On February 20, we left Posadas for Buenos Aires. We had a great 6-week stay in Misiones/Corrientes. I'm incredibly grateful for all the people who spoke with me and helped me with my research. The family also enjoyed our time in Misiones. Still, we were ready to go home and see John after 5 weeks apart.
Our Sunday excursion was to San Ignacio, Misiones. I had two goals. First, I wanted the kids and Gramps to see at least one of the Guaraní missions (they were the topic of my Harvard doctoral thesis and my first book). Second, I wanted to see the home of the Argentine author, Horacio Quiroga, who wrote a lot about Misiones in the early 20th century. For our last 11 nights in Misiones, we stayed in a duplex (Cabañas Aguapantus) in the Barrio del Lago neighborhood of Candelaria. Barrio del Lago is a new and developing development that is a distance from the center of Candelaria. It has a lot of what seem to be vacation or weekend homes, some of which are quite nice. The neighborhood is about a 20 minute drive to Posadas. I thought it was a good option because 1) the cabin was notably less expensive than staying in Posadas; and 2) staying outside of the city would give the kids more room to explore and more things to do. Well, I was wrong. I learned that you get what you pay for and there wasn't too much for the boys to do. Cabañas Aguapantus had some very nice aspects - a clean swimming pool and a nice quincho (covered outdoor area) with a fan and table and chairs. It also had some major drawbacks: the electricity (and thus, the air conditioning) frequently stopped working; there was only air-conditioning on the 2nd floor (where the bedrooms were located) and not on the first floor (where the kitchen and main living quarters were located); water constantly dripped from the air-conditioning in Gramps's room into a puddle in the middle of the kitchen floor; the knob on the toilet only worked 1/2 the time; rain leaked into the boys and my room during the first rainstorm; and the worst of all was the pile of little poop (a rat???) that we discovered in the corner of Gramps's room on the last day. While Cabañas Aguapantus is located in a fairly rural location (no restaurants, supermarkets, or stores; only a small store with basics within walking distance), the kids didn't leave our gated compound much. Furthermore, there didn't seem to be many kids given that it was a community that was still developing and many of the houses were weekend/vacation homes. Any kids tended to stay in their own compounds. The boys made friends and explored their environment more when we stayed in Posadas at ApartHotel Desiderata than when we stayed at Aguapantus. While I was away at work, the boys spent most of their day in the swimming pool, playing games inside, working in the journals, some creative play, and watching television. The day after we arrived in Candelaria, I started feeling achy and cold. I developed a low fever. I got worried. These were signs of dengue. I was especially worried about the kids and Gramps. What would they do if I had dengue? We had counted on me going to Posadas every day for work, and there I could buy groceries and supplies. If I were sick, I wouldn't be able to drive to Posadas to go grocery shopping. While there was a kiosk within walking distance, it didn't stock very much stuff. My dad wasn't authorized to drive the rental car and he didn't know his way around Posadas. To make matters worse, we didn't have Wifi at the cabin and even cell phone coverage was limited. I texted John in the United States for information about dengue and I wrote emergency phone numbers and basic information on a pad of paper for my dad. I made an emergency plan. If I got really sick, we would call one of my contacts in Candelaria to ask her to help get me to the doctor and we would relocate to Posadas. I read the information that John sent me. I wasn't too worried because my fever was low. I went to bed early and waited to see what would happen. My fever broke over the night. I still felt really achy but without a fever, it didn't seem like I had dengue and my situation wasn't serious. Even so, I called my contact in Candelaria to get her opinion. She was a grandmother who was probably in her 70s. I had met her during our fist week in Posadas, and after having a long conversation with her husband who is a yerba producer, she gave me her phone number and insisted that I should call her if I ever needed anything. She knew what it was like to live in a foreign country without family or close friends and how important it was to have someone to contact in case of an emergency. In high school, she had been an exchange student in Seattle, WA. She said it was a great experience but that it was difficult because she found the people to be colder than in Argentina or Switzerland (her family was from Switzerland). She wanted me to know that I should contact her if I ever needed anything. So I called her to get her opinion. She confirmed that without a high fever my sickness didn't sound like dengue. She said that she had had the same symptoms for about a week. She gave me information about a good medical clinic, in case my symptoms worsened. Fortunately, I was only sick for a little over two days. I was disappointed because I had to cancel an important meeting and had to delay my visit to an archive, but I was very glad that I didn't have dengue. Why did I post a picture of a bag of groceries? I want to acknowledge the extreme honesty and goodwill that I experienced at Supermarket California in Posadas. Soon after arriving in Candelaria, we went to Posadas to stock up on groceries. One of the branches of Supermarket California made the most sense to visit. It is a largish supermarket in the center of Posadas with several parking lots to facilitate parking. We bought a lot of things for the week ahead and some take-out food for a late lunch and leftovers. We had a number of bags of groceries. After the cashier rang up our bill, I prepared to pay with a credit card. Ever since the dollar blue ended and we've been able to get roughly the same exchange rate using dollar bills, a credit card, or the ATM, I've tried to use a credit card whenever possible. It's a pain, not to mention a bit dangerous, for John to bring lots of $100 bills from the United States to Argentina. So the more I use a credit card, the less dollar bills he has to bring to Argentina. Since our credit card is from the United States, our cashier couldn't process the transaction. It had to be done at the front desk. I went to the front desk to take care of the paperwork while Gramps and the boys put the bags of groceries in our cart. I paid and we left. The next morning, I looked for the cereal that we had bought at Supermarket California the day before. I couldn't find it anywhere in our cabin. Then I noticed that I couldn't find some other items that we had bought at Supermarket California and I realized that we must have left a bag of groceries at the store. I was bummed. These were big ticket items. The boys and I found something else to eat for breakfast (Gramps doesn't eat cereal; he makes his own breakfast of raw oatmeal, a banana, honey, seeds, and some other stuff). Gramps and I discussed what might have happened. I said that I would go back to the grocery store after I finished at the archive to see if I could possibly still get the bag of groceries. I did have the receipt. Gramps thought it wasn't worth the effort. The bag wouldn't be there and I wouldn't be able to do anything. After the archive closed, I went back to Supermarket California. I asked the woman at the front desk if a bag of groceries had been left behind. She said that there no longer was a bag of groceries at the front desk but she took out a book that listed a bunch of items and asked if these things were what was in the bag that I was missing. They were the same items! The bag had been taken to the front desk and all of the items in in were written in a book. The woman took my receipt, highlighted the items, and told me that I could go into the store and collect all of the items. I got everything that had been in the missing grocery bag. Gramps was super impressed. He didn't expect such honesty and great customer service. I'll repeat this story whenever people tell me that Argentina has bad customer service and that Argentines are dishonest! The 4-day weekend in celebration of Carnival occurred during our 6-weeks in Misiones. We didn't go to any carnival celebrations. Instead, we spent 2 nights at the Fundación Alberto Roth in Santo Pipó in order to see what life was like for a successful Swiss immigrant and yerba producer. His house and some number of hectares have been turned into a foundation in his memory. Alberto Roth was an important innovator and an early environmentalist. Guests can spend the night at his house. It was pretty neat to stay off of the beaten track. We were the only guests at the house. I had visited it during my last trip, and had hoped that the boys would have a great outdoor experience, wandering around and exploring outside. We did have a good time, and they spent a lot of time outside but most of it was on the porch. Also, unfortunately, the spring-fed swimming pool was not operational. Still, we enjoyed ourselves and got a taste for the life of a successful colono family. From our weekend of family time at Posada Yasirendi on the Uruguay River, we went to Oberá for the following week. Here, I planned to meet with some small yerba mate producers but my main focus was to investigate the Movimiento Agronomo Misionero (MAM) in the 1970s. MAM was a group of small producers from Misiones who organized in an effort to obtain both improved economic terms yerba mate (and other agricultural goods) and better social benefits. They had some successes and then experienced significant persecution (some members were disappeared = killed, some tortured, and some imprisoned for years) during the Dirty War under the military dictatorships (1976-1983). During my previous trip to Misiones, I had met with a MAM leader and I was counting on his help for this longer stay. I was very lucky. My contact was tremendously helpful. He put me in contact with numerous MAM members from the 1970s. They all were very generous with their time and their memories. In addition, I also got to learn about MAM today, the situation of small producers today, and the operations of some small cooperatives. While I worked, the boys and Gramps stayed at our cabin just outside of Oberá. Cabañas las Termas was a comfortable place to stay. We had a spacious cabin with a largish kitchen/dining/living room, a bedroom downstairs, and a loft upstairs for Gramps. It had a television so the boys watched some TV during the day as a reward for being good and writing in their journals. The grounds included an outside sitting area, a swimming pool (the water was a bit cold for our tastes), and a trampoline. Thanks again to all of the people of MAM and others who met with me during the week that I was in Oberá!
After a week in Colonia Azara/Apóstoles, we splurged for a night at the Posada Yasirendi on the Uruguay River. The Saturday morning drive to Posada Yasirendi was stressful. It had rained a lot the day/night before and most of the road was not paved for the 30+ minute drive. We slid around a bit but didn't get stuck. I wasn't sure we would make it to Posada Yasirendi but we did, and it was well worth the effort. This was my favorite place on our 6-week trip! Not only was the setting awesome, the accommodations were comfortable and the hosts were fantastic. In part, we had an especially great time because we were the only guests and our hosts focused all their attention on us. Regardless, I highly recommend Posada Yasirendi. Posada Yasirendi didn't have anything to do with yerba mate, at least not directly. Of course I had some interesting conversations about yerba with the owners. I chose the place because it is on the Uruguay River. We had spent a fair amount of time along the Paraná River but not the Uruguay River. Plus, I probably wouldn't be able to do much formal work (interviews) on the weekend. Weekend is family time! The building with our bedroom and another bedroom was linked to the living and dining room and kitchen by a walkway. Although rustic, Posada Yasireni is very comfortable. The owners put a lot of attention into the details. The wife studied tourism at Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires, and it shows! All good things must come to an end. We had to leave Posada Yasirendi. I hope we have the opportunity to return someday!
After spending a little over a week in Posadas so that I could meet with people associated with the Instituto Nacional de Yerba Mate (INYM) and scholars, we spent a week around Apóstoles so that I could visit some yerba mate companies and learn more about yerba mate production firsthand. I would have loved to have stayed in the town of Apóstoles. It is a very lovely large town with many tree-lined streets and an excellent fruit/vegetable store. Originally a Guaraní mission town, Apóstoles was reborn in the early 20th century with the arrival of many Ukranian and Polish immigrants. It is also a center for yerba mate production and the site of the annual Fiesta Nacional de Yerba Mate. Unfortunately, Apóstoles isn't set up very well for tourism. The town has some hotels but it doesn't have any facilities with both kitchens and swimming pools. I had decided that I didn't want to make the 1+ hour drive every day from Posadas to Apóstoles so when planning the trip, I looked in the surrounding area for possible accommodations and found La Granja de Casiano in Colonia Azara (about a 15-20 minute drive from Apóstoles). La Granja de Casiano was an experience! While it is on the Ruta de la Yerba Mate, La Granja de Casiano didn't have a website or email address. I did though find a Youtube video of one of the cabins at La Granja de Casiano. Since there weren't many options and La Granja de Casiano had two swimming pools and reasonably priced cabins with kitchens, I called several months beforehand and made a reservation. The person who answered the phone was friendly and, after I told him my name and the dates, he said the reservation was made. I hadn't given any deposit and had no written confirmation. I called back a week before our arrival and everything was okay. I would characterize La Granja de Casiano as a lower-middle class entertainment park like the balneario that I visited in Mexico in the 1990s. On the weekends, it is jammed-packed with guests who blare music, bring a picnic or have an asado (grilled meat), and jump in the pool. The clientele is anyone who has a car or access to a car but does not have a swimming pool. The two families (who we met through our kids) were workers at Estancia Las Marías. This photo does not do justice to the crowds at La Granja de Casiano on the weekends. These 2 cars were parked right in front of our cabin. In fact, I had to ask people to move their lawn chairs so that I could park our car in our driveway. Almost each car blared its own music. During the weekend, La Granja de Casiano sure wasn't a relaxing escape to the countryside. We did a lot of cooking during our time in Misiones. In part, it was for convenience and to save time and money. Also, it would have been very annoying to have to eat at a restaurant 3x a day for 6 weeks. I always tried to have a lot of vegetables and fruit wherever we went. Our meals were typically pasta or rice with vegetables. F made a lot of our pasta sauces. He is a really good cook and likes to cook. The pasta sauces were great and we especially liked the enthusiasm he showed when he finished cooking. He ate a ton and kept saying how delicious it was! Food was one of Gramps's major preoccupations. He doesn't eat sugar in any form except fruits and he doesn't eat much meat - these were both major challenges in Misiones. My kids love sugar and Argentines eat a lot of sweets. Argentines also eat a ton of meat. Fortunately, he likes fish and there was a good amount of fish at restaurants in Misiones (because of the number of rivers). Also, he could always order a salad in a restaurant. Cooking at home was a good option given Gramps's diet. Many of our conversations with Gramps dealt with food and diet. He was appalled by the amount of sugar that the boys ate. Any time they had some money and there was a store or small kiosk nearby, they immediately bought candies and cookies. The conversations conversations drew my attention more to what the boys were eating. I had become lax in Argentina because everyone eats a lot of sweets and there really isn't anything other than candy on which kids can spend their pocket money. Although the boys and I weren't (and aren't) prepared to cut sugar entirely out of our diets, we did cut back a bit toward the end of Gramps's visit. Gramps's peculiar food habits make for some good stories. Gramps brought his own bottle of coconut oil on his crazy trip to Misiones (Oregon-New York-Brazil-Paraguay-Argentina). Gramps loves his coconut oil! He uses it to for just about everything - to cook with, as sunscreen, as a treatment for burns or cuts, and more. The boys and I stuck with more standard medical treatments, and we after trying it as a cooking oil we decided that we didn't like the strong coconut flavor on all of our food. During the trip, Gramps was on a mission to find probiotics. He wanted to buy live yogurt, live sauerkraut, and/or live kimchi. At home, he makes his own but he figured that he could buy yogurt or maybe sauerkraut (given the large amount of European immigration) in Misiones. It was easy to find both in Misiones but there were major problems: 1) the yogurt was sweetened and 2) the sauerkraut was pasteurized (not live). Gramps couldn't believe that every supermarket in Argentina sells tons and tons of different brands and flavors of yogurt but every single one has lots of sweeteners. He couldn't find any non-sweetened yogurt, not even at a "health foods" store. Finally, after a couple of weeks, he started making his own yogurt (more on homemade yogurt later). Our cabin at La Granja de Casiano didn't have a television (and I didn't bring on the trip any screens for them to use) so the boys had to find creative ways to entertain themselves throughout the week. They found some kids to play with on a couple days. Otherwise, they found things to do by themselves, with Gramps, or with me. Here, B decided to entertain himself by styling my hair. We shared our cabin with this frog. He spent most of his time in the shower. At first, he freaked me out. By the end of our week in the cabin, he'd become my friend. On the morning of our last day, I found him hopping in front of our bedroom door like he wanted to go into the room so I opened the door and let him in. Note all of the dust and stuff on the floor. Each night when I got into the top bunk, stuff had fallen off the ceiling onto my bed. There were a number of bugs too. I was ready to move on when it was the time to leave... One evening we went shopping in Colonia Azara for flip flops. The owner was very interested in where we were from and why we were in Colonia Azara. At almost every store that we visited in Misiones, the salesperson or cashier asked us where we were from. We were definitely an anomaly. Foreign tourists don't visit these parts. Since the store was empty and it was almost closing time, we had a long conversation with this store owner. And of course, we talked a lot about mate. When we left, he gave us a small mate wall-hanging as a recuerdo (souvenir) from Colonia Azara. I am very grateful to the yerba mate companies who were very generous with their time and knowledge. I really appreciate the help that they provided me!
One of the highlights of my stay in Apóstoles was the opportunity to see firsthand the harvest of yerba mate. I posted about this experience on 1/27/2016 under "yerba mate". After Estancia Santa Inés, we switched gears and became (for the most) part budget travelers. Having a rental car was a major exception. It was expensive but gave us a lot of flexibility to move around the region. Almost all of our accommodations were much simpler and much less expensive. We always stayed at places with access to swimming facilities (river or swimming pool) - practically a necessity in my opinion given the extreme heat and lack of planned activities for the boys - and I made sure that every place had cooking facilities but otherwise our accommodations were pretty basic. I couldn't justify paying lots of money for a place to spend the night given that we would be traveling for 6 weeks. In many respects, I'd describe our accommodations to be on the level of a backpacker hotel except that we didn't really encounter backpackers during our travels. In fact, the only Americans that we saw during the entire 6 weeks were the Peace Corps volunteers in Encarnación, Paraguay. I don't think that we saw any foreigners, except maybe one or two couples when we visited the Guaraní mission, San Ignacio. Of course, we did encounter Argentine tourists, mostly as other guests at our hotels. In Posadas, we stayed at ApartHotel Desiderata. It is a great place and I highly recommend it for budget travelers. The staff members are very friendly and helpful; it is conveniently located for walking to the center and the costañera; and it has nice views and a refreshing swimming pool. Still, initially, I was taken aback by the small size of the 2-room "apartment". But It ended up working out just fine. We cooked, slept, and used the bathroom in our apartment but otherwise we spent most of our time outside in the common areas. We spent a little over a week in Posadas at ApartHotel Desiderata. John accompanied us for the weekend and then he left on Tuesday to return to the United States. Instead, my father (Gramps) took his place for 5 weeks of budget travel adventure in Misiones/Corrientes. Late Wednesday, my father (Gramps) joined us. Months prior, he had expressed interest in joining us for our Misiones/Corrientes adventure and had purchased an airline ticket. Still, I wasn't sure he would arrive. His itinerary to get to Posadas was just too insane: 1) he drove from Cottage Grove, Oregon to Eugene, Oregon; 2) he took Amtrak from Eugene, Oregon to Portland, Oregon; 3) he took public transportation to the Portland airport; 4) he took an overnight flight from Portland to JFK airport; 5) he took an overnight flight from JFK to São Paulo; 6) he took a flight from São Paulo to Asunción, Paraguay; 7) he got a ride from the Asunción airport to the Asunción bus terminal; 8) he took a bus from Asunción to Encarnación; and, finally 9) he somehow crossed from Encarnación, Paraguay to Posadas, Argentina and made it to ApartHotel Desiderata. I wasn't sure it would all work out. We had been waiting all afternoon/evening for Gramps to arrive when finally around 8:00pm a staff-woman of ApartHotel Desiderata told me that I had a phone call. A customs official from Argentine immigration was calling me. She said that they had my dad but they couldn't let him enter the country because he hadn't paid the US-Argentine reciprocity fee beforehand. I was quite disappointed that Gramps hadn't paid the US-Argentine reciprocity fee in advance - I'd written him various email messages reminding him how important it was to do so. Not doing so had created problems but amazingly, rather than refuse my father entry, the customs officials had tracked down the phone number of my hotel and called me to tell me that I could pay Gramps's US-Argentine reciprocity fee over the Internet and bring it to them and then they would release him. Since I didn't have a printer, they even let me bring my computer and show them the payment receipt on my computer screen. I quickly made the payment, piled the kids into the car, and drove to the border. I quickly found Gramps...tired and grumpy. I thanked the Argentine customs officials profusely (I don't think US customs agents would likely be so lenient) and we promptly returned to the hotel for Gramps to take a shower, eat, and sleep. From 9:00-12:00 on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings for one week the boys attended the Itapuá Tennis Club summer camp (colonia de verano) where they swam and learned to do flip turns. I used this time for interviews related to my work. When Gramps arrived, he watched the boys during the afternoons and evenings while I worked. The kids and I were sad to leave ApartHotel Desiderata. The boys had made friends with the son of one of the hotel owners and a bunch of neighborhood kids. They spent all afternoon and evening, each day, playing with their new friends. I was really proud of the boys for playing with all of the neighborhood kids, even the poor kids whose families were squatters. They didn't seem to differentiate between who was rich and who was poor. I hope they remember and continue to do the same as they get older.
Since we'd paid a ton of money for our visas to Paraguay (the visa fee + my flight to the Paraguayan consulate in Los Angeles), we decided to take a day trip to the beach in Encarnación. Anyways, everyone said the beach in Encarnación was better than in Posadas. Note, the beach is not an ocean beach; it's a beach on the Paraná River. Just when I was thinking that we were the only Americans at the beach in Encarnación, I heard English being spoken. Of course they were a small group of Peace Corps volunteers! We had a nice, short conversation with them. It's hard to believe that it was 15 years ago that we were Peace Corps volunteers living in Curuguaty, Paraguay. We enjoyed our mini adventure in Paraguay but didn't return again during our 6-week Misiones/Corrientes trip. I feel a bit guilty because Paraguay has a special place in my heart and I would definitely like spend more time there. It's just that crossing borders (especially with a rental car) is challenging and I had a lot of work to do researching yerba mate in Argentina. I had considered seeing carnival in Encarnación during the weekend but after learning more I decided it wasn't appropriate - too late at night and too much adult content for the boys. Also, although swimming in the Paraná River was enjoyable, there was too little shade and too much sun. Even with the beach umbrella I still got a sunburn....We visited Paraguay in July 2015 and we'll visit again another time.
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Corrientes & Misiones - Jan./Feb. 2016
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