Campo San Juan

After heading back to Buenos Aires for a night (met a bunch of guys from Bahía Blanca who were in town to see a soccer game and we made pizza in the hostel kitchen) I loaded into the van with Pedro and Guille, the tour leaders for Huella Tours. We headed north towards Misiones. In all it was about a 13-hour drive.

The trip was based around visiting the south-west part of Misiones, Argentina’s north-east-most province. Misiones is surrounded on three sides by rivers, across which lie foreign soil; Brazil to the north and east and Paraguay to the west. There is only a 35km-long land border connecting it with the rest of Argentina. The famous tourist destination here is the world-renowned Iguazú Falls, which the river of the same name has cut into thick layers of 130-million-year-old basalt.

Misiones is of great importance to the birds of the region, since it’s home to some of the largest ecological reserves remaining within the Atlantic forest. This immense ecosystem used to blanket the entire eastern coast of South America starting in present-day Misiones and stretching up to the point of Brazil. Unfortunately the coast is where the overwhelming majority of agricultural development has taken place, making the Atlantic Forest one of S.A’s most endangered ecosystems. By comparison, the Amazon is doing great.

The bird in the emblem is an Ocellated Crake; this park is the only place in AR where it can be semi-reliably observed. We didn’t try for it as it would have involved using a lot of playback.

We visited several spots near the town of Santa Ana; birding with a group was incredibly fun! Guille and Pedro were great tour leaders, fostering a really great group dynamic. Almost all of the other participants were from Buenos Aires, so it was very cool to spend some more time soaking up their birding ethic.

The coolest part perhaps was that it wasn’t only a birding trip. About half of the participants were birders, the other half more into plants and butterflies. I really enjoyed tapping back into my iNaturalist-obsessed side as we walked through the hyper-diverse savannah ecosystem of Parque Provincial Campo San Juan.

A sandstone barren atop a small hill… I felt like I was back on the Cumberland Plateau!

An overlook with a view of Paraguay across the river.

I got dropped off in the Misiones capital city of Posadas, where I hung out and planned my next move for a couple of days. Here’s a dinner I shared with some other guests at the hostel. Salvo cooked the asado (Argentina’s famous slow-roasted meat tradition) and I cooked some fajita-style bell peppers and onions. This has been one of my favorite parts of staying in hostels: so many opportunities to meet new friends and share meals.