Corrientes, Resistencia and Formosa
I did not take many photos of Resistencia, Formosa or Corrientes as I really did not do much there and they were really just ordinary towns. I would have loved to see the countryside as each has a lot to offer and all very different. Resistencia has lots of adventure sports, fishing and interesting indigenous peoples and scenery, Formosa has Lakes and Lagoons and Corrientes seemed interesting too.
The cities were quite modern but I was looking for volunteer work and therefore had to stay in the cities. The tourist offices are very under used and therefore to have a foreigner enter and ask questions was a great thrill. At one point I had six information officers looking after me and trying to help!
Resistencia is a nice modern city with plenty to do. It has good businessman type hotels, some cool cafe’s and bars and feels very safe. Lots of ice cream parlours, a couple of really nice parks, plenty pedestrian shopping and very good cultural centres with some great concerts. It also has 500 sculptures some by very famous artists. Not far out of town you see poorer people living in shacks and sadly lots of horses running wild and eating rubbish from the dumps in the same way you might see dogs doing in Mexico for example. There are no skyscrapers in this area. I was told that the police had cleared the city of the drunks and drugs and beggars over the last few years. I do not know what they did with them but I did not see any beggars or drunks.
Corrientes has a very wide river, mud banks and a lovely sandbank under the bridge which the main carriageway and flyover overlooks. So though lovely it is also noisy. It has some nice Colonial buildings and quite a lot of pedestrian shopping areas. It has a tiny zoo where animals that have been rescued are kept. It seems to have two centres. One in town where the shops are and one beside the river bank. The cool thing to do is walk by the river at night. It is only half an hour from Resistencia.
Formosa is a very small town with extremely heavy traffic. It seemed like the whole of Paraguay was visiting at 9 am and leaving at 7pm. Sunday nothing happens at all. Just over the water is Paraguay and if you could skim a stone far enough you have a good chance of hitting land. It did not have a nice feel to it.
All towns were on a grid system but Corrientes felt a bit shambolick. In this area everyone wants to be helpful and will give you directions even though they have no idea where you want to go. I got conflicting directions so many times.
