I started out on Wednesday, which was the same day that schools opened after summer break. As is often the case here, the school year began with a teachers strike, which involved protests that shut down the main highway in various locations. The bus I needed to take arrived two hours late in San Ignacio due to these protests, and twenty minutes later we sat at a dead stop for almost two hours. Finally I arrived in El Soberbio, a small, adorable town on the border with Brazil. I got a really good vibe from El Soberbio. I'm not really sure what it was, but sometimes you go someplace and you just feel like it's the place for you, without really knowing why. It was very small, but clean, with well-kept houses, various stores, and seemed much more developed and organized than San Ignacio despite (or because of?) not being a well-known international tourist destination. There was what appeared to be an organized league of children's soccer playing in the park when I walked by - something that could easily exist in San Ignacio but doesn't.
I spent the evening wandering around El Soberbio, and then did something that I love to do but never can because of my work schedule: I went to bed early, at 10pm. The next morning I had to wake up early, which I also love doing when I go to bed early, to catch the bus to Los Saltos de Mocona, a provincial park that has some really unique waterfalls. I'm not sure if I can accurately explain it, but the waterfalls go down the middle of the river, not across it. So the Argentine side is several meters higher than the Brazilian side, and down the middle of the river for 2-3 kilometers is the waterfall. The day I went the falls were only a few meters high, but they can be as great at 14 meters when the river is low. When the river is high they disappear entirely. An interesting fact that the guide explained was the on Sundays and Mondays the falls are higher than other days because there are several factories upstream that use the river as a water source. During the week the water is constantly flowing, which keeps the river high and the falls low, but on weekends the water remains in the holding tanks of the factories, which causes the river level to drop, and the height of the falls to increase.
Saltos de Mocona
After spending the morning at Los Saltos de Mocona, I took the bus to San Vicente, another city with nearby waterfalls. I spent the evening exploring the town, but it didn't have that enchanting vibe that I got from El Soberbio. It was a bit bigger and had more of an industrial feel to it, so I got some ice cream and went back to my room and read a bit. The next day I went to Salto Encantado park, to see the waterfall there. This one was sixty meters high, falling into a canyon surrounded by rock walls, with various lookout points all around to see it from every angle. In the early afternoon I set out back to San Vicente to get my things, and then came back to San Ignacio. All in all, a spectacular three-day vacation!!
Salto Encantado
Awesome pictures!!
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