4/29/06
MERCEDES, ARGENTINA

Off the train in Villazón, Bolivia, you lug past stalls of oddly priced (smuggled) goods and across a concrete bridge to Argentina, where a sign informs you that the Falkland Islands belong to Argentina. The line for customs slouches along railings and luggage, unmoving. I got waved through.

I bused from the border at La Quiaca down to Tilcara, a red-rock town with pre-Inca ruins overlooking cacti and poplars. Bolivia was definitely behind me. No more pigs grazing in the streets, no more cracking my head on doorjams, no more Aymara grandmothers in bunches of skirts, bleahing a frog-sized cud of coca into a hand to drop in the weeds. Here I gaped at the modernity, at the flamboyant, too-fast-talking Argentines with their European looks. Cafes serve twee pastries on little plates, and it's impossible to eat dinner before 8pm. This drives me nuts; I walk around with my stomach growling.

I spent a couple days in the canyons and went south on a nice-smelling omníbus, watching the desert get greener around each turn. Down in darkly forested hills is Salta, beautiful and with big parks. The next day, lower still, was Resistencia, a drab grid with overrated public sculptures. For dinner I found a packet of cold cuts, two croissants, and a yogurt-- this was the best I could do. I slept in a stained square of a room and couldn't wait to leave. Stupid Argentina. It's like they have some nationally agreed-upon eating disorder.

San Ignacio, the next evening, happened to be having a motorcycle festival. The town screamed like it was being taken apart by chainsaws. I humped my pack all over the place, but there wasn't a bed to be had anywhere. After peering through the gate at the Jesuit ruins (fallen red sandstone half-lit from streetlamps), I sat on the church curb and drank grapefruit soda while bikers did wheelies down the street. I was stuck. Being stuck is perversely gratifying, as you have to put the guidebook away and wring your brain. I can sleep in the park! you think. Wait. No. I caught a late bus back to Posadas.

Posadas has a sunny, palm-treed esplanade along the Río Paraná, great for strolling, people-watching, and drinking banana-with-milks. Across the water stands Encarnación, Paraguay, looking surprisingly attractive. No time, no time.

The biggest attraction in northeastern Argentina-- and in the southern neck of Brazil-- is Iguazú Falls. Tourists come from everywhere. An open-air train scatters puffs of yellow butterflies, making Japanese tour groups sing, "AaaAAAaa!" in appreciation. The park is Disney-like, though if you wake up early you can have the little-trod rainforest path to yourself. Birds titter, mammals jog into the underbrush. A pair of monkeys (a mother with a kid on her back) and I stared at each other for a long time in primate-to-primate curiosity.

The falls-- seen via stairs and catwalks-- nearly push you over with noise. Dozens of falls explode down basalt cliffs and subtropical rainforest, fuming in a huge maelstrom that partially whites out Brazil. Beautiful.

From Iguazú to Corrientes and south, it's gaucho county: grassy plains with cattle and a few clumps of palm trees. Moving fast now, with mornings getting progressively more disorienting-- where is this?

The bus to Colonia Pellegrini was a slow old hulk. The door banged on the end of a rope tied to the driver's seat. The ticket guy sat jostling on the engine housing with a thermos in the crook of his arm, passing a mug of maté between the driver and a couple associated guys (mechanics? backup drivers?), each of whom sucked his cheeks in on the metal strainer-straw in the mulch. This is what people do here: drink maté, the way chain-smokers smoke cigarettes.

You can't look forever at a red dirt road through grasslands, so I read my book. When the driver cut the engine I looked up to see a herd of cattle parting around the bus, gauchos hooting and waving to us and slapping whips from side to side. Later, some rheas ran off. Capybara trotted by in the headlights. Then a tire blew, and the four guys changed it laughing while the Milky Way came out.

In the Reserva Provincial Esteros del Iberá, Colonia Pellegrini is mosquitos, a few lodges, and a dog sleeping in the middle of the road. The boatman Emilio motored two Slovaks and me into the wetlands, poling the boat through lily pads and startling herons gawkily into the air. I'd made the trip determined to see capybara (world's biggest rodent), and we saw dozens; wet lummoxes browsing on aquatic plants while yellow birds hopped around on their backs. Down low and heating in the sun, black caimans seethed in their armor.

After a head-turning three hours on the water, Milos and Pieter and I walked in the forest under howler monkeys, who drooped and crashed and crawled on bobbing branches. We quickly saw to stay out from underneath the black one. Howler monkeys are really hard to photograph, as opposed to caimans who just lie there hissing at you.

The lodge staff (who incidentally warned us to shut our doors so the poison frogs don't get in) fed us a gaucho breakfast for dinner; a pile of meat and gravy-paste that grew heavier with every forkload. Ugggh. Later we found a bar, of sorts, where we met an actual gaucho, there with his kid son and a hat and the biggest grin in the world. We didn't ask about the food. His donkey kept putting its head inside the window until a kid whopped it on the nose.

In the morning, south. I was the sole passenger on the bus back to Mercedes, a heap that blew two tires, and began my last week in South America.