Mas Carpinchos
Sunday, October 23rd: Loreto, Argentina
We got up and had a delicious breakfast in the posada’s intimate dining room: fresh squeezed orange juice, coffee, homemade blueberry coffee cake, blueberry compote, “pancitos,” sliced banana and kiwi.
The day grew hotter as we took a walk through the little town, which was quite a bit smaller than Colonia Carlos Pellegrini. We drove to the next town / portal to enter the Ibera marsh in San Miguel. Our plan was to get lunch before meeting our tour guide, but we forgot that it was Sunday and the middle of the day during most Argentine siestas, so it took us 30 minutes of driving around, navigating the unreliable Google Maps and asking the tourist office for help before we found somewhere open. We were the only patrons and shared two plates of raviolis since it was the only thing we could decipher from the chef’s verbal overview of the menu.
We met Pablo (our guide) and Ariel (a man visiting the park from Corrientes) and piled into the truck. The portal / entrance to the marsh was a decent drive from town. Pablo pointed out the various species of birds and animals and shared interesting information about the land. There were pine tree plantations that are being cultivated for resins used in wax products – they were planted over the natural grasslands, which has destroyed parts of the ecosystem. Then we drove through the natural and protected grasslands and then the wetlands. There were capybaras EVERYWHERE, just lounging in the middle of the road. We also saw several grey foxes and marsh deer. We stopped at a small forest of trees and spotted two howler monkeys (one male, one female) and crouched down as a few marsh deer investigated us from afar.
We got to shore of the marsh and kayaked up and down the channel, passing somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 caiman of varying sizes. Then to wrap up the guided tour, we stopped at the campground and had mate and homemade orange cake. We drove back to San Miguel as the sun set and dodged the capybaras in the rode.
Without many options to choose from, we went back to Dona Icha’s for dinner and shared a plate of empanadas and milanesa (which we learned could be topped with cheese and ham).
Accommodations: Posada de Huellas, Loreto, Argentina
