ECOTOURISM WITH PROYECTO YACARE

"Proyecto Yacare" offers to small groups, interested in to know the wild wetlands of Santa Fe province in Argentina, and in to actively participate with our team in the field works, the possibility to joint us through this exiting ecoutourism proposal.

Description and timing of the activities with the "Proyecto yacare" team that you can joint with us:

Harvest of eggs: (Between January 10th to February 25th)

The trip usually depart from Santa Fe in the morning and takes between 3 to 5 hours to get the cattle ranches in the north of the province (we do work in about 20 different places). Ones the team arrive to the field, the cattle ranch employers ("gauchos"), do prepare the horses and guide us in to the forest, looking for the marked nests. Every nest is collected for the people of the team, and the eggs in the plastic containers are carried on the horses. Horseback trips take between 2 to 7 hours depending the place and the condition of the participants. Anyway, it is possible to handle intermediate duration of the trip, leaving some people in resting areas, meantime the others can keep working. This work usually involve the capture of a few adult females when they are founded close to the nest. The animals are measured, marked and released. Regularly, the team overnight at the big, old, clean and comfortable country houses of the cattle ranches. The day after, in the morning the team do harvest more nests and after noon depart to Santa Fe in order to locate the eggs in the artificial incubator. This is the heaviest work of the project and require a good physical fitness because the temperatures in the field could arise to 42°C during the day, and the humidity is about of a 80%.

Night Counts: From October till April

Night count trips depart afternoon from Santa Fe to almost the same cattle ranches of the harvesting work. The counts start after 9.00 PM and take between 2 to 4 hours (depending the place). Counts are carried out with high power lights from airboats, canoes or horses. This work usually involve the capture of a few animals in order to identify if they are wild or released, and to mark and measure them. Sometimes, blood samples are taken. This trip usually require overnight at the cattle ranches. Even though the temperatures during the day could be high, all the work is carried out at night time which is OK. The only problem could be the mosquitos but the team use good repellents and besides, the region is free from malaria and dengue diseases.

Hatching moment: (Middle of February to middle of march)

All this work is carried out at the Santa Fe station. Every day the incubator (with about 3,000 eggs) is checked and when a nest is calling for hatch (because of the sound that the hatchlings produced), all the eggs of that nest are moved to the hatch room. After one day there, all the hatchlings that did not broke the egg by themselves, are helped for the people of the team, as the female actually do in the wild. Regularly, ones that the hatching season start, everyday we do have between 80 to 200 new caimans in the station. Before location at the rearing pools, the hatchlings are measured, weighted and marked. This is an easy work and actually the incubator is quite close (50 meters) of the accommodation place where the visitors stay.

Routine measurements: (All the year)

Every month, the animals at the rearing pools are captured for measuring, and blood sampling.

Routine trips to the field: (From April to October)

This trips involve the visit to the cattle ranch owners and interviews with the employers, looking for new working places in the next season. The exploration of the new places, usually require horseback rides also. This trips regularly takes two days, but the weather conditions are very good, with temperatures of between 10°C. to 22°C. this is also a very good moment for viewing of many different species of wild animals.

Other activities in the Ecoturism project:

For every party of visitors, there are planned related touring activities also.

-) A visit to the old Santa Fe city (Cayastá). They are a 400 year old ruins of the first place where the European live in this place before they were attacked for the aboriginals. The place is very interesting and it is about 70 km. northern Santa Fe, on the San Javier river coast. The trip take one day.

-) A city tour in Santa Fe, which include a visit to the ancient Santa Fe and the 300 year old San Francisco church, and all the colonial Spanish houses around.

-) A boat trip to the islands close to Santa Fe. The trip depart from Santa Fe city (on Setubal lagoon), to the big Paraná river (15 minutes boat ride). This trip could take from half a day to two days, depending on the preferences of the visitors. Fishing is allowed in this trips but, even though hunting is legal here with a cheap licence, we do not allow guns in our boat.

-)A fully guided visit to the Experimental Breeding Station in Santa Fe. This place is a zoo with the most representative collection of South American fauna in Argentina (and probably in the world). There are more than 200 species represented there, including jaguars, pumas, maned wolves, tapirs, swampdeers, pampasdeers, wild foxes, others, capibaras, eagles, flamingos, ducks, snakes, lizards, and much more. This trip it is not actually a trip because this is the accomodation place for the visitors. In fact this is also the rearing station of the Proyecto Yacare.

Getting Santa Fe:

Santa Fe city is about 450 km. northern Buenos Aires. International flights arrive to Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires (Capital town of Argentina), and from there the visitors can come to Santa Fe by plane (40 minutes flight), or by bus (5 hours trip). Planes and buses depart to Santa Fe every two to four hours (depending the day).

Currency:

The local money is the PESO, and because the convertibility, is always equal to a US dollar: 1$=1U$S.

Cost and details of the all tour for the visitors:

The ideal number of persons in the party is between two to four people for proper attendance. The preferred duration of the stay is between five to nine days.
The ecotourism package will include: Accommodation at the Santa Fe rearing station: This is a fully equipped house with two bedrooms with air conditioner, a bathroom with worm water, and a kitchen with a freezer with wine, beer and sodas (all you can drink included in the price).
All the trips to the field. Lunch and dinner in the field trips. (dinners are usually the typical argentine barbecue).
Meals at the typical places in Santa Fe (barbecue places and river fish places).
Breakfast will be provided at the accommodation place.
The trips to Cayastá, the City tour, the trip to the islands and the guided visit at the Experimental Breeding Station.
Transportation from and to the airport or bus station.
A 30' video with a summary of the activities of the visitors here. T-shirts and photos for memories.
All the social and work activities will be accompanied by members of the Proyecto Yacare team.
Every trip to the wild will be arranged according the possibilities of the visitors.
Before every trip, a training session about airboating, canoeing, horse riding, eggs harvesting or caimans handling (depending the planed activities) will be carried out at the Santa Fe station.

FOR COST, DETAILS AND PREFERENCES, CONTACT US AT : yacare@arnet.com.ar