Yvytu Nature Reserve

 

We are staying on a private nature reserve called Yvtyu, in the north of Misiones province, which is one of a dozen or so that link two major national and provincial park systems.  It is a wildlife corridor that will hopefully allow native fauna, including the jaguar, that use these habitats to recover and thrive.

The jaguar has had its habitat severely reduced and it has also been shot by landholders in the past so its numbers are very much diminished.  But efforts are being made to give it space to recover here and in other parts of Argentina including Ibera in Corrientes province where we were last week.

Steve has gone off looking for forest birds - tedious in the extreme! - so I am sitting on my veranda enjoying the serenity and the internet.  Also the wildlife - an agouti just came and grabbed an avocado from under the tree and headed back int the forest.  Maybe a jaguar will come next to get the agouti.  There was a jaguar here just a few nights ago.  He wasn't seen but he left paw prints in the mud.

(Forest birding requires the 3Ps that I don't have - patience, perseverance and persistence.)

I can enjoy wildlife inside too.  This frog has taken up residence in the bathroom basin. Reagan and Janine have commented on frogs in toilet bowls - it is common here as it is in northern Australia.

It is also relaxing to be staying in a "full board" place and not to have to go looking for meals carrying fistfuls of pesos incase the eftpos isn't working.  With the biggest note, the 1,000 peso, being worth only one US dollar, paying at a tourist restaurant involves counting out up to thirty notes.  Not so difficult in local eateries where a decent meal with a bottle of wine was ARP10,000.  I took a photo of the kitchen for our David.  The bread from the wood-fired oven has been delicious.  The fruit is all local and fresh.

There is so much about Misiones that reminds me of living in East Africa, including the banana palms and maize and cassava crops.  The houses are really modest and the cars old.  There are unfinished homes where ambition and aspiration have exceeded means to pay.

Life is really tough for a lot of the people of Argentine at the moment.  Unemployment is around 50% and annual inflation around 200%.  People's savings were more than halved in value when the peso was devalued from around 350 to the US dollar to 850 a few months ago.  So people rush to the shops to spend all their wages as soon as they are paid before prices rise again.  Accommodation places where we have stayed are suffering as no one has money for holidays.  We have seen queues at ATMs as people want their money before the machines inevitably empty (with the biggest note worth so little they empty quickly!) and queues at petrol stations when rumours circulate that the price is about to rise yet again.  I suspect people hope rather than believe the pain inflicted by new President Milei will lead to long term improvement in the economy of a country that has been rich and should be again with so many natural resources.

My next post should be from Iguazu Falls, then we're back to Buenos Aires before flying north to Ecuador.