9 - 12 Jan Bit more camping on way to Brazil

Big truck days to cross Argentina now (10 hours) and one nighters at campsites. My scent is now bug spray rather than chanel no 5. We're starting to see fire flies at night, which I don't get bored of, the weird little things. One eve, round the campfire, V decided she would try to catch one with some encouragement from Pete and when she brought it over to him, he commented he'd never seen one like that/that big before! ha! It was more like a cockroach, with twin headlamps (two lights over it's eyes) instead of a lit bum, which I think the smaller flies have.

River by the campsite


Neil, the hot water magician, with his immersion heater always ready for a cup of tea


We drove down a road that we would all have been pushing us down, had it been raining, but luckily it wasn't.



Dusty truck


Heather managed to find a soggy bit though when she was looking for a suitable bush during a loo stop. She saved the flip flop though!




The lads scavenging firewood


I now own shorts! I don't think I have owned shorts for 20 years, but needs must etc. Seeing all sorts of new birds and bugs and a huge variety of beautifully different coloured dragonflies. Our next campsite was all about the wildlife


and I took a sunset boat trip out to see the caiman (like alligators but their own species) and capybara (cute and the biggest rodent apparently - the male adults are about the size of a medium dog).










This guy got out to get a pic with the Caiman (nutter)










Mikkel brought a snake and a huge toad into the kitchen area to show us (nutter).

Heather's toes provide scale


Oh, also hearing 'sacadas' (sp?) which I think are like crickets but man, they are LOUD! They sound like a circular saw cutting through wood. The soundtrack is now that, along with the fairly frequent slap sound of someone taking a mosquito out. Also saw the Milky Way here at night which was pretty impressive. Impossible for me to photograph with my point and shoot so trust me, it's cool.

Visited the Jesuit missions which were knocking around between 1600-1800, then arrived at another campsite with a pool.

Tony being a prankster





This site also had a rather wonderful bar which produced gorgeous fresh cocktails for 20 pesos (3 quid) for a half litre glass (plus a while the extra quarter litre because the barstaff had made too much and thought it was wasteful to keep pouring it down the sink. They soon ran out of the traditional spirit of 'cashasa' (phonetic rather than proper spelling) which is a sugar cane spirit with hidden evil alcoholic content, and moved onto rum. I stopped at one cocktail, but some of my fellow overlanders did not, leaving them a bit fragile the next day. This campsite even had entertainment in the form of a local guitarist, playing and singing traditional songs. Fab.