Wetlands

Day 10:
February 15, 2013

Hey guys it's Sydney blogging today! Today we went to the region of Argentina known as the Mesopotamia region which is in the Northeast area of Argentina. We started out touring this region by visting the wetlands of Esteros del Ibera. The name means "shining waters" which seems apropriate because nearly 25 percent of the surface area there is covered by water. These wetlands are the second largest in the world, so of course we only got to see a very small portion of the whole thing. It is a protect nature area and is the biggest protected area in all of Argentina.



Don't try to climb this. Ouch!

We are staying at the HA Posada Urbano Hotel in the city of Posadas. The city is located right outside of the Esteros del Ibera so as soon as we got checked into the hotel we went down to explore the wetlands. We had reserved spots for a boat excursion around the wetlands and it was great! We saw lots of crazy plants and animals that I never would have gotten the chance to see back home. We saw lots of cayman alligators and even this really scary spiky tree. The ride was about two and a half hours and we all really enjoyed it. I was expecting it to be really swampy and gross but I was surprised to find out that is was still very beautiful in it's own special way. I was really sad that we didn't encounter any anteaters on the way. For whatever reason they just fascinate me! We did get to see lots of other animals like the pampas deer, yacare caiman (alligator), and a capybara.

When it started getting late our guide had to turn our boat around. The sunset over the wetlands was gorgeous! By time we got back to the dock it was pretty dark out and it was amazing how many stars we could see. I guess there's not as much pollution so all the stars are visable and super bright compared to the night skies in Apex. We all had a great time today, but I need to get some sleep for tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to be our most exciting day, we are finally going to Iguazu Falls!