MAP http://www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
Greetings from Encarnacion, the capital of the Departamento of Itapua, and Paraguay´s southernmost city. Across the international bridge from here is Posadas, Argentina.
Today´s ride was only 28 miles, for which I am thankful because it was 107 degrees at 10AM, and topped out at 113. I left Obligado a bit after 9 and got in a bit before noon. Two enormous hills were the highlights of today´s passage through Paraguay. the second one was two miles straight up, and by the time I got to the top, sweat was dripping off of me. At the top, happily, I found a gas station where I bought three bottles of Gatorade and drank all of them. That set me off sweating again, and I looked like I had just stepped out of a swimming pool. At this moment, several people walked up speaking English, and I asked them where they were from, they said they were Peace Corps volunteers. My father was Director of Personel under Mike Balzano for first Peace Corps and then ACTION (Peace Corps´ parent agency) from 1971 to 1976, so I know a thing or two about what they are doing. We had a pleasant conversation and eventually they moved on and so did I.
Approaching Encarnacion, I had the pleasure of one more long hill climb, and then I coasted the last three miles or so down into town, across a beautiful 1,500 foot long bridge over a spur of the Parana River and into town. I found a hotel for 150,000 Guaranis and began whining about being a poor cyclist, and got a 10% discount. I am finding this to be an effective tactic at getting discounts, and plan to continue it.
Encarnacion itself is a very pleasant town. I had business to transact at the bus station (more on that in a minute) and walked the ten blocks two and fro through downtown. Today is ¨Black Friday Paraguay 2014!!!!¨ and all the stores are selling stuff at big discounts. I suppose I should be proud that one more facet of American culture has been exported onto the world. (I remember Black Friday Dominicano last year at this time in the Dominican Republic too...) A couple blocks from my hotel is the Plaza de las Armas, Encarnacion´s principal square, and it is very pleasant, imagine Lafayette Park across from the White House without the bums.
I went to the bus station to see if I could get a ticket through to Brazil, but, apparently, ¨You can´t get there from here.¨ and I am going to have to cross over to Posadas tomorrow. Looking on the internet, I see several routes running on an hourly basis from Posadas to Santo Tome (across from Sao Borja, RS) which take three hours. I suppose I will be on one of them. I could, depending on my attitude, just bin riding the bus in Argentina and RIDE to Santo Tome, but I seem to recall from my 2007 trip down this way that the highway has no shoulder, and considering that Argentines drive like madmen anyway, I do not think I will do this. Were I to ride, it would take two days. The hotel is going to have an ¨international taxi¨ here to pick me up tomorrow morning, bicycles and pedestrians are not allowed on the bridge. On my way back from the bus terminal, I stopped in a bank and changed US$120 into 1,500 Argentine Pesos at the ¨Blue¨ rate. Were I to do this in Argentina, I would get arrested. There, my $120 would be worth about 800 Pesos. There is no way I will spend all this money in the next day or two, but I will be in Buenos Aires eventually. I just hope the extra Pesos do not devalue too much in the interim. Ahh the insanities of an ¨official¨ exchange rate...
While out and about, I also dropped three days worth of (very) dirty clothes off to be washed, for 15,000 Guaranies. I did not really need to wash clothes today, I have six days worth with me, but one of the peculularities of Brazil is that laundromats insist on ironing your underwear, socks and everything else. This, of course, entails additional fees. The end result is I am paying less than $4 to wash three days worth of clothes here, it would probably cost $20 in Brazil. Having my full reportoire of six days of clothing will allow me to not wash clothes again until I am in Uruguay.
I shall write again tomorrow from someplace other than Paraguay...
Friday, November 28, 2014
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Obligado, Itapua Departamento, Paraguay, Mile 417
Map www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
After a couple of day hiatus, greetings from the small, very Germanic, town of Obligado, located about 30 miles northeast of Encarnacion on Route 6. The dearth of internet places is a wonderful example of capitalism in action, I suppose. 15 years ago, such things did not exist, ten years ago, on my first bike trip in Uruguay, they were literally on every corner, now I have only found one outside of Asuncion and in another year or two they will probably not exist again. One of the unintended side affects of cheap smart phones...
Tuesday dawned with dark clouds and thunder, so I decided to remain an extra night in Santa Rita. I should not have; it cleared up rather quickly. I spent the day either in the pool at my hotel, or reading poolside. Tuesday night, when I went to eat dinner, I was happy to see that the restaurant had lasagna on the menu. So I ordered it, forgetting, for a moment, that everyone involved was Brazilian. Sure enough, the lasagna came out with ham in it. I detest ham, and, when in Brazil, am always very insistent that NO HAM be in my lasagna. Not being in Brazil, I forgot to do this, so the waitress watched me very puzzledly as I removed the three layers of ham in it. (I wrapped them up in a napkin and fed them to a stray dog later.) Other than that, it was quite good. During the day, once the threat of rain receded, I grabbed the bike and made a little five mile loop around the town. Santa Rita is a very prosperous place; the Brazilians are bringing in lots of capital (which is why the government of Paraguay wants them), and putting it to good use.
Yesterday dawned beautiful, so I paid off my hotel and headed out onto southbound Route 6. I rode 55 miles, almost all of it through fields of soy beans, and all of it into a south headwind. This was a drag, and unexpected, the prevailing winds this time of year are from the north. As the day progressed, the ride became more rolling, with me roaring down half a mile or more at a high rate of speed to a river, and then clawing my way up the other side. Route 6 is two lanes, one in each direction, but they add a third "slow lane"on these uphill climbs. Very quickly, I came to realize that that third lane meant I would be in the low (of three) of my front gears for a while.
I continued along and eventually came to the town of Maria Auxiliadora, which is known as Dr Perreira on some maps, and asked a cop where the hotels were. He directed me on, after myriad questions about my ride, and did I like Paraguay?, and I found a small room for 80,000 Guaranies a night, right next to a cheap restuarant where I ate for a further 35,000. My total expenses for the day were less than US$30. Things are definitely cheaper than I recall two years ago, my most expensive day here, when I ate both lunch and dinner (unusual) and washed my clothes, has been US$75. When I was in Uruguay two years ago, I was blowing through $100 a day without even trying. I do hope things are cheaper, Dollar wise, in Uruguay this year, as I shall be there shortly.
Having seen the forecast for hot and south winds, I got up this morning rather early and was on the road at 7:30AM. I continued south, and it began to get warm, topping out at 109 degrees. The headwind was worse than yesterday also. I passed through more fields of Soy, and more pronounced dips, at times I would coast down over a mile at 35MPH, and then crawl back up the other side at 5 or 6MPH. Eventually, 27 miles out of Encarnacion, I came to the cutoff for Obligado and decided enough was enough. 109 degrees at noon means it is going to be really pleasant out there on the highway in the afternoon...
Obligado is about two miles west of the main highway, on a paved access road. I knew, courtesy of SENATUR, that it had hotels, so I rode in and found a very nice one, run by Germano-Paraguayans, of course. I was absolutely SOAKED in sweat, to the extent that I think a puddle would have formed under me had I stood still long enough; I took my tee shirt and laid it out on the grass under the sun for a while so it would dry off, other wise it might mold in my dirty clothes bag.
Paraguay has a very high concentration of descendants of German immigrants. Many came a long time ago (Like General Stroessners family), many more arrived rather hurriedly in 1945/1946, and a lot of that bunch probably hope that the Israelis do not come looking for them. The number of known war criminals that Stroessner facilitated into Paraguay during his regime is an embarrassment.
Tomorrow I will ride into Encarnacion, and that will be then end of the Paraguay portion of this trip. I have drawn an utter blank trying to find bus routes on the internet out of Encarnacion. What I want to do is bus from Encarnacion to Sao Borja, Rio Grande do Sul, in a "sealed bus", where I would not have to deal with Argentine customs. I will be poking around the bus station tomorrow checking in to that. If that is not available, I will have to cross into Posadas, Argentina, and take an Argentine bus to Santo Tome, which is across from Sao Borja. I do not want to do this because it entails paying for two taxi rides, across the two international bridges, and it will entail dealing with Argentine customs, who are thieves. (I had trouble with them in Santo Tome in 2007...) We shall see.
After a couple of day hiatus, greetings from the small, very Germanic, town of Obligado, located about 30 miles northeast of Encarnacion on Route 6. The dearth of internet places is a wonderful example of capitalism in action, I suppose. 15 years ago, such things did not exist, ten years ago, on my first bike trip in Uruguay, they were literally on every corner, now I have only found one outside of Asuncion and in another year or two they will probably not exist again. One of the unintended side affects of cheap smart phones...
Tuesday dawned with dark clouds and thunder, so I decided to remain an extra night in Santa Rita. I should not have; it cleared up rather quickly. I spent the day either in the pool at my hotel, or reading poolside. Tuesday night, when I went to eat dinner, I was happy to see that the restaurant had lasagna on the menu. So I ordered it, forgetting, for a moment, that everyone involved was Brazilian. Sure enough, the lasagna came out with ham in it. I detest ham, and, when in Brazil, am always very insistent that NO HAM be in my lasagna. Not being in Brazil, I forgot to do this, so the waitress watched me very puzzledly as I removed the three layers of ham in it. (I wrapped them up in a napkin and fed them to a stray dog later.) Other than that, it was quite good. During the day, once the threat of rain receded, I grabbed the bike and made a little five mile loop around the town. Santa Rita is a very prosperous place; the Brazilians are bringing in lots of capital (which is why the government of Paraguay wants them), and putting it to good use.
Yesterday dawned beautiful, so I paid off my hotel and headed out onto southbound Route 6. I rode 55 miles, almost all of it through fields of soy beans, and all of it into a south headwind. This was a drag, and unexpected, the prevailing winds this time of year are from the north. As the day progressed, the ride became more rolling, with me roaring down half a mile or more at a high rate of speed to a river, and then clawing my way up the other side. Route 6 is two lanes, one in each direction, but they add a third "slow lane"on these uphill climbs. Very quickly, I came to realize that that third lane meant I would be in the low (of three) of my front gears for a while.
I continued along and eventually came to the town of Maria Auxiliadora, which is known as Dr Perreira on some maps, and asked a cop where the hotels were. He directed me on, after myriad questions about my ride, and did I like Paraguay?, and I found a small room for 80,000 Guaranies a night, right next to a cheap restuarant where I ate for a further 35,000. My total expenses for the day were less than US$30. Things are definitely cheaper than I recall two years ago, my most expensive day here, when I ate both lunch and dinner (unusual) and washed my clothes, has been US$75. When I was in Uruguay two years ago, I was blowing through $100 a day without even trying. I do hope things are cheaper, Dollar wise, in Uruguay this year, as I shall be there shortly.
Having seen the forecast for hot and south winds, I got up this morning rather early and was on the road at 7:30AM. I continued south, and it began to get warm, topping out at 109 degrees. The headwind was worse than yesterday also. I passed through more fields of Soy, and more pronounced dips, at times I would coast down over a mile at 35MPH, and then crawl back up the other side at 5 or 6MPH. Eventually, 27 miles out of Encarnacion, I came to the cutoff for Obligado and decided enough was enough. 109 degrees at noon means it is going to be really pleasant out there on the highway in the afternoon...
Obligado is about two miles west of the main highway, on a paved access road. I knew, courtesy of SENATUR, that it had hotels, so I rode in and found a very nice one, run by Germano-Paraguayans, of course. I was absolutely SOAKED in sweat, to the extent that I think a puddle would have formed under me had I stood still long enough; I took my tee shirt and laid it out on the grass under the sun for a while so it would dry off, other wise it might mold in my dirty clothes bag.
Paraguay has a very high concentration of descendants of German immigrants. Many came a long time ago (Like General Stroessners family), many more arrived rather hurriedly in 1945/1946, and a lot of that bunch probably hope that the Israelis do not come looking for them. The number of known war criminals that Stroessner facilitated into Paraguay during his regime is an embarrassment.
Tomorrow I will ride into Encarnacion, and that will be then end of the Paraguay portion of this trip. I have drawn an utter blank trying to find bus routes on the internet out of Encarnacion. What I want to do is bus from Encarnacion to Sao Borja, Rio Grande do Sul, in a "sealed bus", where I would not have to deal with Argentine customs. I will be poking around the bus station tomorrow checking in to that. If that is not available, I will have to cross into Posadas, Argentina, and take an Argentine bus to Santo Tome, which is across from Sao Borja. I do not want to do this because it entails paying for two taxi rides, across the two international bridges, and it will entail dealing with Argentine customs, who are thieves. (I had trouble with them in Santo Tome in 2007...) We shall see.
Monday, November 24, 2014
Santa Rita, Alto Parana, Paraguay, Mile 307
Map: http://www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
Greetings today from the fair sized town of Santa Rita, 44 miles west and then south of Ciudad del Este. This is a most interesting place...
First, the ride. The wind gods smiled upon me today, there was about a 10MPH wind out of the north north east. Since I was riding first west and then south, the wind was my friend today. I left out of my hotel about 8:30 this morning, wearing my Toros del Este T-shirt from the Dominican League in honor of my hotel´s name--Hotel Santo Domingo, and rode two blocks south at which point I turned right on Route 7 and began to retrace my steps from Saturday. There was about ten miles of up-and-downs, always helped by the wind, and then the highway flattened out a bit. At Minga Guazu, half a mile before the four lanes reduced down to two lanes, I encountered the turn-off for Route 6 (NOT Route 9 as I mistakenly said yesterday.) I stopped here to restock on blue gatorade, and headed south. Route 6 stretches 155 miles from the port city of Concepcion, across from Posadas, Argentina, north to Route 7. I knocked 26 of those miles off today, meaning I am now 129 miles from the end of the Paraguayan portion of this ride. Route 6 is neither in as good a shape as Route 7 nor as busy. I stuck to the shoulders, mostly, and, with the wind, went whizzing through endless fields of Soy Beans. The thermometer topped out at 105 degrees on the pavement, and I consumed a total of 5 bottles of Gatorade in the course of a 44 mile ride that lasted about three and a half hours.
The Gatorade is something to mention. I am, as is known, something of a heavy consumer of the products of the Coca Cola Company. When hot, the first thing I usually want is a cold Coke. In my previous half a dozen long bike trips, five down here and one on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I have consumed copious quantities of the stuff with no ill effects. Perhaps I am getting older, or wiser, but after having real problems with the heat on Sunday a week ago riding around Asuncion and then last Monday on the first leg of this trip, I have knocked off the Coke entirely while riding. I drink only Gatorade, when I can get it, and water when I can´t. I still drink my Coke, but in the afternoon, when I am done riding. Since I started doing that, I have had no problems whatsoever, none, with the heat. As I mentioned, the only flavor of Gatorade I can find that I will drink is Blue, but most gas stations stock that. Prices vary anywhere from 7,000 to 12,000 Guaranies for a half-liter bottle, meaning a significant percentage of my total expenditure is going to Gatorade, but it is worth it.
Gasoline in Paraguay runs about $7.00 a gallon, with the price set by the government. There are many different companies selling the stuff, including ESSO (EXXON) and 76 from the US, PetroBras from Brazil, local brands and ¨Petrosur¨, which is like Citgo--Chavez gas, owned by the socialist paradise of Venezuela. As I refuse to buy from Citgo in the US, I also refuse to buy from Petrosur´s convenience stores.
I arrived in Santa Rita about 12:30 this afternoon. I could have gone on, but did not know how far until the next hotel. I did not know this because of the difficulty I had getting on the internet this morning in my hotel in CDE. So I stopped here, in a huge Germanic hotel called the Hotel Stauffenberg. It is a bit expensive, 195,000 Guaranies, but the room is nice and there is a very nice pool which I already used. Being out of clean clothes, I asked where the nearest laundromat was, and after a shower walked my two bags of filthy clothes around the block to said laundromat. Being that I AM in Paraguay, and that Paraguay is a Spanish speaking country, I asked in Spanish when my clothes would be ready and how much it would cost. I got a blank stare, and then a response in Portuguese. Somewhat non-plussed, I repeated myself in Portuguese, and dropped off the clothes. Then I walked across the street to a supermarket and bought a bottle of Coke, and the cashier gave me an ¨Obrigada¨ instead of a ¨Gracias¨ when I paid. So I walked back to the hotel and asked the girl at the counter if, maybe, there might be a few Brazilians in this town, and she responded that ¨we¨ are about 90% of the population. I wonder what the Paraguayans think about all this, but since I have not actually seen any in this place, I cannot ask them.
The weather forcast tomorrow is not promising, I might end up staying here an extra day. I hope not. Nothing against the place, but I want to keep moving.
Greetings today from the fair sized town of Santa Rita, 44 miles west and then south of Ciudad del Este. This is a most interesting place...
First, the ride. The wind gods smiled upon me today, there was about a 10MPH wind out of the north north east. Since I was riding first west and then south, the wind was my friend today. I left out of my hotel about 8:30 this morning, wearing my Toros del Este T-shirt from the Dominican League in honor of my hotel´s name--Hotel Santo Domingo, and rode two blocks south at which point I turned right on Route 7 and began to retrace my steps from Saturday. There was about ten miles of up-and-downs, always helped by the wind, and then the highway flattened out a bit. At Minga Guazu, half a mile before the four lanes reduced down to two lanes, I encountered the turn-off for Route 6 (NOT Route 9 as I mistakenly said yesterday.) I stopped here to restock on blue gatorade, and headed south. Route 6 stretches 155 miles from the port city of Concepcion, across from Posadas, Argentina, north to Route 7. I knocked 26 of those miles off today, meaning I am now 129 miles from the end of the Paraguayan portion of this ride. Route 6 is neither in as good a shape as Route 7 nor as busy. I stuck to the shoulders, mostly, and, with the wind, went whizzing through endless fields of Soy Beans. The thermometer topped out at 105 degrees on the pavement, and I consumed a total of 5 bottles of Gatorade in the course of a 44 mile ride that lasted about three and a half hours.
The Gatorade is something to mention. I am, as is known, something of a heavy consumer of the products of the Coca Cola Company. When hot, the first thing I usually want is a cold Coke. In my previous half a dozen long bike trips, five down here and one on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I have consumed copious quantities of the stuff with no ill effects. Perhaps I am getting older, or wiser, but after having real problems with the heat on Sunday a week ago riding around Asuncion and then last Monday on the first leg of this trip, I have knocked off the Coke entirely while riding. I drink only Gatorade, when I can get it, and water when I can´t. I still drink my Coke, but in the afternoon, when I am done riding. Since I started doing that, I have had no problems whatsoever, none, with the heat. As I mentioned, the only flavor of Gatorade I can find that I will drink is Blue, but most gas stations stock that. Prices vary anywhere from 7,000 to 12,000 Guaranies for a half-liter bottle, meaning a significant percentage of my total expenditure is going to Gatorade, but it is worth it.
Gasoline in Paraguay runs about $7.00 a gallon, with the price set by the government. There are many different companies selling the stuff, including ESSO (EXXON) and 76 from the US, PetroBras from Brazil, local brands and ¨Petrosur¨, which is like Citgo--Chavez gas, owned by the socialist paradise of Venezuela. As I refuse to buy from Citgo in the US, I also refuse to buy from Petrosur´s convenience stores.
I arrived in Santa Rita about 12:30 this afternoon. I could have gone on, but did not know how far until the next hotel. I did not know this because of the difficulty I had getting on the internet this morning in my hotel in CDE. So I stopped here, in a huge Germanic hotel called the Hotel Stauffenberg. It is a bit expensive, 195,000 Guaranies, but the room is nice and there is a very nice pool which I already used. Being out of clean clothes, I asked where the nearest laundromat was, and after a shower walked my two bags of filthy clothes around the block to said laundromat. Being that I AM in Paraguay, and that Paraguay is a Spanish speaking country, I asked in Spanish when my clothes would be ready and how much it would cost. I got a blank stare, and then a response in Portuguese. Somewhat non-plussed, I repeated myself in Portuguese, and dropped off the clothes. Then I walked across the street to a supermarket and bought a bottle of Coke, and the cashier gave me an ¨Obrigada¨ instead of a ¨Gracias¨ when I paid. So I walked back to the hotel and asked the girl at the counter if, maybe, there might be a few Brazilians in this town, and she responded that ¨we¨ are about 90% of the population. I wonder what the Paraguayans think about all this, but since I have not actually seen any in this place, I cannot ask them.
The weather forcast tomorrow is not promising, I might end up staying here an extra day. I hope not. Nothing against the place, but I want to keep moving.
Ciudad del Este, Paraguay/Foz do Iguacu, Parana, Brazil, mile 263
Greetings from the city of Ciudad del Este, which used to be named
Puerto Presidente Stroessner, until Stroessner rather abruptly ceased to
be presidente in 1989, due to a miltary coup. Stroessner had siezed
power in a 1954 coup and, upon removal, was
the longest serving dictator in the world. In the long and sordid
history of Latin American military strongmen in the 20th century,
Stroessner was one of only two who actually had combat experience, in
the Chaco war. (The other one was Humberto Castelo Branco,
who fought with Brazilian forces in the Italian campaign in 1944, and
who removed Brazil's President in 1964.)
I am trying to write this on my tablet. As smart phones become
more ubiquitous, they are driving cyber cafes out of business. Next
trip, I am going to bring a small laptop.
On Friday, I rode 23 miles from Caaguazu to Campo 9, getting in
just before the skies opened and it poured down rain. Nothing
particularly exciting happened on Friday. It rained all night, but
stopped by morning. It was cool and the wind was out of
the south, ie not in my face. I set off thinking I would ride 45 miles
or so to Colonia Yguazu, but it was a good day for riding, I felt good,
and when I got to
Yguazu, I decided to keep going. A few miles on, Route 7 expanded
to 4 lanes, and Route 9 cut off south towards Encarnacion. I will be
riding back the 20 miles to his point tomorrow and turning south. I rode
on, entered CDE, as Ciudad del Este is known,
and at exactly 70 miles on my odometer found a decent hotel for 150,000
Guaranies a night. I paid for two nights. I was filthy, covered in
sweat and dead bugs, which I did not even notice, and staggered into the
shower for half an hour. Emerging, I went
to a restuarant recommended by the hotel and ate a pizza, after fending
off the waitress's pleas that "that's for four people!"I I ate all of
it...
CDE is a zoo, I like it. Imagine Tijuana 30 years ago on steroids.
EVERYTHING is for sale, the place abounds in multi story shopping
malls, and hundreds, literally, of buses bringing Brazilian shoppers
cross the bridge from Foz do Iguacu every day.
Paraguayan customs can be lax, shall we say, in their inspection of
merchandise entering the country, for a small donation, and as a result
CDE is one of he biggest black markets in the world. Almost anything
for sale in Brazil is cheaper here, and a lot
of things NOT for sale in Brazil, like guns, are for sale here also if
you know where to look. (Paraguay has very good gun laws, by theway,
and a homicide rate about one quarter that of Brazil where they are
almost banned.) Anyway, I like it here, and
have a feeling I would fit right in if I got stuck here permanently. I
like living on he border as it is, and here there are not two, but
three borders.
This morning I decided to go look for an open internet place in
Brazil. Half a mile from my hotel is the Puente Internacional de la
Amistad, or Ponte Internacional da Amizade, (international friendship
bridge) depending on whether you are speaking Spanish
or Portuguese. It is about 3000 feet wide, I rode across, waved to
Brazilian immigration, who ignored me, and found myself in Foz do
Iguacu, the westernmost city in the State of Parana. It was like
crossing into the first world, every thing was very neat,
cars stopped at red lights, the streets were clean, and it was utterly
boring. Had I ridden about 10 miles south, I would have come upon
another bridge, across which is Puerto Yguazu, Argentina. Not finding
an internet place, I rode around for about an hour,
bought a Coca-Cola in a gas station (paying with Guaranies and getting
murdered on the exchange rate.), and finally rode back across the
bridge, being happily ignored by Paraguayan customs on the CDE side of
the bridge.
I am about 20 miles from Iguazu Falls, one of the natural wonders
of the world. Why aren't I visiting? Because I already have, twice, in
2003 and 2007. To properly visit the falls takes two days, one day for
the Brazilian side and one day for the Argentine
side. They'll still be there if I want to visit again in the future.
Slightly north of here is "Itaipu binacional", the largest (by far)
hydroelectric complex in the world. The Parana River was dammed at
Itaipu, creating an artificial lake that stretches about 100 miles back.
Paraguay and Brazil each get half the electricity,
but Paraguay cannot come close to using it's half, so it sells about
90% back to Brazil. Paraguay is presently up in arms because Brazil may
have been fiddling the meters to the extent of billions of dollars over
the years. As I rode into CDE yesterday,
on boh sides of the highway were endless lines of transmission towers,
marching west like Martian fighting machines from "War of the Worlds."
Were it not Sunday (sigh) I would love to take a tour of the generating
complex.
Tomorrow I will retrace my steps 20 miles to the west, nand then
head south on route 9 to Santa Rita, probably. Eventually I will make
it to Encarnacion.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Caaguazu, Paraguay, Mile 158
MAP http://www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
Greetings from Caaguazu, 30 miles east of Coronel Oviedo. Today, the wind and heat returned with a vengeance, the temperature topped out at 102, and there was a steady wind out of the east at about 20 MPH which was blowing right in my face the whole trip. I rode a pretty straight shot directly east from Coronel Oviedo here to Caaguazu; I had thought about continuing to Campo 9 25 miles on, but I was really hot and it looked like rain. I am going to try to move on to Campo 9 tomorrow early; the forecast for Ciudad del Este tomorrow afternoon is positively frightening, they are predicting inch-an-hour electrical storms for the late morning and afternoon.
The first part of today´s trip was hilly, which, faced with headwinds, I like, going uphill blocks some of the wind, and the wind only causes me to coast a bit slower down the other side. Given the choice, I would rather ride in mountains or hills than into the wind anyday, what goes up will, eventually, go down, but wind never ends. The second part of the ride was just flat, into the wind, I boogied along at about 9 miles an hour, which is not very fast to put it mildly. Getting into Caaguazu, I rode around a bit and found a likely hotel that ended up being very nice, 90,000 Guaranies (about $20) and they have a pool, which I already used. The guy at the desk was also nice enough to let me upload my pictures onto his laptop; I saved them and mailed them to myself and will post them here later. (I want to get him his computer back as soon as possible.)
As I move east, I am now about 90 miles from the Brazilian border at Foz do Iguacu, and the Brazilian presence is getting more notable, Everyone at the restuarant I ate at last night was speaking Portuguese, and so are the other guests here at this hotel. Eastern Paraguay is very much an economic colony of Brazil, and it is showing.
That is all for today´s quick report, and now ownership can have their computer back.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Coronel Oviedo, Paraguay, Mile 128
MAP ADDRESS: http://www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
Greetings from the crossroads town of Coronel Oviedo, a place that, while not quite half way between Asuncion on the west and Ciudad del Este on the east is basically the halfway point across the country. Coronel Oviedo marks the eastern terminus of Paraguay Route 2, and the westbound terminus of Route 7, which goes to Ciudad del Este. It is also bisected north to south by Route 8, which starts at Caazapa, 60 miles south, and goes north for hundreds of miles into the Chaco. It is named after Colonel Florentino Oviedo, a war hero (naturally) who somehow survived the Triple Alliance war (He had the good luck to be taken prisoner by the Brazilians) and died at age 95 in 1935, a major political leader in the area. The Brazilians were sufficiently impressed with him that they offered him promotion to General and lots of money if he would switch sides, which he did not do. What is impressive about the guy is he entered the army as a Private, with no money or family, and made it as far as he did. On the other hand, of course, when you are one of the very few surviving males in your country after the war, there´s not much competition.
I woke up this morning about 7AM, and saw it was raining, so I rolled over and went back to sleep until 9. At that point, the rain had stopped, so I checked out of my hotel (forgetting to return my key, something I did not notice until miles down the road. Oops.) The day was very cloudy, threatening rain, and I had verified on the internet that there were hotels in Itacurubi de la Cordillera, a town about 20 miles east if the skies opened. As it happened, they did not; I stopped in Itacurubi, which is a pretty, small town, for a few minutes for a Coke and some Gatorade at a gas station, and continued on my way. On my way out the east end of the town, I rode through a copse of yellow flowers that smelled like honeysuckle or lilac. Very pretty.
From Itacurubi, I rode about 10 miles to the town of San Jose de los Arroyos, then made a half left and rode 20 laser straight miles into Coronel Oviedo. About an hour out of Cor Oviedo, it began to rain, but not enough to cause any problems. Before leaving, I had double wrapped all my electronic stuff (Tablet, cell phone, camera, radio, I-Pod and assorted chargers and cables) in plastic bags and buried them in my saddlebags, so nothing got wet. Nor did any pictures get taken either. I put my wallet and passport in another plastic bag inside my camelback.
Paraguay and Brazil (but not Uruguay, which is much more civilized) place rumble strips every 100 yards or so on the shoulders of highways, to keep impatient people from using the shoulder as an additional lane. So far, and on all my sojour on Route 1 two years ago, the MOPC people had very thoughtfully left a two or three inch gap in the middle of these strips, which allowed me to steer through them. Today, I began encountering strips with no gaps. This is bad for multiple reasons. If I take these at speed, I will start breaking spokes, as well as loosening the straps that hold my saddlebags in place. (At 30 MPH down a hill, hitting one of these might send me flying.) The sensible thing to do, one would think, would be, traffic permitting, to just zig out into the traffic lane at each strip and then zag back in, but the highways are constructed in such a way that the lanes are about 3/4 of an inch higher than the shoulders, so doing that is almost as bad as just riding over the rumble strips. I found myself riding on the white line on the right of the traffic lane for stretches, and I did not like it. If there was no oncoming traffic, I did not worry about people behind me passing me, but when I had a truck overtaking me and another truck approaching, I was forced back on to the shoulder, and then forced to slow to about 5 MPH to go over the rumble strips. Today´s ride was very hilly; when I was going UP a hill, this did not bother me because I was only going about 5 MPH anyway, but when I was trying to make up time by flying down the other side it was a real pain in the neck. The last few miles had no rumble strips at all; I hope it continues that way into Cd. del Este.
It never got over 82 degrees today, and the wind was negligible. The ride was so much easier, although I continued drinking lots of water and Gatorade. For some reason, the only two flavors of Gatorade (which is imported from Peru, of all places) I can find are red and blue. I can tolerate blue, but really wish they would stock yellow or purple...
I had my cheapest meal of the trip last night; at another one of these places where food is paid for by weight, I spent 15,000 Guaranies (less than four bucks) on two large milanesas (chicken fried steaks), a beef empanada, bread (to make sandwiches with my milanesas and a Sprite. Not bad. Prices are definitely cheaper; today´s perfectly acceptable hotel cost me 70K (and I ¨splurged¨ an extra 10,000 on a ¨deluxe¨ room with AC and Frigo-bar), which is less than I spent anywhere two years ago. I do hope this keeps up.
This is funny. I just realized I am getting charged in the internet joint by the SECOND. 1 Guarani and 11 (I guess) Centavos per second. I am going to demand exact change...
Greetings from the crossroads town of Coronel Oviedo, a place that, while not quite half way between Asuncion on the west and Ciudad del Este on the east is basically the halfway point across the country. Coronel Oviedo marks the eastern terminus of Paraguay Route 2, and the westbound terminus of Route 7, which goes to Ciudad del Este. It is also bisected north to south by Route 8, which starts at Caazapa, 60 miles south, and goes north for hundreds of miles into the Chaco. It is named after Colonel Florentino Oviedo, a war hero (naturally) who somehow survived the Triple Alliance war (He had the good luck to be taken prisoner by the Brazilians) and died at age 95 in 1935, a major political leader in the area. The Brazilians were sufficiently impressed with him that they offered him promotion to General and lots of money if he would switch sides, which he did not do. What is impressive about the guy is he entered the army as a Private, with no money or family, and made it as far as he did. On the other hand, of course, when you are one of the very few surviving males in your country after the war, there´s not much competition.
I woke up this morning about 7AM, and saw it was raining, so I rolled over and went back to sleep until 9. At that point, the rain had stopped, so I checked out of my hotel (forgetting to return my key, something I did not notice until miles down the road. Oops.) The day was very cloudy, threatening rain, and I had verified on the internet that there were hotels in Itacurubi de la Cordillera, a town about 20 miles east if the skies opened. As it happened, they did not; I stopped in Itacurubi, which is a pretty, small town, for a few minutes for a Coke and some Gatorade at a gas station, and continued on my way. On my way out the east end of the town, I rode through a copse of yellow flowers that smelled like honeysuckle or lilac. Very pretty.
From Itacurubi, I rode about 10 miles to the town of San Jose de los Arroyos, then made a half left and rode 20 laser straight miles into Coronel Oviedo. About an hour out of Cor Oviedo, it began to rain, but not enough to cause any problems. Before leaving, I had double wrapped all my electronic stuff (Tablet, cell phone, camera, radio, I-Pod and assorted chargers and cables) in plastic bags and buried them in my saddlebags, so nothing got wet. Nor did any pictures get taken either. I put my wallet and passport in another plastic bag inside my camelback.
Paraguay and Brazil (but not Uruguay, which is much more civilized) place rumble strips every 100 yards or so on the shoulders of highways, to keep impatient people from using the shoulder as an additional lane. So far, and on all my sojour on Route 1 two years ago, the MOPC people had very thoughtfully left a two or three inch gap in the middle of these strips, which allowed me to steer through them. Today, I began encountering strips with no gaps. This is bad for multiple reasons. If I take these at speed, I will start breaking spokes, as well as loosening the straps that hold my saddlebags in place. (At 30 MPH down a hill, hitting one of these might send me flying.) The sensible thing to do, one would think, would be, traffic permitting, to just zig out into the traffic lane at each strip and then zag back in, but the highways are constructed in such a way that the lanes are about 3/4 of an inch higher than the shoulders, so doing that is almost as bad as just riding over the rumble strips. I found myself riding on the white line on the right of the traffic lane for stretches, and I did not like it. If there was no oncoming traffic, I did not worry about people behind me passing me, but when I had a truck overtaking me and another truck approaching, I was forced back on to the shoulder, and then forced to slow to about 5 MPH to go over the rumble strips. Today´s ride was very hilly; when I was going UP a hill, this did not bother me because I was only going about 5 MPH anyway, but when I was trying to make up time by flying down the other side it was a real pain in the neck. The last few miles had no rumble strips at all; I hope it continues that way into Cd. del Este.
It never got over 82 degrees today, and the wind was negligible. The ride was so much easier, although I continued drinking lots of water and Gatorade. For some reason, the only two flavors of Gatorade (which is imported from Peru, of all places) I can find are red and blue. I can tolerate blue, but really wish they would stock yellow or purple...
I had my cheapest meal of the trip last night; at another one of these places where food is paid for by weight, I spent 15,000 Guaranies (less than four bucks) on two large milanesas (chicken fried steaks), a beef empanada, bread (to make sandwiches with my milanesas and a Sprite. Not bad. Prices are definitely cheaper; today´s perfectly acceptable hotel cost me 70K (and I ¨splurged¨ an extra 10,000 on a ¨deluxe¨ room with AC and Frigo-bar), which is less than I spent anywhere two years ago. I do hope this keeps up.
This is funny. I just realized I am getting charged in the internet joint by the SECOND. 1 Guarani and 11 (I guess) Centavos per second. I am going to demand exact change...
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Caacupe, Paraguay, Mile 77
MAP: http://www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
Greetings from the "Spiritual Capital" of Paraguay. Today I am in the town of Caacupe, a whopping 21 miles east of Capiata on Route 2. Caacupe is famous for its huge cathedral, La Basilica de la Virgen de Caacupe, and every December 8, there is a huge pilgramage of penitents, some of whom get here by walking on their KNEES from Asuncion, all asking for their prayers to be answered. I am glad I will not be anywhere near hear on December 8.
This morning, I headed out about 10AM, and had a choice, either stop in Caacupe or potentially continue another 50 miles on to Coronel Oviedo; a highway patrol officer I asked at a toll plaza swore up and down that there are no hotels between Caacupe and Coronel Oviedo. I somewhat doubt that, but would not like to find out the hard way that he was right. Today´s high temperature was 107 degrees and the wind was out of the east, meaning I was riding into it, but I felt much better than yesterday. No cramps at all. Before leaving my hotel room, I drank a quart of water, stuffed another into my camel-back, and midway along the route, at the beautifully named armpit of Ypacarai, I stopped at a gas station and bought a Coke, which I drank there, and a bottle of blue Gatorade, which I saved for later.
Just east of Ypacarai, the road began an incredibly steep climb about 5 miles straight up. Everytime I would see a curve ahead of me, I would think this has got to be the top, and every time I rounded the curve, I would see another hill. I passed a number of overheated vehicles on the side of the highway, radiators steaming. At the very top, I took a break, drank my gatorade, and took some pictures (not included here, again, there being no way to upload them.) and then rolled downhill at about 30 MPH the last five miles into Caacupe. Ensconced in my hotel, I took four days of VERY dirty clothes off to be washed, which cost me a bit less than four Dollars, and will shortly go in search of food.
I wish I had brought my journal (where I keep track of mileage and expenses) from my trip two years ago with me to compare prices, but I get the distinctive impression that things are rather cheaper. In those two years, the Dollar has appreciated about 15% against the Guarani, but I remember paying in the neighborhood of $40 a night for hotels, and so far, the three nights in Asuncion cost $19 each, last night was 100K Guaranies, about $21, and tonight was 150K Guaranies. I hope this trend continues.
As I mentioned in my first post, I took a million and a half Guaranies out of an ATM on arrival. I probably had no need to take that much out, since every little town in the country has multiple exchange places that give perfectly acceptable prices for one hundred dollar bills. Before leaving, I secreted nine $100 bills in my money belt, stashed a few more in my shaving kit, and a few more in a secret part of my wallet. I will, hopefully, be withdrawing no more money on this trip, exchange houses are every bit as ubiquitious in Uruguay as they are in Paraguay, and I would have to be absolutely insane to use an ATM in Argentina; I can change Dollars on the street there at about double the "official" rate an ATM would give me. Brazil will be the one place where I will have to either exchange a lot of Dollars at the border, or use ATMs; it is almost impossible to exhcange foreign currency in Brazil away from the border or a tourist center. (And, as someone who lived in Brazil 25 years ago at a time of multiple thousands per cent of anual inflation, that absolutely astounds me. How times have changed. Now Brazil is selling Real denominated bonds on the international market at four or five percent...)
Tomorrow, I head on. Hopefully it will not rain on me...
Monday, November 17, 2014
Capiata, Paraguay, Mile 56
MAP: http://www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
Greetings from the town of Capiata, a whopping 16 miles outside of Asunción. I did not get far today, unfortunately, like last year it is taking me a couple of days to get used to being suddenly thrust out of winter and into a tropicla summer.
Greetings from the town of Capiata, a whopping 16 miles outside of Asunción. I did not get far today, unfortunately, like last year it is taking me a couple of days to get used to being suddenly thrust out of winter and into a tropicla summer.
Today´s ride was...interesting. From where I stayed to the entrance to Route 2 on the outskirts of Asunción was a distance of exactly 10 miles. It took me almost two hours to get that far, the traffic had to be seen to be believed. I rode out of downtown, past ¨Mercado 4¨, an enormous municipal market (Multiple city blocks big) that anyone who has seen the Paraguayan film ¨7 Cajas¨ (Seven Boxes) will recognize, and got on to Ave Mariscal Estigarribia. Stopped traffic does not usually stop me on a bicycle; I just ride between lanes. Here, however, the lanes are not as wide as they should be, and these un-wide lanes were mostly occupied by buses. I could not get through, so I had to sit through several cycles of every red light, breathing diesel fumes, to be able to move on to the next red light. By the time I got on to route 2, it was noon and 118 degrees according to my thermometer. I headed east on 2, consuming large quantities of water and Gatorade, passing, among other things, the Paraguayan Military Academy, which was surrounded by cramming schools (One named ¨West Point¨) which promised that, for a fee, they would ¨guarantee¨ that you passed the entrance exam. Shortly past the academy was a steep uphill, and on this both my legs and both my feet began to cramp up. At the top of the hill was a sign saying it was 20 miles to Caacupe, a fairly large town, and I figured I would stop there, but the cramping kept getting worse. At just this moment, I saw a hotel, and decided to bin things for the day.
The hotel I stopped at is a couple of miles east of Capiata proper (Which isn´t much), and surrounded by nothing, so, after a long shower (I was literally dripping sweat from all my clothes), I paid 2,500 Guaranies and took a bus back into town to find something to eat and somewhere to use the internet. The bus driver had two hands, one of which he was using to hold the cell phone into which he was having a lenghty and detailed conversation and the other one of which was used for shifting gears (It´s Paraguay. Automatic transmissions are rare on the ground.), taking fares and making change for passangers, and, occasionally, for holding on to the steering wheel. Except at red lights, the bus never actually came to a full stop the whole time I was on it, it just slowed down and you hopped on or off. Every block or two someone would get in the front door with a bunch of Cokes and work his way out the back door trying to sell them. Most exciting. I was on the bus for about two miles; I may walk back...
The same lack of restuarants in the smaller towns that I noticed in Paraguay two years ago continues. There is a ¨chipperia¨ (something like a Tijuana taco stand, selling burgers, empanadas and hot dogs) a hundred yards from my hotel, but it won´t open until this evening. I found a bakery and bought a couple of meat empanadas, a Coke and 7 pieces of FrenchBread, in case the chipperia does not open tonight, for rather less than two Dollars total.
Tomorrow I am going to move on to Caacupe, and maybe beyond if I don´t cramp. I am a little worried about the long term weather forecast; if it holds up I may be getting wet for a while. We shall see.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Asuncion, Paraguay, Mile 40
Greetings from Asuncion, once again. South America in general, but Paraguay in particular on a Sunday is interesting. NOTHING is open in Asuncion, with the exception of this internet place, a few gas stations and, later, restuarants. If you needed groceries, or something from a shopping mall today, too bad.
There being no steam train for me to take a ride on today, I would have left on the first stage of my trip today, except for the fact that I want to visit the MOPC (Ministry of Public Works---the people in charge of building highways) on Monday to find out about the progress of the paving of Paraguay Route 8 north of Coronel Bogado. Whether it is passable or not to a bicycle will determine the route of my trip. That will be my first order of business in the morning, then I will be on my way, in all likelyhood heading east out of Asuncion on Route 2 towards the crossroads town of Coronel Oviedo; I may or may not make it that far tomorrow, depending on headwinds.
Today, I did about 24 miles around Asuncion, and plotted it on my interactive map. URL is here:
http://www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
You will probably have to zoom in a bit to see where I was. I sweated a lot, the temperature on my speedometer got up to 107 Degrees, and I was done the ride before Noon.
Asuncion is interesting. Much more than any other Latin American city I have visited, every other street is named after either a battle or a war hero. Paraguay is almost unique in the region in that it has actually produced a large number of genuine war heros, and they are all named on some Asuncion street or other. Fighting two monstrous wars in the space of 80 years will do that. I went over this in depth two years ago, but the war against the Triple Alliance of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay in 1865-1870 almost resulted in the extermination of the Paraguayan race; there were fewer than 1,000 adult males left in the country after the Brazilians finally wiped out the last Paraguayan army. 70 years later, the Chaco War against Bolivia over ownership of the Chaco region of northern Paraguay resulted in a Paraguayan "victory" that left almost 5% of the population dead, which is on a level with what happened to Germany or Japan in WWII. These two disasters seem to have cured Paraguay of any great desire to attack any one; there have been no wars since, but the participants are all remembered and revered. There is still an office of pensions for Chaco War veterans doling out small sums of money to the few surviving veterans.
Moving around on the bike today, in the heat, made me thirsty, and I stopped at a little stand set up to take advantage of the weekend closing of the coast boulevard for a Coke. The family running it sold me one, for 5,000 Guaranies, and then suggested (in Spanish) that I sit in the shade of their little tent, which I did, and they then resumed their conversation, ignoring me. I understood not a word. Spanish is not the first language for the vast majority of Paraguayans, Guarani is. In Asuncion, the two have fused into a dialect called "Joropa" which is about 90% Guarani and 10% Spanish, and I understand nothing of it. I suppose if I lived here for a few months I would pick it up, but almost everyone also speaks Spanish (which is not necessarily true in the countryside), so I am able to communicate.
Tonight I will probably return to the interesting restuarant I ate in yesterday, it is a "Churrasqueria", serving meat and more meat. You go to the grill, pick out what you want, they slice away onto your plate until told to stop, and you then choose another cut, and so on. From there, you can add rice or whatever, and then the plate is weighed. Cost is 6,990 Guaranies for 100 Grams, which works out to about 68 Cents an ounce. Yesterday I ate my way through $19 Dollars, including Cokes and tip...
Tomorrow, I will send another report from someplace other than Asuncion. Hopefully it will include photos, I took many today, but cannot upload them on to the ancient computer I am using.
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Voyage from Tijuana to Asuncion and Arrival in Paragauy
Greetings from Paraguay's capital city of Asuncion. I will shortly be
starting my bike trip, today all I did was ride around Asuncion a bit.
More on that shortly.
Being the cheapskate that I am, I am always on the lookout for the cheapest airline tickets possible. That led me on this trip, for the first time, to fly COPA Airlines out of Tijuana and not United or someone else, out of Los Angeles. I took my bike to the airport Thursday night, and hopped on the midnight AeroMexico flight to Mexico City, where I arrived at 5AM (three hours later, taking into account time zones) Friday morning. AeroMexico codeshares with Copa, and this proved cool, because COPA charges $100 to ship a bicycle, but AeroMexico only charges 789 Pesos, about $57US. I happily paid the fee to AeroMexico. Arriving in Mexico City, I sat around for four hours until 9AM, which was just long enough to get into a dispute with the less than helpful management in a restuarant where I ate breakfast over a very small corner of a 500 Peso note that was ripped off. (Banco de Mexico runs adds on the radio saying that as long as a note is 51% there, it is valid.) They wouldn't accept it, so I said fine, no tip for you. Then I went and spent the 500 note buying a phone card, and the cashier at 7-11 did not even look at the corner. What fun...
At 9AM, I got on a COPA flight to Panama City (COPA is based out of Panama, and no matter where you are flying on them, you WILL be visiting Panama City.) arriving there another three hours later in a torrential rainstorm. The approach to the airport was interesting, I had a window seat and looking out the window could see literally hundreds of freighters waiting in line to get into the Panama Canal. My paternal great grandfather was an engineer who worked on the Canal, and my grandmother spent many years of her childhood living in what was then the Canal Zone.
From Panama, it was on to another COPA flight to Asuncion. Takeoff in the pouring rain was fun, but uneventful. This was a six hour flight, arriving at Asuncion about 11 20 PM local time. Asuncion is two hours ahead of Eastern time and five hours ahead of Pacific time. By a great miracle, both my bike and my saddlebags actually arrived with me (unlike two years ago), so a went got my passport stamped (after convincing the customs guy that my Visa really was for "multiple entries", and not single entry.) and then visited an ATM machine where I helped myself to a million and a half Guaranies, which is about $350 US at a rate of 4,700 to the dollar. I immediately mentally kicked myself for not taking out a million 480, because I found myself in possession of fifteen 100,000 Guaranie notes, and worried about change. Fortunately, the cabbie who took me to my hotel had change. I got to my room and fell asleep until noon today.
Upon waking up, I wandered a couple blocks to a very useful tourism office where I aquired several useful maps, and found out to my great regret that the wood burning steam locomotive pulled trains no longer run the 20 mile Sunday tourist train from Asuncion to Aregua. I had REALLY wanted to go on that train, and, in fact, that is why I scheduled myself to come in over the weekend. Twas not to be, however.
I then returned to the hotel, assembled my bike, and headed out to tour Asuncion. I had not been able to do this in 2012, thanks to LAN airlines losing my bicycle for three days, so this was my first time biking the city. I found several very pretty parks, and discovered that they close the coastal boulevard (Avenida Costanera) to motor traffic on weekends, leaving a nice 2 and a half mile long road for cyclists to ride on. I did not take any pictures today, because I forgot to bring my camera, but I will tomorrow, and will upload them to the blog then.
Now it is off to find dinner.
Being the cheapskate that I am, I am always on the lookout for the cheapest airline tickets possible. That led me on this trip, for the first time, to fly COPA Airlines out of Tijuana and not United or someone else, out of Los Angeles. I took my bike to the airport Thursday night, and hopped on the midnight AeroMexico flight to Mexico City, where I arrived at 5AM (three hours later, taking into account time zones) Friday morning. AeroMexico codeshares with Copa, and this proved cool, because COPA charges $100 to ship a bicycle, but AeroMexico only charges 789 Pesos, about $57US. I happily paid the fee to AeroMexico. Arriving in Mexico City, I sat around for four hours until 9AM, which was just long enough to get into a dispute with the less than helpful management in a restuarant where I ate breakfast over a very small corner of a 500 Peso note that was ripped off. (Banco de Mexico runs adds on the radio saying that as long as a note is 51% there, it is valid.) They wouldn't accept it, so I said fine, no tip for you. Then I went and spent the 500 note buying a phone card, and the cashier at 7-11 did not even look at the corner. What fun...
At 9AM, I got on a COPA flight to Panama City (COPA is based out of Panama, and no matter where you are flying on them, you WILL be visiting Panama City.) arriving there another three hours later in a torrential rainstorm. The approach to the airport was interesting, I had a window seat and looking out the window could see literally hundreds of freighters waiting in line to get into the Panama Canal. My paternal great grandfather was an engineer who worked on the Canal, and my grandmother spent many years of her childhood living in what was then the Canal Zone.
From Panama, it was on to another COPA flight to Asuncion. Takeoff in the pouring rain was fun, but uneventful. This was a six hour flight, arriving at Asuncion about 11 20 PM local time. Asuncion is two hours ahead of Eastern time and five hours ahead of Pacific time. By a great miracle, both my bike and my saddlebags actually arrived with me (unlike two years ago), so a went got my passport stamped (after convincing the customs guy that my Visa really was for "multiple entries", and not single entry.) and then visited an ATM machine where I helped myself to a million and a half Guaranies, which is about $350 US at a rate of 4,700 to the dollar. I immediately mentally kicked myself for not taking out a million 480, because I found myself in possession of fifteen 100,000 Guaranie notes, and worried about change. Fortunately, the cabbie who took me to my hotel had change. I got to my room and fell asleep until noon today.
Upon waking up, I wandered a couple blocks to a very useful tourism office where I aquired several useful maps, and found out to my great regret that the wood burning steam locomotive pulled trains no longer run the 20 mile Sunday tourist train from Asuncion to Aregua. I had REALLY wanted to go on that train, and, in fact, that is why I scheduled myself to come in over the weekend. Twas not to be, however.
I then returned to the hotel, assembled my bike, and headed out to tour Asuncion. I had not been able to do this in 2012, thanks to LAN airlines losing my bicycle for three days, so this was my first time biking the city. I found several very pretty parks, and discovered that they close the coastal boulevard (Avenida Costanera) to motor traffic on weekends, leaving a nice 2 and a half mile long road for cyclists to ride on. I did not take any pictures today, because I forgot to bring my camera, but I will tomorrow, and will upload them to the blog then.
Now it is off to find dinner.
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