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.
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