Posadas to Mercedes, Corrientes

Monday 17 July 2006

I left Posadas yesterday and headed for the city of Corrientes, which is the capital of Corrientes Province, 300km to the west. The bus ride took about four hours and was fairly typical of long distance bus travel here - dodgy videos, frequent police checks and plenty of careless overtaking.

The only multi-lane highways are around Buenos Aires. In the interior of the country, the major roads are two lane and can be quite busy. There were two police checks. I had a brief scare during the first when the gendarme (the national police) could not calculate how long I had been in the country. Initially he thought that my visa was set to expire today, 18 July. I had arrived on 18 May and you are permitted to stay up to 90 days. I actually have a month left.



The videos vary from proper, legal DVDs to "camcorders in the movie theater" quality (with the odd head appearing from time to time). I had fallen asleep during "Into the Sun" staring Steven Seagal, when suddenly I was jolted awake. We were running along the verge along the other side of the road. It had appeared that while we were attempting to overtake a line of vehicles, one of the vehicles that we were overtaking did not see the bus and started to pull out. Anyway, that is the last time I sit in the front seat of the top deck!