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...
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