Concordia

A tourist city in Entre Rios in North East Argentina on the Uruguay border.

I went to Concordia to check it out, continuing a look at NE Argentina. I was not going to write up this town, and instead simply say AVOID, AVOID and let it go at that. I have some standards. But since I was able to describe Clorinda civilly for the good of all, I guess I will try to say something objectively. And one man's poison, etc. Also, this city is important as a resort and border city. I spent 7 days here investigating things.

Concordia is a city of about 120,000 on the border of Uruguay. It is located a few miles from some termas of Entre Rios. It is also a few miles from the Salto Grande Dam, which forms a large artificial lake. So it is a tourist destination of sorts, especially the termas about 10 miles north. There is also fishing in the area. The termas are hot water that rises naturally from deep in the ground. Because of this, it arrives at the surface with a temperature of 95F to 110F or so, and contains a variety of minerals and ions. This gives them 4 or 5 naturally heated swimming pools up north of here. There are claims of health benefits from lounging around in this water. If you want the touristy details, look around in [url]www.turismoentrerios.com[/url].

The city of Salto, Uruguay is just across the Salto Grande Dam, about a $ar45 cab ride. Salto is one of Uruguay's largest cities and also has various terma resorts. This makes Concordia a good stopping point to switch between the Argentina and Uruguay bus systems and cross the frontier. And there are not many entries to Uruguay. There are a number of good options for getting to Concordia by bus from anywhere, few for getting directly to Uruguay. This situation is similar to the Argentina / Paraguay border cities.

One thing different about Concordia is that there is a very high percentage of older tourists, in the 65 and up range. They come for the termas and the supposed therapeutic benefits. I would guess that about 70% of the guests at the Palmar Hotel were over 65. There was one large group that came by bus. This probably reduces the number of potential clients for providers, and presumably the number of providers working as a result.

This arrangement of keeping the good working women out of town is really getting old. Here we have the same situation as Corrientes, Posadas, and Parana. There isn't much in town. Here, similarly to those cities, there isn't that much out of town either. But in order to take a look around, one burns up a lot of taxi money. Worse, because the bars are so remote, one can't simply taxi out to them and hang out with the women. At least a cell phone to call a taxi back is an absolute must. Even then, these places are LONELY, like in the middle of nowhere. You really don't want to be left out there alone.

The town itself is not remarkable. The business center is about 10 blocks by 4 blocks. The main square is nice, but not memorable. Parana is much nicer. There is a Peatonal (pedestrian shopping street) 3 blocks long on Calle Entre Rios. The main shopping area is actually about 7 blocks, but the rest has traffic in the street. As in most small cities, it is not memorable either.

There is a main E-W street that splits the town, San Lorenzo, a main entry street. The original town is mostly south of San Lorenzo. North is new development, mostly unpaved side streets, some poor areas, some light industry, some better residential, and on the northeast side a park and costanera about 20 blocks out I did not visit.

There are NO good hotel options here. The situation is worse than Parana. Also a lot more expensive for what you get. First of all, one must decide WHERE one would like to stay. The main hotels are 10-15 blocks from the area where the closer women work. There is another commercial area around the bus terminal, at San Lorenzo and Irigoyen, where there are some decent sandwich places and restaurants. I think the food is better in that area than in the center. The bus terminal area is only 3-4 blocks from the same women, and is 10-15 blocks closer to the bars and the rest of the women.

Out around the bus terminal, there is the El Aleman Departs, Canadian cabin style apartments. There are only about 6 of them. They are worn and depressing, but fairly large with a loft bedroom and kitchenette. They go from $ar80 weekdays to $ar120 weekends dbl. The Hotel Coronado is on Av Eva Peron (a main drag heading to the termas and Salta Grande) positioned closer to some of the women, but has no frig. I didn't look at the rooms. It is about 8 blocks from the restaurants near the terminal. These hotels will put you about 15 blocks from the main square and peatonal.

The supposed "best" is Hotel Salto Grande, right near the main plaza on Urquiza. It is expensive ($ar140 dbl and $ar190 superior dbl) I saw the rooms, and they were worn and depressing, especially at this price. I am used to a NICE room for $ar140.

To be fair, I did get lucky on the hotel. I stayed at Palmar Hotel Casino, also on Urquiza, about 3 blocks from the square. They are redoing the hotel and have half of the 2nd and 3rd floors finished. They are working on floors 1,4, and 5 on the same side. They are also building a new tower that will be nice in a year or 2 when finished. I got a virtually brand new room that normally is going for $ar190. They gave it to me for one week for $ar145. It has a very large king bed with huge mattress, a very large screen HD TV, and a whirlpool tub in a brand new bath. It only has a very small frig. It has NO view. The hotel serves only a continental breakfast, but does include fresh fruit salad. This is where I need the frig. I buy cheese, ham and smoked pork lomo at the supermarket and bring my own supply to breakfast, so I can have high protein media luna sandwiches with breakfast.

After the Palmar, the options are all bad. The Centro Plaza is cheap at $ar80 dbl, worn with no frig, and about 2 more blocks from the main square. After that, there are 4-5 hotels much cheaper in the centro area.

Watch out for the taxis in this town. This is the first time that I was ripped off by a taxista. Either the waiting time is very expensive, or he took me on several tours finding a hotel, in addition to advancing the meter somehow after we stopped, while I was looking at rooms. Coming from the terminal and finding a room cost me $ar17. The hotels are within 3 blocks of each other, 10-12 blocks from the terminal. A very similar exercise in Parana cost me $ar8. The 3 tours I took seemed to be OK, and I paid full meter rates. So they are mostly OK.

On to the situation with finding women. There are 3 daily papers, "El Sol" and "Noticias" in the morning and "El Heraldo" in the afternoon. "El Sol" had one ad for a TV, so at least the category exists. The others had nothing. Some cabbies have told me there are women who work by phone, presumably from private lists held by cabbies and clerks.

I went to 4 clubs, or bars. They are all located north of San Lorenzo. I went out on Wed, Thur, Fri nights at about midnight, prime time. Generally, the women in these bars were much better than the women in the bars of Parana. They appear to me a little better than in the bars of Santa Fe. But I want to emphasize that these clubs are more isolated than the clubs of every other city I have seen.

(NONAME) closest to the city at Medina and Nogoya. There were 3 women inside a small bar. Probably 6-7 for most. The owner said 2 more were coming. One pretty decent one (an 8) arrived as we were arguing outside over the price, as the owner was trying to rip me off. He first said the price was $ar150. I told him that was a high BA price, and I could just go to BA for better variety for that. Then as I was leaving he said it was $ar100 on site and $ar120 to leave. I wasn't going to even consider the last arrival at that price. I found out the next day the REAL price is $ar30 for the woman and $ar10 for the room. That is the price in all these bars.

"El Desafio" --supposed around Moulins & 25 de Mayo near company "Debaggio". The first cabbie couldn't find it, the second knew where it was on Friday. 3 women 5-6, the worst of the bars.

(NONAME) in the sticks off Av Illia (ruta 4) west of Av Tavella. There were 3 women 6-8. One was quite nice, even for me. All had a terrible attitude, especially when I told them I was just investigating that night.

(noname) WAY in the sticks about 10 miles out, near the entrance to the Grand Salto Dam road on Eva Peron. Four women, again 6-8, suprisingly nice, but just totally punchy. There were NO clients in any of these places, and the women get a little crazy from the boredom, I think.

The street price is also generally $ar30 + hotel. There are street walkers in various areas, very spread out. They start about 9 and go until 1:oo or so.

On Pellegrini in el centro, between about Catamarca and San Lorenzo. I saw maybe 4 or 5 in total. They are mostly standing or sitting at the bus stops on the corners, because of the cops. They will signal you if you show interest.

On Urquiza in el centro parallel to Pellegrini in the same stretch, I saw one on Fri and one Sat. One was a young morocha, about 19, and I was tempted, but I am not that fond of morochas.

On Eva Peron, N of San Lorenzo, I saw one, about 28 and a 7.

On the corner of Illia (ruta 4) and Tavella I saw 3 different ones on two nights. On Tavella within 4 blocks of San Lorenzo I saw 2.

On San Lorenzo I saw 4. One was just beautiful and slim. But only 17 years old. Totally impossible.

The bar women and SW here are much higher level than in Parana. The SW overall are better than Santa Fe also, the bar women possibly better. It is too bad they are so spread out. I have about $ar70 in taxi fares for the 4 nights I used a cab for part of the tour. The REAL problem, though, is the isolation of all of these areas and places. You need to be agile and sober to go around them.

A lot more blondes than you will find in BA Capital, that's for sure.

Going up to Concordia Dam, on the Parana river, fly fishing for monster dorado, need to know where the privados are.

Thanks,

Man

[QUOTE= Man]Going up to Concordia Dam, on the Parana river, fly fishing for monster dorado, need to know where the privados are.

Thanks,

Man[/QUOTE]I'm afraid you are in for a little disappointment. There are no monster Dorado at Concordia and to make it worse, the drought has brought the water of the Parana river down to almost nothing and it's a chocolate brown colour making it impossible to fly-fish in.

The girls from Entre Rios are known to be very pretty but the professionals I saw in Concordia were certainly not so.

Just got back from fishing the Parana river outside of Corrientes last week. Fishing was exellent and water on the Argentine side was crystal clear. The attached photo was taken about 7 kilometers down the Parana River from the city of Corrientes (crystal clear water last week).

I dropped by the Goya river on the way up to corrientes and the river was low and muddy. Certainly unfishable with fly at this time (you could bait fish if that is your thing) In concordia you also have choice of fishing the Uruguay river as well as the dam area.

Considering the condition of the Parana River just last week in corrientes I very much doubt that the dam at concordia would be unfishable at this time. If you get to concordia and the fishing is poor just head up to corrientes (another 4 hours north) and fish the Parana up there. Caught over 40 dorado last week in just 2 1/2 days of fishing. As far as Concordia goes, their absolutely are some HUGE dorado in both the Uruguay and Parana rivers. I caught a 12 kilo monster in concordia on my last trip this past October. As far as girls go just ask your guide, he'll most likely have a few gems for ya. Good luck with the dorado. The best guide in concordia goes by the nickname "the Gato" and charges 500 pesos a day (total for the boat, up to three fisherman). Just drop by the marina and ask for him. His phone number is 0345 422 9245. His email is [email]robertogallegos@argentina.com[/email].


Happy Mongering. Toymann

The dorado at the dam are all monsters. The four of us each caught a 31lbs fish, and lost some even larger. I am geting mine mounted. Lots of 10 to 20 lb fish that jump like hell. The dam had lots of water to release in the afternoon, we fished in the tailrace. Only two boats allowed in the tailrace per day. We stayed at an old polo club and the guide had the girls come over for the night, Good looking! Great time, will be back next year.