Why, why?

So why did I go? Why, indeed, does one go on vacation to places outside the main touristic routes, especially when one hasn't exhausted, or even scraped past the surface of, the treasure of worthy touristic riches of a country like Argentina?

I went to Posadas due to a simple economic fact: I can't afford hotels. I mean, I could afford a passable hotel, and even a good hotel for a few days, but it would cost me money I'd rather spend on something else, like staying more days or suddenly deciding to take a bus and leave for another place. Priorities, priorities! Posadas had a hostel, or at least something that my Hostelling International map/chart of Argentina showed as a hostel, though it was more like a storehouse for cheap tourists (you check in and get assigned a place to put your stuff and, at night, your body). Anyway, it was a fine place except for the shower, which was never hot enough, and then they have a good excuse for that, with Posadas being in a subtropical climate zone and all.

I went to Encarnación because it was close to Posadas and I wanted to see another country. It didn't disappoint me. It was quick and cheap to come and go, and there were nice surprises, and the customs bureaucracy was not that bad.

Now why, why Oberá? Why going 100 km almost literally into the forest and land on a pension where the bed was older than me and you had to yank a chain after you went to the bathroom? Maybe because of that, precisely: because I've had enough of the big city and the complicated stuff and things that look just as home. Maybe because I got a recommendation from a friend, and I had a good feeling about it (the place indeed had good vibes). Or just because. You'd have to visit Oberá, if you can, and walk your shoes off along those hill chains they call avenues, and talk to the people, to understand why such an impulse trip paid off so much. I don't have the ability to convey why Oberá was so beautiful to me, why on my first day there I sent an SMS to my friend in Rosario to thank him for telling me to go to Oberá, and why I haven't stopped singing its praises in front of everyone I know and boring them all with pictures and stories about Oberá.

When the lady in the clothing shop asked me why, she was at first under the impression I was some kind of man-with-a-mission specimen. "Are you here for the shorts?", she inquired (meaning not clothes, but the international festival of short independent films being held in Oberá, by coincidence, at the time). "No", I said, "I'm here just to look around." "You told me you were a journalist, right?" I laughed. "Nothing of the sort. I'm a photographer... well, I just walk over here and there and take pictures." I hope she wasn't disappointed. I'm inclined to believe she wasn't. Only two days later, when I told her I was leaving in the afternoon, she said: "Oooh, but you can't leave! What a pity, now that we've started to care for you!"

Posadas

July 9, Independence Day. The bus guy woke everybody up at about 6:00, distributed plastic trays and gave us breakfast. By the time we were finished, we were reaching a place where many people got off the bus. I thought it might be Posadas, but it was Garupá, a town in the metropolitan area. Posadas Terminal Station is like 20 minutes after Garupá.

The first surprise of the trip came immediately afterwards, when I took a cab at the bus terminal. I gave the driver the address of the place I'd be staying, and he started driving along really dark neighbourhoods. On and on we went. It turns out that not only is the terminal quite far from the downtown, but also Complejo Aventura (my place) is far away from both. I paid 13 pesos for the taxi ride, which would've been enough to buy me a good lunch. I got to Complejo Aventura, which was a large place with trees and cabins joined by tiled paths, and in the dark, feeling incredibly, horribly, uncomfortably cold (remember this was the day when it snowed in Buenos Aires), I was directed to my cabin. No problem there — except there was no heating, of course.

Long story short, I had to take a bus to get to the center. I'm used to take buses everywhere, but this one took ages to come. The trip itself was short, merely 10 minutes, and left me on one edge of the city center. Posadas is a fairly large, sprawling city; the center is a 14x14 block area in the old Spanish tradition: everything neatly arranged in a regular square grid, with a plaza at the center, with the government house on one side and the church on the other. I walked aimlessly around with my umbrella. The city was not very active, maybe because it was a holiday. As I neared the main square, I heard sounds of roaring engines and singing. I came closer and saw there were many people on foot with their umbrellas, sipping mate or just braving the cold, and a row of tractors and other vehicles aligning in front of the government house. I'd run into a protest!

I read the signs and asked some guy about the demonstration. Misiones is famous for its yerba mate, and produces much (if not most) of the yerba we all put into our mates every day, but the ones who grow it and harvest it are getting mere cents for it. It seems the government and the big yerba companies came to an agreement with the farmers to pay them at least 48 centavos (about 15 cents of a dollar) per kilo of yerba mate leaves, but they're paying less than half of that. The demonstration was colourful, with labour union representatives, popular singers, and the usual assortment of kindergarten-level leftist demands. (PS: I got a video of a woman singing in Guaraní.)

I left. I guess I had something to eat, then I headed for the Costanera. Posadas had a new coastal avenue built and paid for by the Binational Yacyretá Organization, i.e. the Argentine-Paraguayan company that manages the massive Yacyretá dam and hydroelectrical plant. (Yacyretá is the second largest dam in the world and by itself generates most of the energy needs of Paraguay, and a lot for Argentina as well. It's 83 km downstream from Posadas, but the effects of the rising waters extended past there.) Posadas has a lovely long costanera, which must be really a show in the summer... or just when the sun is up.


Some interesting facts about Posadas:

• The city has a waste separation system! I don't know if it actually works, but at least the city is very clean.
• There are exclusive bus lanes in several streets. This is something that was proposed in Rosario and implemented for a while, along Corrientes St., until businesses complained. One step back in the fight against traffic chaos...
• The city, as expected in this land of past geological shifts, has slopes everywhere. You can get moderate exercise just by walking.
• There are many trees, and wild things growing on trees or sprouting from walls. This is the main reminder that Posadas is on a wet subtropical area, even if it's winter and you're shivering.

Next installment: Encarnación.

Going to Posadas

I'm getting my things in order because I'm going on winter vacations. It'll be only a few days, but not a long weekend escapade. I'm leaving this Sunday afternoon, to arrive Monday morning (Independence Day, incidentally) in Posadas, Misiones.

Posadas is a city of a quarter million people with no famous tourist attractions. The area, however, is full of ruins of 17th and 18th century Jesuit missions (think The Mission, though the movie's setting was actually elsewhere). It's about 1,000 km north of Rosario, upstream on the opposite shores of the Paraná, and logically much warmer at this time of the year. Now that a polar cold front (another one) is headed for us, I think my timing has been perfect... only the weather forecast for Posadas says either "cloudy" or "showers" for every day next week. I'd have some nice rain rather than just an overcast gray sky. It's better for pictures, too (except it's a bother to handle an umbrella without hands while you hold the camera still).

I'm told Posadas is very nice, even though it has no big monuments or the sophistication of bigger cities. I'm staying there at least three days, possibly more, but I also want to check out Encarnación, which is across the river, in Paraguay. Rumour has it you can smuggle anything at a very good price, from MP3 players to plasma TVs, from Paraguay. We'll see...