From the Cataratas Iguazu to Buenos Aires (September 21 to 30)

After seeing the waterfalls of Iguazu already from the Brazilian side, we were really curious, how it would look like from the Argentinian side and therefore we left the hostel close to Foz do Iguacu (BR) with direction to Puerto Iguazu (ARG).

For crossing the border we had to do some paperwork for importing the car and obviously it is still not happening so frequently that an European car is coming, as the people at immigration are not knowing exactly what to do. But at the end, the most importing thing is to be friendly, communicative, and finding a way together to get the forms filled and papers printed. In Puerto Iguazu we could stay close to a touristic lodge for the night, after having a nice talk with one of the employees, Christian, about it. Almost everyone is interested and curious about European travelers, and vice versa, we got some personal statements from him about the political and financial situation in Argentina, which is quite problematic at the moment. Then, the next day we came to the waterfalls and it was breathtaking impressive. All the held back emotions from seeing it before from the Brazilian side was gone. First, the arrangement of the park was nicer with some walkways in a more natural adapted way. Second, the perspective enabled one to understand more where all this water is coming from and finally you can get much higher and closer to the most impressive part, the “devil's throat”.

Furthermore, we saw tons of coati (Nasenbär) which leads to the funny situation, that visitors are sitting in cages in front of the fast food restaurants, as you cannot eat anything without being attacked by them.

Additionally, we saw a coral snake and a tucan.

All in all a great visit. After another night in front of the lodge, we left in the direction of the area “Missiones”, where the Jesuits have been coming to some hundred years ago and lived together with the locals called Guarani. We stopped at San Ignacio, staying in front of a nice hostel, where we could use the bathroom and kitchen. We visited two of the preserved and in some part rebuild Missiones, getting an idea of the already very structured living environments of this time.

Meanwhile some technical problems with the fresh water supply inside the car got bigger and we had to invest some time in it. After repairing the water tap early in the beginning of the journey already in Uruquay with the help of some internet forum, the water pump was not working anymore. Different from the first case, where you can find incredible help in the worldwide web we had now the task to find a new physical water pump in a country where camping cars are more or less not existing. The first try in Posadas brought us for two hours to 10 different stores without any success and the idea came clear, we have to go to Buenos Aires for this purpose. But before we wanted to visit the Reserva Nacional Ibera. To get there from North, one has to drive 120 km of gravel road within red dusty soil. Having heard already about it and tried it for some kilometers already in Uruquay once, there are two options on these “wellblech” gravel roads: Driving with 10-20 km/h and getting frustrated about the duration of the journey or driving 60 km/h or more till the tires of the car are “flying” on the hills of these small bumps on the road and getting scared about all the noise of the stones hitting the car from the ground. Not the mention all the time in between while finding the appropriate velocity, where you have the feeling that no single screw or furniture will be left in it's original position. After arriving in “Colonia Carlos Peligrini”, a small completely isolated village, just living of all the tourist taking these gravel roads to visit the area, the car was completely dusty inside, giving you the feeling that engineers who developed rubber seals between doors and car must have been doing something wrong. Since then we are trying constantly to seal any gap in the car and there are really a lot of it.

However, the nature to see in Carlos Peligrini was worth it, to be mentioned especially the caimans.

Besides that we saw a lot of birds, not knowing all the names, capybaras (water pigs), deers, and bats during wonderful quite nights under a sky full of stars.

Meeting Valeria one day, a very nice and helpful employee in the local tourist office and the owner of one of the rare motor homes in Argentina, we got confirmed going to Buenos Aires for getting a new water pump. Therefore we left the village to the South on another 60 km gravel road, worse the one we came from, but we were already a little bit adjusted to it.

The way into Buenos Aires and out of it was more or less just a pain. As we are even not so interested in doing sightseeing in big cities already, going there with a car is even worse. However, we found the appropriate shop for spare parts for motor homes and after hours of work in anatomical strange positions to get access to the incredible hidden water installation in our car, this technical problem could be solved (just before the next one appeared, which is meanwhile considered to be normal).