Ibera Wetlands

In the morning the kids played outside and it was actually too hot in the RV. I went to fill water and dump the cassette and an Argentinian RV has its hood open. He couldn't start it and he had his RV plugged in all night. I tried jumping it but the starter was dead. He asked the YPF workers for a push start and I lent him a tow strap and a fork lift was able to get it running.

We met Jeff and Kathy with the Global expedition vehicle and they were 5 years on the road from Canada. They were headed to Montevideo today to store it before flying back to Canada for the summer. They will return and do Brazil after the summer and then possibly ship to Africa or Europe. We chatted for a while while we both filled up water and didn't leave until past noon.

We didn't plan on a long drive today, only two hours to Mercedes, a different Mercedes than two days ago. We stopped to cook lunch at the driveway of an estancia.

We stopped for some road side mandarin oranges, $2 for 10.

When we arrived at Mercedes the one laundry place was closed for siesta. We filled up gas and decided to hit the road toward the Ibera Wetlands. It is a 120 km drive, but only paved for the first 40 km.

We hit the washboard and dirt and slowed down.

The wetlands is described as a cross between the Florida Everglades and African Serengeti. Grass and flatness and red dirt.

There were termite mounds on the south side of the road. We saw two fox under a tree.

The sunset was setting and we suddenly spotted large dark brown shapes next to the road, and sure enough, it was a capybara.

We continued on and saw four and pulled over at a cross road and camped for the night. The capybara are massive and make sounds like guinea pigs. They did not run away and seemed unafraid, walking up to the RV and grazing. Amazing.