Since I had such a short amount of time in Misiones/Corrientes, I took a flight instead of an overnight bus. While the overnight buses are very comfortable and recline 180 degrees, I wanted to be sure that I arrived refreshed and ready to interview people about yerba mate.
I left Buenos Aires around 8:00AM on a Friday and arrived in Posadas, Misiones at around 9:30AM. I promptly rented a car. I decided to rent a car because I needed to visit various sites in the two provinces. While traveling by bus is definitely possible, it is time consuming and I wanted to make sure that I was able to visit all of the places I wanted to visit.
In renting a car, I took a gamble that I had enough pesos with me. Hertz had quoted me a price in dollars. Another company gave me a price in pesos. If I paid in cash, the other company would be much cheaper because I would have already exchanged money at the dollar blue rate (around 15 pesos to $1). The problem was that if I ran out of pesos and had to pay in dollars, I would have been forced to receive the official exchange rate (around 9 pesos to $1); in that case Hertz would have been cheaper. I did a quick calculation and hoped that I could survive on 600 pesos (about $40) a day excluding hotel. The 600 pesos would have to cover food, gas, books (books published in Misiones are difficult to find in Buenos Aires), and any other expenses. I gambled that I could keep within this budget.
The rental company gave me a very basic, cute, little, red Volkswagen car. The car had manual windows and manual locks. Luckily it had a radio because I was going to be doing a lot of driving. It cost 690 pesos a day.
In renting a car, I took a gamble that I had enough pesos with me. Hertz had quoted me a price in dollars. Another company gave me a price in pesos. If I paid in cash, the other company would be much cheaper because I would have already exchanged money at the dollar blue rate (around 15 pesos to $1). The problem was that if I ran out of pesos and had to pay in dollars, I would have been forced to receive the official exchange rate (around 9 pesos to $1); in that case Hertz would have been cheaper. I did a quick calculation and hoped that I could survive on 600 pesos (about $40) a day excluding hotel. The 600 pesos would have to cover food, gas, books (books published in Misiones are difficult to find in Buenos Aires), and any other expenses. I gambled that I could keep within this budget.
The rental company gave me a very basic, cute, little, red Volkswagen car. The car had manual windows and manual locks. Luckily it had a radio because I was going to be doing a lot of driving. It cost 690 pesos a day.
When I picked up the car, it had just over a 1/2 a tank of gas. The man simply told me to fill it to the same amount when when I returned the car. After leaving the airport, I worried that I hadn't asked him to put it in writing, especially after I filled up the tank on the first day and had the sticker shock of having to pay over 300 pesos - a huge chunk of money considering that I had allotted a total of 600 pesos per day for everything except for the hotel. Fortunately, I only got gas one more time and the man was fine when I returned the car with just over a half tank of gas.
Immediately after getting the car, I drove directly to Oberá – a lovely town with rolling hills that is about an hour and a half drive from Posadas. Oberá, officially founded in 1928, was settled by various European immigrants during the first rush (after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767) to plant yerba mate. I made the trip to Oberá because it was twice the site of major protests related to the production of yerba mate and other agricultural products. In 1936, a number of immigrants (mainly of Ukrainian Polish, and Russian descent) who engaged in agricultural production converged on Oberá to protest the economic conditions that they faced, but before reaching the center of the town the crowd was confronted by police and townspeople with violence and resulted in the deaths of some of the protesters. The next major protest movement in the region again started in Oberá with the founding of the Movimiento Agrario Misionero (MAM) in 1971. MAM organized various protests about the conditions faced by agriculturalists but after the military coup of 1976 various members were either disappeared (killed) or imprisoned by the military government. I’m curious about what pushed people to organize and protest in an effort for what they saw as economic and social justice, and why did both important organizing activities occur in Oberá.
After conversing in the office, the MAM official took me on a tour of Oberá. The city is famous for hosting the national Immigrant Festival. I was shocked to see how much money and effort is put into this festival. There is a park with beautiful buildings for each different immigrant group. The buildings are quite impressive and they seem to be used throughout the year by the immigrants and their descendants. The festival must be quite an event!
From Oberá, I drove back to Posadas where I went book shopping and met with an academic at Universidad Nacional de Misiones who kindly conversed with me about the region and shared some valuable documents.
I spent two nights in Posadas (the capital of Misiones) at Le Petit Hotel because of the town’s central location. This was the same hotel where John, F, and I stayed 10 years ago when we visited the Guaraní/Jesuit missions for my dissertation research at Harvard. The hotel is basic but clean.
After our bedbug experience in Paraguay (see posting under “Paraguay & Iguazu Falls, July 2015”), I now take the following preventative measures: 1) raise my suitcase off of the floor; 2) Return all of my clothing to the suitcase or hang it in the closet; and, 3) close my suitcase whenever I’m not using it.