When people return from Asia they tell everyone about how sick they got. When people return from travels to South America the talk is all about the bus trips. For me, the bus tirp from Bolivia to Paraguay was a form of ‘adventure’ tourism that i’d never previously experienced.
I had to get out of Bolivia by the 9th of Decemeber as my thirty day visa for the country had quickly come to an end. Hence, i bought a bus ticket for the trans-Chaco highway on the re-assurance from a man wearing a tacky black suit, that the trip would only be twenty four hours maximum. Now i’d heard various things from different travellers that you’re better off flying etc. etc. but i like to believe that ‘you never know until you go’.
I’d prepared well for the bus trip packing the standard mega pack of oreo’s that is essential for any South American bus trip, and even a litre bottle of water. The bus left at 7 a.m on a Thursday nigth and we arrived at the dirt section early the following morning only to be told by officials that the road was closed for twenty four hours. By my definition hearing that you’re stranded in the middle of the Chaco for twenty four hours in a bus with little food and water is bad news. However, it didn’t seem to phase the others on the bus who were pretty light-hearted about the whole situation.
The next morning we were given the green light to continue into Paraguay. We managed to make it in total about three hundred metres before first getting bogged. There were two good reasons that i could identify for this. The first being that the bus driver was relatively new on the job and a bit of an amateur. The second being that the bus company didn’t pay for a permit to drive on the dirt road, so instead we had to drive on the mud track next to it. After another sixteen hours of getting in the bus and then hopping out to help push the bus out of the next puddle we were well and truly on our way to Asuncion. We made it in just before midday the next day, which is something the driver seemed to be a little proud of.
Paraguayans are relatively unaccostomed to tourists, so when they hear your accent everyone goes out of their way to help you and make you feel at home. It’s supposedly the second most corrupt country in the world and so i guess that partly explains why the roads in the north are so poor.
I made my way out of Asuncion on the first bus to Ciudad del Este on the Brazilian border. Ciudad del Este is both home to the biggest hydro-electric damn in the world ‘Itaipu’ and the cheapest electronic goods outside of China. I managed to sneak a free tour of ‘Itaipu’ on the Sunday even though it was closed for the day. I assured the security guards that i’d travelled half way across the world just to see the damn they had the privelage to work at, “But haven’t you come to see the Iguazu waterfalls?” They replied. “Waterfalls, what waterfalls?” They were fooled from the minute they saw me coming.
That night i caught the bus over to Argentina, got some sleep in before checking out Iguazu the next day. The combination of a huge amount of water, a drop and gravity provides for something absolutely spectacular. You can walk around for an entire day, just being amazed at the site of one of the many waterfalls that Iguazu offers. The biggest waterfall ‘el gargante del diablo’ is just a overpowering white mist. It’s hard to make out where the water starts falling and where it hits the river at the bottom. The next day i was heading back to Asuncion to explore the capital a little. The locals don’t seem to be in too much of a rush to be anywhere or do anything, which is my kind of city. They just do their jobs, drink their mate’ and try to stay out of the midday sun.
On Wednesday night i reluctantly took the Trans-‘Wacko’ highway back to Bolivia. However the return leg only took a mere 27 hours. A day and a half improvement on the initial trip.
