Date: Friday, 30 September 2022

Trajectory: Ituzaingo – Oberá

Distance covered: 180 km

Left Ituzaingo after early breakfast. Went to YPF to fill up with diesel and found huge queues so left till later, trusting to luck and my jerry cans. Stopped at second YPF along the road and was limited to 40 lts – seems fuel is in short supply in Misiones.

In a last ditch attempt to score a monjita dominicana digressed 1k km down the RP41 towards Pelligrini …

… but nothing doing birdwise, so came back and drove on to  a new province, Misiones. 

… and on to the town of Santa Ana. The weather was vile all morning, torrential rain still, so I chose an indoor activity – a butterfly house … 

… where there were not too many residents owing to the time of the year, but all bright and colourful on this miserable day. 

I rather liked the colouring on this one …

Drove on to Oberá as the rain began to ease off and visited a ‘bird garden there…

… where the steep and uneven walkways would never pass an H&S check. The number of birds was very small and some were in very small cages; not a wonderful collection, though the park was lovely.

One example was this red-breasted toucan … 

But this was not my bird of the day – instead, a campo flicker, shot from the car window in a moment when the rain eased off. 

Found a pleasant looking hotel in Obera, with individual cabins spread across a park. – aptly called the Hotel Cabañas del Parque. A huge complex, it seemed empty other than me. I ate in a large and empty dining hall that reminded me of ‘The Shining’. My cabin was fine though (at the back in the picture below).

A good supper (chicken and salad), and a cold evening. The last two nights have been quite cold – something I don’t associate with Misiones. Tomorrow north, towards Iguazu.