Day 3

Marcial and Roberto met us at the hotel for breakfast. Roberto's family on his mother's side is from Italy, up north of Milan. His uncle was a marine under hitler and stationed outside of buenos aires. When the Graf  Spey was sunk in the battle of Montevideo, he escaped and took a row boat down the Parana to Buenos Aires. The survivors were given the choice of staying or returning to Germany with full hero honors. He returned and was sent to a wrk concentration camp,branded with a number for being part of the losing battle. After the war he left Germany and came back to Argentina, taught himself Spanish, built six or so paint fabrication plants. He is now retired,  is 82, and lives in Buenos Aires.
Roberto drove us through Santa Tome on the other side of the river Salado and then to Sauce Viejo . Santo Tome has 470,000 people with 100,000 being very poor and living in the low areas that get flooded. All of these areas were flooded out in 2003. We got into some boats with 40hp outboards and went out among the islands in the huge area of wetlands between the Parana estuary and Santa Fe. Ducks, fish, including a golden one, el dorado, and people raising cattle on the islands. The bring them in and out by boat.  One boat captain was Daniel and I was in a boat with Andres who is running for president of the local council with an eye to building up the duck hunting and fishing tourist business for Sauce Viejo.
We lunched at a club with 3 rotary clubs in attendance and the district governor also. A typical meal with a baked meat empanada, locro, and grilled chicken. The wine was a small batch Malbec from Mendoza. Marcial's wife, Maria del Carmen is from Mendoza and the wine is bottled and labeled for the rotary club and part of the cost helps to fund their program for infants born with disabilities. The female doctor who runs the program is very dedicated and articulate, their program is one of 18 in the various provinces.
The host club is de Santo Tome 7 de marzo, Ruben is the president. Also attending we're the clubs of Galvez and Coronda. They gave many gifts including wine, jams, books of poetry by local authors, and some elaborate plaques as well as banners. There were a variety of speech opportunities and also a local music group with voice, guitar, violin, and percussion.  Each one of us also did a video interview, both in English and Spanish, for a local station. One of the socios makes his living as a stain glass artist. It was a very relaxed and convivial event with much of the organization by Marcial and Carmen .
We left there with members of the club de Santa Fe " Los constituents" who drove us over to their city, constitution city, along the Parana. Then we went to the city of Parana, 270,000 people. A nice clean and pretty city square with a fountain brought from France and a big cathedral. Also some lovely big trees including a ficus, and special magnolia and a lonix regia "chivato". Because it was a nation holiday, day of the worker, the 2 mile tunnel was closed, it is also closed on new year's day. The view of the Parana is spectacular. There are beaches and parks all along the side of the river, but because it was a rainy day there were not many people. The river is 4 kilometers wide at this point. About 50 kilometers to the south begins the delta and continues down to where the Parana joins the Rio de La Plata.  We had a coffee and came back to the hotel. The same people will pick us up at 9:30 to go to the beer garden across from the brewery we toured yesterday.

Their club was started in 1969 in the brewery where five of the founding members worked. They have 26 members, president is Ernesto. Mario and Ezio took us around today. Ezio is an architect and also an urban reforestation expert, really knows his trees. One of the rotary club projects was to forest a park at the entrance of constitution city with native trees including quebracho colorado and xxxx. He also is a pretty good singer and so we ended the evening with the whole group singing. Bekah has a video of the four singing in the afternoon and Ezio singing "La Creciente" in the beer garden.