Cintia Meyer: The Woman From Córdoba Who Traveled Through 40 Countries and Ended Up Founding a Reserve in the Misiones Rainforest

She worked as a river lifeguard in Carlos Paz, left for Spain in 2007 with a contract that turned out to be different from what she had been promised and, instead of returning, spent more than a decade traveling around the world. Those savings, accumulated through temporary jobs in around forty countries, ended up buying 33 hectares of rainforest in Misiones. Today, Cintia Meyer is 41 and runs El Tortugal alongside her partner, Andrés Álvarez: a nature reserve in Aristóbulo del Valle where retreats and workshops pay for planting native trees and raising stingless bees.

From the Carlos Paz Waterfront to a Contract in Spain

Before there was any nature reserve, there was a swimming pool and a river. Cintia Meyer is from Córdoba, is 41 and qualified as a physical education teacher. For a time, she worked as a river lifeguard in Carlos Paz, the kind of seasonal job many people use to pay for something else.

In her case, that something else was leaving.

In 2007, she secured a lifeguarding contract in Spain and left. What she found there did not resemble what she had been offered: the working and living conditions led her to resign. Instead of returning, she stayed and changed fields. She ended up working in public relations in Benidorm, a city on the Alicante coast that lives off tourism.

That decision—not to return when the original plan fails—reappears throughout the rest of her story.

Forty Countries and an Encounter on an Island

She spent the following years on the move, combining working holidays and volunteer placements. She has traveled through around forty countries.

On Waiheke, an island in New Zealand’s Hauraki Gulf, she met Andrés Álvarez, an Argentine from Campana. They continued traveling together: Australia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

In 2017, with all that experience behind them, they built something out of what they had learned. They created a blog aimed at Argentines who want to travel or work abroad and published a book, Traviajando. Their accumulated knowledge stopped being anecdotal and became a product.

The Decision to Return and Buy Forest Land

In 2018, they decided to return to Argentina. The idea was not to settle in a city.

They saved everything they could and bought a 33-hectare property in Misiones, on National Route 14 at kilometer 926, a few minutes from downtown Aristóbulo del Valle. The property had already operated as accommodation, so they did not start from scratch in terms of infrastructure, but they did in everything else.

Today, the place is called El Tortugal, Reserva de Naturaleza, and has three cabins and a large kitchen. It is surrounded by rainforest, with trails, a stream, a waterfall and wild birds. Visits are by prior reservation only.

What They Do With the 33 Hectares

What distinguishes the project from rural accommodation is where the money goes. The retreats and workshops they organize provide funding for protecting the reserve.

Their conservation work has three concrete pillars. The first is bees: they established a meliponary, where native stingless bees are raised—the bees that pollinate the rainforest and are different from those that produce commercial honey. The second is planting native species to restore the forest. The third is agroforestry, a system that produces food without clearing the forest, allowing crops and trees to coexist on the same plot.

Added to that are activities for visitors: guided walks along the trails, yoga classes, natural therapies and workshops on yerba mate and medicinal plants, which in Misiones are not decorative subjects but part of the local economy and culture.

They also sell what they produce. Jams, aperitifs, liqueurs, nursery seedlings, cosmetics and natural medicine products, all made using agroecological methods.

Why the Case Draws Attention

Aristóbulo del Valle is in central Misiones, in the area that provincial tourism promotes as the Enchanted Valley, and is gaining ground as a destination beyond the traditional Iguazú Falls circuit. El Tortugal is listed among its accommodation options.

What makes the case distinctive is not the tourism venture itself, of which there are many in the province. It is the sequence: a physical education teacher who began by watching over swimmers in a river in Córdoba, spent more than ten years moving around the world through temporary jobs and used those savings to buy forest land and make it productive without cutting it down.

The money brought in by yoga retreats supports planting native trees and raising bees. It is a model in which visitors finance, without fully realizing it, the work that allows the place to continue existing.