With Christmas 2019, Elissa and I were staying in an apartment rental in Puerto Iguazú, the latter a border town in northeast Argentina.
Puerto Iguazú is small, but famous in Argentina, because it’s a gateway to the Iguazú Waterfalls in the Iguazú National Park, with hundreds of cascades, which, believe it or not, make up the largest waterfall system in the world.
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In addition, the town is also situated at a triple-border point where Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina meet. All interesting, certainly, but we were not there because of the falls, but because it was the nearest place to rent a guesthouse room after finishing a workaway project in Argentina.
There was not much to do at the workaway project, and the place was located in the “middle of nowhere.” Consequently, we got food for a week from the owner, who then departed, and left us to our own devices.
The “work” — a bit of painting, assisting with small repairs, and some preparations of the vegetable gardens around — was actually a bit invented on-the-fly by the caretaker of the place. The “project” boasted a main house and a few bungalows (apparently to rent out), and a 30-hectare protected rainforest (part of the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest or in Spanish: Selva Misionera, in this part of Argentina).
In reality, we often wondered why there had been need for a couple of Workawayers there, because there was nothing going on. Still, who cares? At least we had some free food and lodgings.
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Having said that, the place was a piece of paradise — if you love Nature — and during our time there we spotted quite some wildlife, including capybaras, armadillos, monitor lizards, foxes, toucans, and many other types of birds. And, surely, as we had quite some free time, we often went for a hike through the forest.
So, after the “project,” we went to the nearest town (Puerto Iguazú), booked a guesthouse room, and later an Airbnb apartment to “recover” from our recent adventures and to think of what to do next.
That “next” had quite some surprises for us popping out of the magician’s hat — and for the rest of the world — because we stood at the verge of the COVID-19 pandemic. But that, as it was for all people on our globe, is an entirely different story.
