I've bought a ticket on the Tren Patagonica !!

Thanks for the video. I’d like to go there.

So glad your trip went well, Sarran1955 !

Had never seriously though about going, until you talk about it, Sarran1955 . Do post the rest of your videos soon!

I visited the Province of Misiones in September 2021. It was still when the borders were closed to international tourists, so it was extremely quiet. I had visited Iguazú in December 2013 during my first trip to Argentina ever. It was just 2-3 nights to visit the falls and go to Paraguay for shopping (?), and I was totally lost, so I can't really compare. However, in 2019 I was solo traveling, I rented a car in Iguazú and drove around the Province of Misiones on my own.

Posada was the last stop of my trip and where I boarded the flight back to Buenos Aires (I had arrived in Iguazú because it was impossible to find a car rental in Posadas - nobody picked up the phone!). I found it pretty depressing and alike to any other capital of a province with nothing worth visiting. The usual squares with lots of concretes and statues of dubious artistic value. The "costanera" (the walkable sidewalks along the river) was pretty. uninteresting. Yes, you could see Paraguay, but nothing to phone home about.

Misiones is a beautiful province, but Posadas is the least interesting part, imho. I was pretty impressed with Oberá and the river Uruguay, the Saltos del Moconá, the Jesuitic ruins, and of course the Iguazú falls.

I would skip Posadas if I were to go back. However, flights to Posadas are cheaper than to Iguazú, and there are low cost airlines flying there from Aeroparque. The airport was shut for maintenance a few months ago, not sure if it has reopened yet.

Sarran1955 , thank you for the videos, which make Posadas look like a quiet, rather quaint place. There was so little traffic that they could have been made 75 years ago!

@Bombonera :

The Jesuitic ruins are offered as a day trip from Iguazú. However, it is 4 hours each way, so it is going to be a long day and they won't bring you to ALL of the ruins for lack of time. There are several ruins in Misiones (and also in the neighboring territories in Paraguay and Brazil) but the ones that were open for visit were just 3-4 at the time. Remember that it was still covid time, so it may have been due to that. The ruins are not very close to each other if you already 4 hours behind the wheels -- that adds up travel time (20'-30') to go to each site. Since the ruins are out in the open, visiting schedule is shorter in winter. I think some sites closed at 4.30 PM or 5 PM.

The ruins I have visited were:

San Ignacio Miní (or just San Ignacio) - the most well maintained, most famous and bigger one. It is the one shown on postcards. You simply walk around the place and there are signs explaining briefly what was there. There is also a small indoor museum with a rendering of the mission as it was back in the time.

The whole town lives on tourism as there isn't much else. The lady from the B&B told me that 1/3 of the population work for the Gendarmería, 1/3 in tourism and 1/3 in agriculture.

Visiting these ruins was a rather impersonal experience, even if the place was empty - we literally were 10 and there was more staff than visitors. However, it was clear that the place was geared toward hosting probably hundreds of visitors per day. The empty bus parking lots around the area were rather sad. But, again, it was covid time.

Santa Ana  - Until the '70s it dubbed as the local cemetery, so you will see a weird mix of fairly modern tombstones and brick walls from the colonial era. I visited the place in Autumn and under the rain, and it was quite spooky. Some tombs were covered in bathroom tiles from the '60s, so it was really weird. I visited the place on my own, so I didn't get the most out of my visit. Definitely one of a kind.

Nuestra Senora de Loreto - What's left is very little in comparison to San Ignacio, but this was an important mission, as well. As usual, there is a small museum showing artifacts they found on site and a small scale reproduction of the mission, based on the documents found in Loreto. I was blessed to have a great guide, since it was raining and nobody was around he was all mine! He spent 90' explaining me the mission, how it was run how is life nowadays in the town (I was specially interested in his mixed guaraní-Argentinian heritage), while walking around the ruins after it stopped raining. It was a really authentic experience and having a guide explaining me in details how life was in the mission helped me soak in the atmosphere and let my imagination run. The place is now a wood, so it is nice to walk although there isn't much left to see.

Personally, given the period when I visited (covid), I excluded a group tour where I would have spent 8 hours in a minivan with total strangers. I had rented a car in Iguazú and drove down in San Ignacio, where I spent the night.

In a day, I was able to visit three ruins, but I had to run because they were open short hours, it was raining and I got lost.

I suggest to do your homework before visiting, as the places don't have much to see, but rather to imagine.

After the ruins, I drove into the province to visit the Oberá -- the middle area between the Paraná river (left, the border with Paraguay) and the Uruguay river (right, the border with Brazil). Oberá is known for mate and tea fields. Now, I knew that they cultivate tea in Misiones, but I had always imagined something more of a farming family-business, instead there are proper fields with tea bushes covering the hills, that were being harvested during my visit. The freshly harvested one were of a very bright green. It was a memorable car trip, with lots of fauna watching and I even saw a tucan in the wild. I had never seen one in his habitat and it was a magical moment for me. I couldn't quite believe it when I was his bright orange beak up in the air, then I realized that tucans are INDEED native of that environment.

La ruta del té is the place to go. There are tea and mate fields, workshops and a tea house. There is also a golf club and a restaurant. Again, because of covid and bad weather, I was not able to get the guided tour, but I was allowed to roam freely around the tea fields and it was BEAUTIFUL. After a very long walk, where I spotted hare holes in the ground, I had tea and cake in the tea house. There is also a tea shop with about 15 varieties of tea. Note: it is a posh tea and expensive, unlike mate.

There are day trips offered from Posadas if you'd rather hire a travel agency for the driving and organization of your visit.

Below: the tea shop.

After crossing the Province, I drove up north again along the river Uruguay on Ruta provincial 2. The route offered some epic scenery overlooking the tropical forest and the Uruguay river. There are panoramic spots where you can park your car, drink your mate and admire the beauty of nature. When I came home, I told my husband I wanted my ashes to be thrown in the Uruguay river. I was moved to tears before the beauty and magnificence of that ancient river, where the colons navigated some 4-500 years before my visit. Then I arrived at El Soberbio for the night.

On the next day, I drove up to the Saltos del Moconá. These are a series of big falls that are rather small to watch because you actually navigate on top of the Uruguay river that "covers" the actual drop. Depending on when you visit (and the rainfall in that period) you could see proper-sized falls or small river-falls like in my case (as I mentioned before, it was raining when I visited misiones). In any case, bear in mind that there are several meters of water UNDER your boat. So even if the falls look small, you are on top of a humongous amount of water.

The drove to the Saltos del Moconá park is also overlooking the tropical forest, and it is nice to stop and admire the view in the dedicated spots. At the park, besides navigating the river to see the falls (paid excursion by boat, on top of the park entrance), you can also walk 2-3 paths into the wood and spot some wild life if you are lucky, or just admire the flora.

After that, I drove back to Iguazú to drop off the car I had rented. This time I drove by 25 de Mayo, which is also famous for mate cultivation. It was a rather boring view and uninteresting.

On my way back, I stopped at the Mines of Wanda and visited one of the two sites. It is very touristic and a very poor experience as they want you to buy amethysts and other stones at prices higher than in Capital, but I had never seen a mine so it was interesting to me, nonetheless. You pay a few USD to enter the site, and are given a guided tour by young people with very little passion for their job.

I hope this helps!

(Perhaps Splinter knows how to make this very long post into a new thread?)

serafina , I echo and second what @Bombonera just said! So well analyzed and documented!

Lovely!

Was the “Nunca jamas” sign put up by you, Sarran1955 , as a reaction to all those hours of sameness?