bit of swerving. Note, Mercedes is 3 hours and 120km to CCP, 30km of which is paved). It turns out the other buses were sensible to stay in CCP. In a nutshell, I (Gordon) was one of 7 guys that had to push the bus about 10k and at once stage everyone had to get out when the back of the bus went off the side of the road. A passing 4x4 with a tow rope had to haul us out (with us pushing the bus.......again), and 6 hours later we arrived in Mercedes. Oh, remember the half dressed lady from earlier, this is when we met her. Frustrating journey, but looking back on it, it was a lot of fun.

Bus falling off road!

So, onwards and upwards to Puerto Iguazu, famed for its waterfalls. Impressive waterfalls, great scenery, the only downside is the overly touristic nature of the place; to be expected. The falls themselves and the walks through the park are fantastic...and once again Susan was more enthused by the local wildlife than the falls themselves. We stayed for night in the town (about 40 mins from the falls) and that was enough for us and we headed off to the north west of the country for something a little different.

We leave you, once again, with few snaps of our journey.

Hasta luego,

Gordon y SusiQ