This is actually one of the better stretches of road.
It wouldn't have been so bad if it was all like this.
El Camino de Hades was the nickname I gave this road after one unforgettable day. I was going from Posadas, Argentina, to Corrientes and
had planned to take a side trip to Colonia Carlos Pellegrini to see the Esteros del Iberá. I looked for a sign that said route 41 or this way to
Colonia Carlos Pellegrini, but didn't see either.

I got to Corrientes before noon, where I had reservations for the night, way too soon to check in so I decided to keep going and try to get to
Colonia Carlos Pellegrini another way. I thought I could make it there and back before dark. It turned out to be a big mistake in a foreign
country.

I got to Mercedes about three in the afternoon. It looked like I could easily make Colonia Carlos Pellegrini and back to Corrientes before
dark. After all it was only about 120 kilometer from Mercedes to Colonia Carlos Pellegrini (about 72 miles) and it hadn't been getting
dark until around 8 p.m. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

The map had said that this was a secondary paved road. I should have realized what that meant when I turned onto it.  It had been raining
and the road was made of clay and rock, some of the rocks seemed to be the size of small boulders.

I almost turned around then, but the road seemed to get smoother so I kept going. I should have turned around at the local police
checkpoint, the last real place to turn around it turns out, before Colonia Carlos Pellegrine but didn't. Another mistake.

The farther I got the muddier the road got. There would be reasonably dry spots and then a low muddy spot. The first couple muddy holes
weren't too bad, the mud was only about two to four inches deep. I negotiated those easily.

As it turned out, the muddy spots lasted for about 90 kilometers and got worse as I went along. In the worst spots the mud was as much as
twelve inches deep. Because of the conditions, I could only go about 40 kph (24 mph) on the good stretches and much slower on the worse.

The trick was to go fast enough through the mud so that you didn't get bogged down and not so fast that you fishtailed out of control into a
ditch or one of the numerous farm trucks that always seemed to be going the other way.

There was one particularly memorable moment when a truck had stopped to let me try to negotiate a muddy stretch before they went
through (about 100 yards long and about twelve inches deep.) I fishtailed in the middle turning completely sideways, pointing at first one
side and then the other side of the road, while still sliding toward the truck. Fortunately I was able to slow just enough to regain control
before going off the road or hitting the truck.

Because I had to go so slow , the trip that I thought would take about a hour one way turned into almost four. To make matter worse, if what
had already happened wasn't bad enough, as it got darker the animals and birds started to come out onto the road: capybaras, cattle and
horses were some of the larger ones.

You would think that once I got to the harder part, the very last of the road, that the only thing I would have to look out for would be the
animals. Not so, now some of the rocks in the road were actually small boulders (as large as twelve inches in diameter.)

Needless to say, as I came into Colonia Carlos Pellegrini at just about dark, I decided to forfeit my reservation in Corrientes (even though I
had already paid for it) and spend the night at the first place that would give me a room. I found a room, in spite of the fact that the first
place I tried couldn't take me because they were cleaning their water tanks and didn't have any water available and wouldn't for a couple of
days.

The place they recommended did, Posada de Laguna (the best place I stayed on the whole trip), and I had a wonderful night. I did have
nightmares about the trip back to "civilization", particularly when the owner of the inn informed me that the way I came in was the best way
back.

Thus the nickname for the road, el camino de hades! I will leave the description of the return trip for another time.
NWJ Creations
El Camino de Hades