Animal Crackers

Happy Easter!

I have included a few random photos of animals for your viewing pleasure. Not an Easter bunny in sight.

This is an ant hill at Misiones San Ignacio. I looked for evidence of ants and mercifully found none. However, it did put my ant-problem-at-home into perspective and I will now not be so upset at the small piles of sand shifted from between the cobble stones when I compare them to these. Now THIS is a serious pile! (approx 80cm- 1m high)

This is a particularly inquisitive, and long, anaconda. There is glass between him and me, obviously.

Check out this guy! This is a coati ... I think. A bit like a possum but cuter with Yogi Bear characteristics. A group of them are on tourist duty at one of the refreshment stops on the Argentine side of the Cataratas. As soon as I stopped filming one of the shop keepers chased him away with an umbrella. I have a feeling he would return. I believe they have a similar shredding effect on your skin to a possum if you should be so inclined to have one crawl up your arm.

Having recently learned that the small flower on one of my camera buttons did indeed have a purpose.... I have discovered the joys of ´macro´ and, of course, need to share that with you, dear reader. So, here are a few close-ups of butterflies- because I can! There was an abundance of butterflies around, most of them smaller than our monarch butterflies but all beautiful and so delicate. From now on, I will not take monarch butterflies for granted.

There is an abundance of dogs wandering around the parts of Argentina and Brazil that I have been to. They do not appear agressive and all seem to have a confident sense of purpose. They don´t seem to take any notice of people-their attitude appears to be one of indifference. I have felt more unsafe walking past a few of the loose dogs in Otaua than I do sharing the same footpath as these dogs. Maybe there are cultural differences in animals in different countries as well. I remain , however, wary of all dogs in Argentina.

The sleeping dog photo was taken at about midnight in some goodness-knows-where truck and bus comfort stop. He just appealed to me as I shared his territory to have a photo taken with my travel-buddy-saviour, Ana-Laura, shortly before we went our separate ways. The dog raised an eyebrow, decided it wasn´t worth the effort to move, and went back to sleep. It never seems clear if these dogs are just plain feral or have homes to go to at the end of their outings.

And, my personal favourite dog story so far.... this was taken on Tuesday, in Parana. I saw this large ute/small truck go past full of all sorts of dogs, sitting upright and composed and all very well behaved. It stopped outside a house, the driver got out, took a dog from the back, knocked on the door of a house, handed the dog over, got back into the truck and drove off. It looked so funny - like a school bus full of oh-so-disciplined children. On further research, I discovered that the man was a ¨dog-walker¨who exercises dogs for people who are at work all day. It costs $100 (pesos - currently about $NZ50) a month and for that, you get your dog picked up and delivered and exercised in the park for four hours, three times a week. The man takes 20 dogs at a time and has two separate groups. Do the maths! All the dogs get on very well together and there is no fighting or jockeying for position on the back of the truck. They do not appear to be tethered either as they are just all in together, like a truck full of sheep. But they all sit upright and dignified. No leaning into the wind with the tongue hanging out or barking in anticipation. These are classy dogs!

And this one..... I was very much reminded of the snake in the zoo in the Harry Potter movie. This snake was a bit of a performer and it seemed it was his/her shift as it came up through the water and along the glass to give a good view to all those gathered around. Meanwhile, another anaconda was off duty curled up asleep at tha rear of the enclosure.