Map http://www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2#
I have arrived in Uruguay´s capital of Montevideo after a 65 mile ride today in from Piriapolis. I rode out of Piriapolis towards the east on Route 10 about 10 miles to the little town of Solis, where 10 ended and I got on the InterBalnearia at KM 83. The highway into Montevideo was now a four lane divided highway, with, happily for me, a wide shoulder which I rode while cars went whizzing past me at 80MPH. A few miles after getting on the IB, I crossed a little river, rode through a toll plaza and passed out of Maldonado Departamento and into Canelones. 25 miles later, The same thing happened, another river, another toll plaza, and I was in the Uruguay´s smallest, but most populated, departamento-Montevideo.
After this second toll plaza, I had the choice to continue west a bit more on the highway, or to follow the coast in. I chose the coast, and for the last 20 miles of the ride, past the Naval Academy, the Carrasco Casino, and the very nice neighborhood of Pocitos, I always had the water (the River Plate, specifically) on my left.
Montevideo is laid out much like Punta del Este (albeit on a much larger scale) with a little finger of land sticking out into the river at its southern extreme. This is "Kilometer Zero", all highway and rail distances are measured from this point. To the east of it (where I was today) is almost all residential; the last ten miles into the city were past and endless array of 10 to 15 story apartment and condo buildings. To the west of it are the Port facilities, Naval headquarters, the (abandoned) train station, and then an industrial wasteland stretching off another ten miles or so out of the city.
Coming into the city I was struck by the utter absence of taxi cabs. Then I saw a newspaper. They are on strike. Sunday morning, someone killed a cab driver, then stuffed his body into his cab and set it on fire. This not the first time this has happened, the police are useless, and it is illegal for the cabbies to carry weapons for self defense, so they are, very justifiably, not happy. What is apparantly happening is that ¨children¨ will run out in to the street and lie down in front of a car, forcing it to stop. Then their friends come out and assault it. As I will be running around in a rent a car in a few days, (albeit not in the neighborhoods where this kind of activity is common), I will keep that in mind and treat anyone who tries that on me as a portable speed bump. In the meantime, no cabs. I hope they are working by Wednesday night when I go to the airport to pick up my car...
Tomorrow, it is supposed to rain, but I am not going anywhere anyway, so that does not matter. I have a few pieces of business to attend to, and if I can I will get in a ride in the afternoon. On Wednesday, a friend of mine graciously invited me to his family´s farm, so I will be out in the country all day.
I updated the online map, by the way, to remove some of the multiple waypoints, and also just drew one straight line from Foz do Iguacu to Santa Victoria do Palmar to represent my bus trip.
Monday, December 8, 2014
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Piriapolis, Uruguay, Mile 745
Map www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
I continued westbound towards Montevideo today from Punta del Este. Piriapolis is not far, from hotel to hotel was only a distance of 27 miles. Oh, but what fun those 27 miles were...
I continued westbound towards Montevideo today from Punta del Este. Piriapolis is not far, from hotel to hotel was only a distance of 27 miles. Oh, but what fun those 27 miles were...
I had to pay for a couple of Cokes I had signed for in the hotel this morning. That was fun. There was a huge group of super annuated Argentines also all trying to check out, all needing to pay for one thing or another, and only two guys at the front desk, both of whom looked very stressed. I eventually paid them off, retrieved my bike from storage, and attached the saddle bags, and was on my way. The old Argentines were all loading themselves onto Argentine plated buses, and all waved at me as I rode by. I actually like this, why should anyone stop going to the beach just because they have reached a certain age. They certainly looked like they had been enjoying themselves.
I rode half a mile to an ESSO station, where I had a Coke and a Conaprole bar, and bought a couple of bottles of Gatorade which I stuffed into a little item I bought some time ago at the Camp SLO PX, a camoflauged mini cooler made to hook on to LBE gear. Two half liter bottles fit, barely, in it, and it in turn fits, barely, in my central little saddle bag that rests on top of the rack holding my two main saddle bags. In 100 degrees, it will keep a bottle cold for over an hour, which is impressive, and much better than my Camel Back will do.
Now prepared, I set off, and immediately ran into the headwinds that had been forecast yesterday. I made about 10 MPH for the first six miles or so out of PDE, at which point the ¨Interbalnearia¨ (Uruguayan highways are numbered, except for the superhighway that runs from Montevideo to PDE. This has no number, and is simply referred to as the Interbalnearia, ¨balneario¨ being a vacation town. It is referred to as ¨Ruta IB¨ on signs.) climbed a massive hill. On top of the hill, I found some shade and drank both Gatorades. Aside from being windy, it was over 100 degrees at 10:00AM.
Coasting down the other side, now about 10 miles out, I found another ESSO where I bought three more Gatorades, for five Pesos each less than in PDE. The wind now really began to kill me, and my speed fell to about 8 MPH as I passed the Punta del Este International Airport by on the right. A few miles past the airport, Route 10 cut back out from the IB, and I took it south back to the coast. The wind temporarily at my back, I flew along, until I hit the water. Here I stopped to drink another Gatorade, and then turned back north west into a wind coming out of the north west at about 25MPH. I was down to 6 MPH now, and, to finish me off, this is an area of sand dunes, so I was getting my face and glasses scoured by sand. I have not been wearing contact lenses much for the last year or two, courtesy of a corneal ulcer, and that was a good thing today, had I been wearing lenses, that sand would have torn them up, but good.
I finally arrived in Piriapolis, rode past the Cerro San Antonio, one of the highest hills (there are no mountains) in Uruguay, and found a hotel for the very reasonable price of 700 Pesos. Showered, I went out and found a bakery where I bought a large bottle of Coke and a piece of bread for my lunch. I then took the bike back out, minus the saddle bags, and rode up the Cerro San Antonio. This was a climb of about 400 feet in one mile, which is about an 8% grade. That was loads of fun. The road corkscrews up the hill, making two and a half loops around it, and passing twice under a cable suspended system of gondolas (like a ski lift) that transports those too lazy to ride their bikes up the hill. On top, there was a view all the way back to Punta del Este. I took some pictures, and then went flying back down the hill at close to 40 MPH.
Piriapolis is a beach town founded in the 1930´s by an Argentine named Piria (ergo the name). He built a huge hotel (where I am NOT staying, it runs over $100 US a night) and began running overnight ferries directly from Buenos Aires. I would say that the majority of tourists here are still Argentines, not Uruguayans. The beaches are very nice, and feature gentle waves, because they are no longer fronting on the south Atlantic Ocean, but rather on the River Plate (Rio de la Plata). The River Plate formally debouches into the Atlantic at Punta del Este, and the southern point of PDE is the dividing line between the river and the ocean.
Something I forgot to mention yesterday is that next week, on December 13, it will be the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the River Plate. On December 13, 1939, three British and one New Zealand cruisers attacked the German battleship Graf Spee off Punta del Este. They damaged it to the point that the captain put in to Montevideo for repairs, something that caused the Uruguayan government to nearly have a collective heart attack; they feared that the British were going to come in to the harbor after it, which would probably have resulted in the total destruction of the city. The British stayed out, and the Uruguayans put a 72 hour time limit on the Graf Spee´s stay, as neutrals are required to do under international law. At the end of the 72 hours, the Graf Spee sailed out and scuttled herself, with the crew fleeing to Nazi-friendly Argentina where they are ¨interned¨ in such a way that they all shortly ¨escaped¨ and returned to Germany. Except the captain. He got a hotel room in Buenos Aires, wrapped himself in a German navy flag (not a Nazi flag) and blew his brains all over the wall. The Uruguayans have a little monument to the Royal Navy in Punta del Este conmemorating this battle.
Tomorrow, I should have favorable winds again, so I will push on westwards towards Montevideo.
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Punta del Este, Uruguay, Mile 708
Map: www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
Greetings from Punta del Este. I am in what is, by a mile or two over Montevideo, the southernmost spot in Uruguay, and in Uruguay's best known resort town. Befitting its status as a tourist trap, PDE is not, to put it mildly, cheap.
I rode 74 miles here today from La Paloma, the longest ride so far of this particular trip. The first 17 miles were absolutely appalling, heading due north, mostly uphill, into a wind that was forecast to be "between 10 and 20 MPH". It was closer to 20... This happy excursion took almost two hours. This stage ended when I hit Route 9, the main highway to the east, at the town of Rocha, which is the capital of the Departamento of the same name. Rocha sits to the north of Highway 9, so I did not enter it, but I did enter an ESSO station where I stocked up on yellow gatorade.
From here on, the ride was very pleasant. I was now riding southwest towards PDE, and that horrible wind was mostly at my back, or, at the worst, blowing perpendicular to me. Some 15 miles east of Rocha, I crossed the Arroyo Garzon, and entered the Departamento of Maldonado. This arroyo is one of two that cut Route 10, the coast highway, south of La Paloma. If they were bridged, I would not have had to fight my way up to Rocha against the wind. I continued along through ranchland mostly populated by sheep and wind turbines another 10 miles or so and eventually came to a paved, but un-named and un-numbered road that lead south back to Route 10 at the little town of Jose Ignacio, now east of the unbridged waterways. Here, to my happiness, was an ANCAP station; I had drunken my three gatorades and bottle of frozen water en route, and was thirsty, so I loaded up on more gatorade and continued. From here to Punta del Este (PDE) was another 25 miles. The first 10 or so were relatively undeveloped, but then the high rises and luxury polo (yes, polo) clubs began. Five miles or so from my destination, I crossed an iconic bridge which looks like the side of a lasagna noodle; the roadway goes UP then down then UP again, then back down. Do this too fast in a car, and you will leave the pavement. The other side of this bridge was nothing but high rises, and I eventually rode into PDE proper and found a hotel near the bus station.
After showering, I decided to take the bike back out and do a loop through PDE proper to take pictures. I have been here before, but I now have a far superior camera to what I used to have, and wanted to get better pics. PDE is, literally, a "point" of land that sticks about a mile due south out of the Uruguayan mainland. The northern half, ie closest to the mainland, is full or condos, casinos and luxury hotels. The southern half is "residential" in the sense that it is full of houses, but no one actually lives in these houses. They are rented out to, usually, rich Argentines for up to US$30,000 a month during the summer season. Argentina these days is close to becoming another Venezuela, so I have a feeling that there are going to be fewer Argentines with money to spend this summer, but we will see. One thing that is very interesting is seeing the exchange house price on Argentine Pesos vis the Uruguayan Peso--The "Buy" rate is U$1.40 for one, and the sell rate is U$2.40 for one. NEVER in my life, and I pay very close attention to these things vis the Mexican Peso at home, have I seen a "spread" this wide. This is 40%. A normal spread on the US Dollar is about 3% here, which I consider a rip off. It is a sign that the Argie Peso is about to collapse. When it does, be assured that the US will be blamed...(These numbers, of course, have absolutely no connection whatsoever with whatever "official" price for the Argentine Peso Buenos Aires is touting these days.)
PDE is interesting. The people who come here tend to have very high disposable incomes, and are similar to the kind of "party people" who hang out in places like Miami Beach. Not exactly my thing, but to each his own. It gets dark right now about a quarter to 9PM, and when I walked back from my dinner at 8:00, the beaches were still packed. In fact, when I left for dinner at 7:00, someone was asking for towels at the front desk because they were just now leaving for the beach. These people will stay out there until sundown, at which point they will come back, clean up, and go have dinner about 10:00. Then, all the "cool" places to hang out will open up around midnight, and remain open until 6 or 7AM tomorrow morning. Then everyone will go home, sleep all day, and be back on the beach in the late afternoon.
For the last three days, I have had favorable wind (except this morning). It looks like that is about to end. Tomorrow, I will probably only push on to Piriapolis, another 30 miles or so west from here, and yet closer to Montevideo.
Greetings from Punta del Este. I am in what is, by a mile or two over Montevideo, the southernmost spot in Uruguay, and in Uruguay's best known resort town. Befitting its status as a tourist trap, PDE is not, to put it mildly, cheap.
I rode 74 miles here today from La Paloma, the longest ride so far of this particular trip. The first 17 miles were absolutely appalling, heading due north, mostly uphill, into a wind that was forecast to be "between 10 and 20 MPH". It was closer to 20... This happy excursion took almost two hours. This stage ended when I hit Route 9, the main highway to the east, at the town of Rocha, which is the capital of the Departamento of the same name. Rocha sits to the north of Highway 9, so I did not enter it, but I did enter an ESSO station where I stocked up on yellow gatorade.
From here on, the ride was very pleasant. I was now riding southwest towards PDE, and that horrible wind was mostly at my back, or, at the worst, blowing perpendicular to me. Some 15 miles east of Rocha, I crossed the Arroyo Garzon, and entered the Departamento of Maldonado. This arroyo is one of two that cut Route 10, the coast highway, south of La Paloma. If they were bridged, I would not have had to fight my way up to Rocha against the wind. I continued along through ranchland mostly populated by sheep and wind turbines another 10 miles or so and eventually came to a paved, but un-named and un-numbered road that lead south back to Route 10 at the little town of Jose Ignacio, now east of the unbridged waterways. Here, to my happiness, was an ANCAP station; I had drunken my three gatorades and bottle of frozen water en route, and was thirsty, so I loaded up on more gatorade and continued. From here to Punta del Este (PDE) was another 25 miles. The first 10 or so were relatively undeveloped, but then the high rises and luxury polo (yes, polo) clubs began. Five miles or so from my destination, I crossed an iconic bridge which looks like the side of a lasagna noodle; the roadway goes UP then down then UP again, then back down. Do this too fast in a car, and you will leave the pavement. The other side of this bridge was nothing but high rises, and I eventually rode into PDE proper and found a hotel near the bus station.
After showering, I decided to take the bike back out and do a loop through PDE proper to take pictures. I have been here before, but I now have a far superior camera to what I used to have, and wanted to get better pics. PDE is, literally, a "point" of land that sticks about a mile due south out of the Uruguayan mainland. The northern half, ie closest to the mainland, is full or condos, casinos and luxury hotels. The southern half is "residential" in the sense that it is full of houses, but no one actually lives in these houses. They are rented out to, usually, rich Argentines for up to US$30,000 a month during the summer season. Argentina these days is close to becoming another Venezuela, so I have a feeling that there are going to be fewer Argentines with money to spend this summer, but we will see. One thing that is very interesting is seeing the exchange house price on Argentine Pesos vis the Uruguayan Peso--The "Buy" rate is U$1.40 for one, and the sell rate is U$2.40 for one. NEVER in my life, and I pay very close attention to these things vis the Mexican Peso at home, have I seen a "spread" this wide. This is 40%. A normal spread on the US Dollar is about 3% here, which I consider a rip off. It is a sign that the Argie Peso is about to collapse. When it does, be assured that the US will be blamed...(These numbers, of course, have absolutely no connection whatsoever with whatever "official" price for the Argentine Peso Buenos Aires is touting these days.)
PDE is interesting. The people who come here tend to have very high disposable incomes, and are similar to the kind of "party people" who hang out in places like Miami Beach. Not exactly my thing, but to each his own. It gets dark right now about a quarter to 9PM, and when I walked back from my dinner at 8:00, the beaches were still packed. In fact, when I left for dinner at 7:00, someone was asking for towels at the front desk because they were just now leaving for the beach. These people will stay out there until sundown, at which point they will come back, clean up, and go have dinner about 10:00. Then, all the "cool" places to hang out will open up around midnight, and remain open until 6 or 7AM tomorrow morning. Then everyone will go home, sleep all day, and be back on the beach in the late afternoon.
For the last three days, I have had favorable wind (except this morning). It looks like that is about to end. Tomorrow, I will probably only push on to Piriapolis, another 30 miles or so west from here, and yet closer to Montevideo.
Friday, December 5, 2014
La Paloma, Uruguay, Mile 631
Map http://www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
Greetings from the small beach resort of La Paloma, about 80 miles west of Chuy and 50 miles east of Punta del Este. I spent last night in the VERY small resort of Aguas Dulces, where there was no internet.
The Uruguayan concept of "summer" does not jibe with that we have in the United States. South of the equator, December corresponds with June in the US; it is the first month of summer. In the US, the summer beach season gets underway at Memorial Day, at the end of May, and by June, the beaches are packed. Not here. Here, the "summer season" does not really start until the day after Christmas. What this means is that many beach towns are still pretty much locked up for winter right now. A case in point is Aguas Dulces, where I was very lucky to even find a place open to rent me a room, and where I had a choice of exactly one restuarant to eat in the evening. Nothing else was open. Lots of people were in their places of businesses, getting them ready, but they were not ready yet. The situation is the same here in La Paloma, most of the restuarants and hotels in town are not yet open for summer.
After I finished up in the internet place in Chuy on Wednesday, I emerged into the light of day outside to see that the sun had come out. So, I went back to my hotel in Brazil, retreived my bike, and went for a ride about 8 miles east on State Highway RS-699 to Barra do Chui, which is the southernmost spot anywhere in Brazil. From there I crossed a little bridge into Uruguay, and returned another 8 miles or so back to Uruguay Route 9, about 5 miles south of Chuy. I rode a mile or two north, and discovered why so many RS plated cars had been crossing into Uruguay at the out of the way bridge in Barra do Chui--the Uruguayan immigration station was actually checking cars. I assume that, for one reason or another, all the cars detouring out to Barra did not want to come in too close of a contact with customs, something I, who have forgotten to pay tax on LOTS of stuff I have taken to Mexico, can easily understand. I, on the other hand, went in to Customs to get an Uruguayan entry stamp in my passport. Back in Chuy, I got an absolutely terrible steak (What part of "rare" people are not understanding I do not get. Incinerated meat has been a problem for me this whole trip.) and that was the end of my day.
Yesterday, I jumped on my bike at 8 sharp and rode down to get my no longer dirty clothes from the laundromat, packed them up, and set off east into Uruguay. I had, again, the wind in my face, and that slowed me down to an average speed of about 10MPH. After 50 miles of this, I decided enough was enough and turned off of Route 9 onto a secondary highway, route 15 and ended up in Aguas Dulces. For 700 Pesos, I got what amounted to an efficiency apartment, which was not a bad deal at all. 700 Pesos today is just about exactly $30 Dollars. Two years ago, 700 Pesos would have been $40 Dollars. I am very happy with the changes in the exchange rate... The apartment had a little refrigerator in it, so I went and bought a 2 liter bottle of Coke and a couple of little bottles of water for today´s ride. Thinking ahead, I decided to put one of the water bottles in the freezer, so it would keep the other bottle cold in my Camel Back. About 2 AM I woke up and, on a whim, checked the bottles; neither was frozen. So I turned the refrigerator up to Max cold. This morning, the bottle in the freezer was still not frozen, but the bottle of water and my bottle of Coke that were in the refrigerator were.
This morning, I rode the 40 miles from Aguas Dulces to La Paloma in about three hours. I could have turned right and ridden another 15 miles north to Rocha, but decided the beach would be a better place to stay. I checked in to a hotel run by an old hippie type who I know from previous trips to Uruguay, and then, sans saddle bags, went for about a 15 mile ride around the town. Coming back in, I found a Choripan (sausage sandwich) truck and had a few. O my were they good.
Tomorrow, I will continue on eastwards, towards Montevideo.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Chui, RS/Chuy Uruguay, mile 497
http://www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2
Greetings from a cyber joint in Chuy, Uruguay. After two days and a total of 30 hours riding buses, I am back to my bike ride.
Monday morning in Foz do Iguacu was rainy. In fact, I nearly drowned riding the two miles from my hotel to the "rodoviaria", or bus station. I had what I had thought was a waterproof windbreaker, but it turned out to be not so waterproof. My saddle bags, luckily, are waterproof. When I got to the rodoviaria, I went into a stall in the bathroom and changed out of my soaking clothes, and then walked the bike out to the platform and dismantled it, removing the front and rear wheels as well as the saddle bags and pedals. I loaded it on the bus, and then had to wait while they rigorously inspected my passport to verify that I had both a Brazilian visa and a valid entry stamp. I asked why, and was told that if I was illegal and immigration caught me in Porto Alegre, they would ask me how I got there. If I told them what bus line I took, the bus line would be fined. Interesting.
At 11;50 AM, I then set off on a 22 hour ride from Foz do Iguacu to Porto Alegre, the capital of the State of Rio Grande do Sul that took me first east to the city of Cascavel, Parana, and then south into towns like Realeza and Pato Branco, then into the State of Santa Catarina, where the biggest town I stopped in was Chapeco, and then into Rio Grande do Sul and, at 10AM Tuesday morning, after spending an hour in a traffic jam outside of Porto Alegre caused by a rather gruesome motorcycle accident, arriving at Porto Alegre´s huge rodoviaria. It was raining when I left Foz, and it was still raining when I arrived in Porto Alegre. In Porto Alegre, I spent eight Reais at baggage storage for them to watch my bike, and then went to the ¨intra-state¨ ticket window and bought a 1PM ticket for Santa Victoria do Palmar, a little town about 15 miles north of the Uruguayan border, and 325 miles south of Porto Alegre. Rodoviarias in big cities in Brazil are like train stations in the US used to be. Colosally busy, they have everything a traveler could want, includeding good restuarants, internet places, the aforementioned baggage storage, and tourist offices. Once I had my ticket, I availed myself of one of the restuarants, then went to my bus company´s "VIP Lounge", where they had newspapers, an internet signal and even a couple of free computers. About half an hour before 1, I retrieved my bike, and at the appointed time loaded it onto my new bus; this time no one even asked to look at my passport, I suppose if I were illegal, it was too late to stop me now.
Another eight hour ride followed, down to the city of Pelotas, and then further down to Santa Vitoria do Palmar, a little town that used to depend on ranching, but now finds itself at the center of a huge wind power generation area. The place is certainly prospering, compared to 4 years ago when I was last here. I rode through the rain to a hotel, then headed out and got an absolutely excellent pizza (good pizza in South America is almost unheard of.) and then returned to my room and passed out, having been awake for most of the previous two days.
This morning, it had stopped raining, but a gale force wind was now blowing out of the southwest. I rode out of town and headed into this wind, and slowly made my way south towards the Uruguayan border. A couple miles before the border, it began to rain in earnest again, luckily for me, I was within a mile of the Brazilian immigration station where I had to stop anyhow to get my passport stamped. That done, I stood there talking to a couple of Policia Federal types for half an hour until the rain stopped, and then rode about a mile south where I had to duck into a Shell station for another 15 minutes to avoid more rain. With all that, it took me over two hours for today´s little ride.
Arriving in Chui (with an I), RS, I found a hotel and then, it having stopped raining, walked half a mile west on Avenida Uruguai, the main drag, to a laundry place (where I insisted that I did NOT want my clothes ironed, only washed) to wash my filthy and soaking wet dirty clothes.
Avenida Uruguay is one way, westbound. Having dropped my clothes, I crossed the street, walked over the center divide, and found myself on Avenida Brasil, which is one way, eastbound. Except I was no longer in Brazil. The center divide is the border between Brazil, on the north and Uruguay on the south. As soon as I stepped onto Avenida Brasil, I was in Uruguay, now in the city of Chuy, (with a Y). I walked back the half a mile, and found an exchange house where I turned $250 into 5,963 Uruguayan Pesos at 23.85 Pesos to the Dollar. Then I walked to a gas station, which had no cars at the pumps; gasoline in Uruguay is almost $7 a gallon, it is under $4.50 in Chui, Brazil, and bought a CoNaProLe ice cream bar, which I had been waiting for the whole trip. CoNaProLe makes the best ice cream bars I have ever had, and I wish they would export them. From there I visited the Uruguayan tourism office and got a map, and directions to the internet joint I am currently using.
The two Chuys are a most interesting place. Like Rivera/Santana do Livramento a couple hundred miles west of here, they are basically one city located in two countries. Chuy, Uruguay is full of duty free stores selling cheap booze, cigarrettes and perfume, and Chui, RS is full of pharmacies and auto parts stores, as well as gas stations which are doing a rollicking business with Uruguayan drivers. When I arrived at my hotel, the girl behind the desk and I spoke Portuguese, the hotel being on the Brazilian side, but when I came back down half an hour later with my laundry, there was a different girl who responded to my question in Portuguese about where the laundromat was in Spanish. So we continued in Spanish. The person running the cyber joint, which is in Uruguay, is communicating in Portuguese. It is all most interesting.
If it will ever stop raining, I am going to take the bike out and ride a couple miles south of town to the Uruguayan immigration post to get my passport stamped, and then may take a ride a few miles east to Barra do Chui, which is famous for being the "most southerly" spot in all of Brazil. Hopefully it will stop raining...
Monday, December 1, 2014
Foz do Iguaçu, Parana, Mile 478
Greetings from, again, Foz do Iguaçu. I did not plan to be here...
Saturday morning, nice and early, I got an international taxi from my hotel in Encarnacion to take me across the bridge into Posadas, Argentina, where I then planned to take a bus to Santo Tome, Argentina, cross another bridge, and continue my journey from Sao Borja, Rio Grande do Sul. That did not happen...Argentine customs refused me entry into the country because I did not pay a ´´reciprocity fee´´ over the internet prior to entering the country. This fee is $161 Dollars, and the ugly widow who is (mis)running Argentina apparently thought that sticking it to the gringos would win her political points at home. Had I returned to Paraguay to pay the fee, it would have taken so long that I would have missed my bus anyhow. So, I binned Argentina, had the taxi driver take me to the Encarnacion bus station, and bought a ticket to Ciudad del Este, from where I rode across the bridge into Foz do Iguaçu, this time stopping at Brazilian immigration and getting formally admitted to Brazil.
Sunday, yesterday, I rode to the Foz bus station and bought a ticket to Porto Alegre, leaving in about an hour and a half from now. This will take 21 hours, and when I arrive in Porto Alegre, I am going to buy another ticket to the Uruguayan border and continue my ride in Uruguay. I am going to end up in Buenos Aires eventually on this trip, which means I am going to pay that idiotic fee, but at least I am spending as little money as possible in Argentina.
Sunday afternoon, I got the bike out again and rode south of Foz to the ``Marca das thres fronteiras´´, which is a monument where the Iguaçu and Parana rivers come together. Across the Iguaçu, which is muddy from the falls upstream, is Argentina. Across the Parana is Paraguay. In each of those countries there is an identical ´´triple border marker´´. The views were incredible. I did not know this, but there is a car ferry running from Paraguay to Puerto Yguazu, Argentina.
Last night, I found a Churrascaria, ie an all you can eat meat place, and did my best to destroy their bottom line. I had an excellent and huge meal, and it came, with a very generous tip, to only twenty bucks. Brazil is cheaper than it was two or, especially, four years ago...
That is all for now, I will be writing again from Uruguay in a couple of days. Right now I am in what the Brazilians call a ´´LAN House´´, ie an internet cafe a few blocks from my hotel. I will now be heading off to the bus station...
Saturday morning, nice and early, I got an international taxi from my hotel in Encarnacion to take me across the bridge into Posadas, Argentina, where I then planned to take a bus to Santo Tome, Argentina, cross another bridge, and continue my journey from Sao Borja, Rio Grande do Sul. That did not happen...Argentine customs refused me entry into the country because I did not pay a ´´reciprocity fee´´ over the internet prior to entering the country. This fee is $161 Dollars, and the ugly widow who is (mis)running Argentina apparently thought that sticking it to the gringos would win her political points at home. Had I returned to Paraguay to pay the fee, it would have taken so long that I would have missed my bus anyhow. So, I binned Argentina, had the taxi driver take me to the Encarnacion bus station, and bought a ticket to Ciudad del Este, from where I rode across the bridge into Foz do Iguaçu, this time stopping at Brazilian immigration and getting formally admitted to Brazil.
Sunday, yesterday, I rode to the Foz bus station and bought a ticket to Porto Alegre, leaving in about an hour and a half from now. This will take 21 hours, and when I arrive in Porto Alegre, I am going to buy another ticket to the Uruguayan border and continue my ride in Uruguay. I am going to end up in Buenos Aires eventually on this trip, which means I am going to pay that idiotic fee, but at least I am spending as little money as possible in Argentina.
Sunday afternoon, I got the bike out again and rode south of Foz to the ``Marca das thres fronteiras´´, which is a monument where the Iguaçu and Parana rivers come together. Across the Iguaçu, which is muddy from the falls upstream, is Argentina. Across the Parana is Paraguay. In each of those countries there is an identical ´´triple border marker´´. The views were incredible. I did not know this, but there is a car ferry running from Paraguay to Puerto Yguazu, Argentina.
Last night, I found a Churrascaria, ie an all you can eat meat place, and did my best to destroy their bottom line. I had an excellent and huge meal, and it came, with a very generous tip, to only twenty bucks. Brazil is cheaper than it was two or, especially, four years ago...
That is all for now, I will be writing again from Uruguay in a couple of days. Right now I am in what the Brazilians call a ´´LAN House´´, ie an internet cafe a few blocks from my hotel. I will now be heading off to the bus station...
Friday, November 28, 2014
Encarnacion, Paraguay, Mile 445
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...
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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