Date: Sunday 11 September 2022

Trajectory:  Mercedes – Mburucuyá

Distance covered: 220 km (with side trips)

Left Mercedes hotel after miserable breakfast and undrinkable coffee – for what I paid I expected better. Hotel curious for staircase (no lift) with steps whose height and spacing seem to have been designed to fail to meet human expectations, so going up and down was a most laborious and disconcerting affair.

First stop of the day was supposed to be the urban reserve Aka Pita, which took forever to find – Mercedes could work on its Tourist information. Or maybe the reason it was unsigned is that it was closed today, for no reason the custodian could give.

I drove on, and found a jewel – completely unmentioned by the Tourist Office. It seems that the Gaucho Gil, a C19th Century Robin Hood like religious folk hero was probably born near here and most definitely died and is buried here. More on my Facebook page. Here a statue:

…his place in the Mercedes City cemetery …

… and the entrance to his sanctuary/shrine, a few miles outside the city.

It was a shortish drive to Mburucuyú, shorter perhaps than the time it took for me to learn to say it. I was stopped by Gendarmes and asked where `I was going. I slobbered out Mumburoocooyoocoo a few times and finally had to spell it out for them. I then had a brief pronunciation lesson from three gendarme teachers and spend the next twenty minutes repeating over and over again

As I approached the town I saw crowds of people at another religious/folk festival, this one involving horsey activities. All of the gauchos, man and women, had put on their best finery: the older men, competing in gaucho skills and dressage …

… the younger men, sporting a mixture of traditional gaucho and modern style gear …

… and fine ladies on fine horses, in their best gaucho chic.

I stopped and watched for a while, impressed by the high level of horseriding skills, and finally entered Mburucuyá, the home of chamamé.

Almost forgot my bird of the day – cattle egrets, doing what they do:

Tomorrow I’ll visit the nearby Mburucuyá  National Park.