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Carlos Pelligrini

After leaving the Missiones we made our way to the Argentinian swamp area / pantenal. Even though it was only 4 hours from the missiones area we had no direct route and we ended up travelling for 1,5 days to get to this area where wildlife is abondoned and people few.

The town is tiny with only 800 inhabitants and the whole town is surrounded by lagoons and swamp areas which makes it an island or collonia as they call it All the roads are dirt and we walked around for 1 hour to find the town centre. When we found the main square, we were surprised to see big empty properties surrounding it and horses grazing on the plaza. We stayed for 2 nights in total in a little hospedaje where we were the only guests, very basic but very relaxing.

We did 2 tours, the first one being in a boat on the lagoon to do some animal spotting and hopefully come face to face with an anakonda. Well the first part materialised and we saw all the animals we wanted to see. The whole area almost seemed artificial because of the abondance of crocodiles, birds, otters, capybaras and deer. This was by far the best nature conservation and eco tourism we have seen in South America. We almost got bored of seeing crocs and capybaras, and due to spring there were hundreds of different types of birds feeding on seeds and fruits. After the lagoon we got dropped at a section of the reserve where some larger trees grow and where a family of monkeys live. The trees are quite low so the monkeys are really close to the ground.

In the afternoon we organised a horse ride into the swamps and also our final opportunity to see an anakonda. For some rediculous reason we weren't allowed to go faster than a trott on our way to the swamp, so we both nearly fell asleep and fell off our horses. Once we got into the swamps we again saw loads of birds and different types plants. Just as we yawned and nodded off, we finally saw something shining and rustling in the grass. We made our way over and came face to face with a ginormous (not quite) 1,5 meter female snake, what a beauty. Supposedly not venemous but extremely aggresive so we kept our 2m distance. Well, not an anakonda but at least something to tell the snake hunter.

We had to rise early the next morning (3:30) to catch the only bus to Mercedes and make our way down to Buenos Aires. 

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