I’m writing this from the bus. Another epic, this time 20 hours from Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn, Patagonia. The green pampas slips pleasantly by. I was on another bus last night, from Mercedes to BA, and got not much sleep, but dozed off a bit this afternoon. So I am recovering from that bus journey by taking another bus journey. I had about four hours in the capital, running errands, and found the crowds, the traffic and the pollution pretty disagreeable considering 24 hours earlier I was in something approximating the Garden of Eden.

The destination for tomorrow (8am) is supposed to be one of the best whale watching spots in the world, but it’d be hard to beat what I’ve just seen up north. That was the Estero del Ibera, a system of wetlands between the two main rivers, about halfway between Iguazu and BA. It literally crawled with wildlife – snakes, monkeys, birds, reptiles, and what must be one of the sillier animals on the planet, the capybara. It takes a bit of getting there – the direct route from San Ignacio Mini is not served by public transport and the road is terrible, so you do a long arc round to Mercedes, a pleasant and sleepy little town where last night, at dinnertime, not a single restaurant was open in the city centre. From there it was theoretically a three-hour bus trip, with one minibus a day leaving at 12pm. When the thing showed up at one, its windscreen was webbed with cracks and its back doors were held closed by twined wire, and the inside was coated with decades of grime. The driver had a length of rope constantly in his hand, as if he expected trouble.

The drive could have been through country Australia – vistas of sun-yellowed grass, hereford and merino grazing, flightless birds the size of emu, tin windmills, and lonely farmhouses with rusting roofs sheltering in stands of eucalyptus. By about halfway we were all coated with dust, which entered through countless crevices in the ancient panels, when there was a sound like we had hit a log. As we coasted to a halt, something banged repeatedly on the floor beneath our feet, and that something turned out to be the drive shaft, which had completely detached itself from the gearbox and had been dragging along the ground. We all stared at it dumbly for about two minutes and were contemplating the possibilities of hitchhiking, when up drove a Ford pickup with three farmers in it, and within seconds one of them, a gaucho called Bolson, was under the bus, tools, baggy pants, happy shoes, white shirt, black beret and all. In about ten minutes he had it fixed, helped by his mate, who kept feeding him lengths of wire, apparently kept on hand for just such situations. The van behaved itself the rest of the way into Colonia Carlos Pellegrini, in spite of a few worrying sounds from beneath, and we arrived only about an hour behind schedule. Enough time to have a look around the ‘town’, which was as unambitious as any beachside holiday hamlet, and have a bit of a stroll along the causeway and watch the sun sink gradually, a crimson ball, behind the smoky waters of the lake.

I’d arrived with a couple of Frenchies, Sarah and Fannie, and our host at the hostel was Giorgio, a young lothario with a head of curls, a face of designer stubble, and a pair of reflective aviatior shades. All conversation was addressed to las chicas (understandably enough, seeing as they both spoke Spanish, in contrast to me). The house was whitewashed and surrounded by lush lawn and there was an open sided kitchen and dining area at the back, a half-empty swimming pool, and in proper Argentine fashion a TV that remained on all day with no one watching it. Giorgio and a couple of his mates ran the place more or less as a bachelor pad, running out for milk and sugar in the morning, and bringing bags of empanadas and boxes of pizza at lunchtime. They were all friendly and generous fellows, in the Argentinian way.

In the evening a few others dropped by, including Jessica, who had a green parrot named Kiwi crawling about on her at all times. She was half American (Jessica that is, not Kiwi) and had done a couple of years at Aspen as a park ranger, serving the likes of Hilary Clinton and Owen Wilson, before inheriting her banker father’s hobby farm three years ago. The hobby farm was 4,000 hectares, with 3,000 head of cattle, 60 buffalo, about 100 horses, and three gaucho families to run it. Her aim is to combine ecotourism with sustainable farming, and with her was Miguel, a graduating naturalist whose specialisation is birds, and who is volunteering at the farm doing a survey of birdlife. In his first week he’d counted 111 species. They told us that there were piranhas in the lake, but not to worry because they only lived near the shoreline. If you fell overboard in the middle of the lake you would be safe. In any case they only attack during egg laying season, which is later in the year, and besides which, they were unlikely to kill you unless you really stayed out in the water a long time.

I woke up in the morning with that I’m-a-bit-over-living-out-of-a-backpack feeling, compounded by the realisation that breakfast consisted of cream crackers with butter (a change from the usual baguettes and jam I suppose, but I could murder a plate of bacon and eggs or a bowl of bircher muesli more or less anytime now). That feeling lasted until exactly the minute about eight of us got into a little aluminium motorboat for an exploration of the lake, the standard activity when visiting the laguna. Before we’d even cast off we’d seen a group of caiman – small purplish crocodiles which grow up to 2m and aren’t dangerous to humans. There would be hundreds more. Next was an otter slithering up an embankment, as well as cormorants, gulls and ducks passing constantly overhead. We passed a series of floating islands with spectacular birds such as pairs of southern screamers, and any number of capybara, bumbling about in groups of two or three. These, in case you don’t know, are the largest rodents in the world, and weigh up to 75kg. They look like oversized wombats, with longish brown hair and boxy heads and snub noses and stumpy limbs with three claws. They charge across the grasslands, or swim in the laguna with the tops of their heads poking out of the water, or lounge blissfully in the sun as birds pick insects out of their fur. They have no predators, so they are literally everywhere. They are truly ridiculous.

We also saw several marsh deer, and many more birds including ibis, herons, egrets, a hefty kingfisher taking a dive for a fish, and a large turkey vulture, which is a relative of the condor. There was also a single jabiru, with a head and beak like charcoal and a neck like raw meat, stalking along the shore as if he owned the place. They eat caiman eggs, and young caiman, and snakes, among other things. We stopped on an island, whose ground was soft and spongy, and saw a couple of capybara making woohoo, which provoked laughter and shouts of ‘Giorgio!’ from the lads. It was a completely magical two hours of greenery, still waters and extraordinary creatures.

In the afternoon an Irish couple and I headed with Jessica and Miguel out to the ranch for a couple of hours, with Kiwi munching at Jessica’s straw hat for the entire drive. The Irish, who as far as I could work out were called Elis and Kieron, went horse riding, but I wasn’t game for this, in spite of Elis pointing out my feet would almost have touched the ground. I headed off with Miguel in the four wheel drive and we saw more birds, including more of the emu things, and abundant woodpeckers, and a couple of bizarre looking grey things with crazed eyes and hooked beaks and swept back fringes, looking like characters from Dickens. There were armadillo burrows, but no armadillo to be seen. Back at the estancia, we were hanging around the cattle yards hoping for some gaucho action when sure enough we started hearing urgent ‘yip yip yip’ sounds coming from behind some trees. We couldn’t work out whether they were being made by a woman or a man, until a boy who looked like about seven emerged, barefoot and riding bareback on a horse about twice his height, driving a herd of about twenty cattle. He brought them into the yard, jumped off the horse, then proceeded to drive them into the next yard using a stockwhip and well-aimed clods of dirt. He then separated them into two groups, drove one group into yet another yard, divided this group again and drove the remainder back into the second yard, leaving three calves penned in. Miguel said they were to be milked but he is, after all, an ornithologist. The lad, whose name was Christian, then remounted the horse and proceeded to drove the cattle back to where they came from. The whole operation probably took about twenty minutes.

Jessica and the Irish couple came back soon after, accompanied by Paulo, the senior gaucho, resplendent in blue gaiters, bombachos, suede apron, a broad belt full of pouches, a blue necktie which apparently signified his political allegiance (there are red neckties also) and a very battered felt hat. We all retired to a large room enclosed with fly screens, with an enormous grill at one end, and sipped Earl Grey tea and munched fresh tortilla fritas – which reminded me very much of kapse made for Tibetan New Year – prepared by one of the gaucho women. Paulo came in to show off pictures of himself in his full gaucho gear at various riding events, and to explain the features of his costume, and then we called it a day.

The other main activity at Estero del Ibera is to take the causeway across the lake and visit the interpretation centre, then walk through a patch of preserved forest where a family of howler monkeys lives – the only primates on the reserve. I’d been told about a certain snake that lived nearby as well, so in the interpretation centre I asked the ranger if I might see this as well. ‘You mean the yellow anaconda?’ she asked. I said I supposed so.

‘Come with me.’ And she walked briskly out of the centre and over to the low brick wall which edged the causeway, about 20 metres away, and pointed out a spot. ‘He usually comes here,’ she said ‘but I think it’s a little early. He’ll come out when it warms up a bit. If you do see him, don’t bother him or go too near. Some visitors do that, and if they keep doing that, he’ll go away.’

How big is the snake, I asked. ‘Oh, about two metres. They grow to seven.’ I assured her that I had no intention of bothering him, then crossed the road to look at the monkeys.

The forest was a gorgeous little bower of trailing vines and leafy understory, with tall palms and other species with twisting trunks. There were ground orchids and begonias and succulents with leaves like saws. Many of the trees were bearded with various kinds of epiphytes, which are not true parasites because they don’t feed off the tree, just use its height to gain access to the sun. One of these was a form of cactus whose fronds trailed whispily earthwards. There were whistles and tweets and hoots all round from various kinds of birds, and one that sounded alarmingly like a blowpipe, but no howls from the monkeys. They howl to establish territory and apparently can be heard kilometres away, but only do so if they feel another primate is attempting to trespass. White ropes delineating the paths and signs instructing us not to cross them put paid to any thoughts of tree climbing, but I did spot several monkeys when tipped off by that telltale naturalist’s sign, a couple of photographers pointing ginormous lenses at the canopy. The males are large and black, and the one I spotted was draped frontwise along a branch, limbs drooping. The females are blonde and moved about a bit more. When I emerged from the forest there were some juvenile deer hanging about, and a full-grown marsh deer, which are distinctive by their sandstone coloured coat and muddy forelegs. Popping up on the parapet as I began to cross the causeway to head back, I finally saw the anaconda, curled up amid the rocks, doubtless warming himself for a bit of fishing later in the day.

Latest update. Have arrived Patagonia. Saw a flock of flamingoes and several whales from the beach. Feeling trashed.