Corrientes

Capital of its namesake province, settled by Spaniards from Asunción in the late 16th century, Vera de las Siete Corientes took its name from founder Juan Torres de Vera y Aragón and the irregular Paraná currents just below its confluence with the Río Paraguay. Its appeal lies in its colonial core and its riverside location—the views across the Paraná toward the seemingly endless Chaco are soothing, especially at sunset.

Indigenous resistance made the city precarious in its early years. Graham Greene set his semisatirical novel The Honorary Consul in Corrientes’s villas miserias, its peripheral slums.

Corrientes (pop. about 400,000) is 927 kilometers north of Buenos Aires [1] via RN 12 and RN 14. It is 324 kilometers west of Posadas [2] via RN 12, and only 19 kilometers east of Resistencia [3], the capital of Chaco Province [4] across the Paraná. Avenida 3 de Abril leads west to Puente General Manuel Belgrano, the Resistencia bridge, and east toward Ituzaingó and Posadas.

Getting to Corrientes

Aerolíneas Argentinas/Austral (Junín 1301, tel. 03783/428678) flies most days to Aeroparque (Buenos Aires). Nearby Resistencia [3] also has flights to and from the capital.

From the foot of Calle Salta, Ticsa and Ataco Norte buses link Corrientes to Resistencia (30 minutes, US$1), where long-distance connections are better for western and northwestern Argentina.

Corrientes’s Terminal de Ómnibus (Avenida Maipú s/n, tel. 03783/45-5600), at the southeast edge of town, occupies the former train station. Typical destinations, times, and fares include Posadas [2] (4.5 hours, US$18), Rosario [5] (9 hours, US$33), Puerto Iguazú [6] (8 hours, US$28), and Buenos Aires [1] (15 hours, US$46–58). Buses to Mercedes [7], transfer point for the Iberá marshes [8], cost about US$6 (3.5 hours).