Camping in Paraguay and Attempting to Enter Bolivia

After a wrong turn, we found what appeared to be a government compound of sorts in the middle of nowhere. We parked and were greeted by a ranger who led us another 100m down the road to a GIANT 2 story, screened in porch on both floors, building where we could stay for free. There were two other people there, a French girl and a Chilean guy, but other than them we were the only guests.

There was one trail that left from behind the building, so we checked that out pretty immediately. Based on the signage, alcohol was not allowed in the compound, but it was our last day (or should have been) in Paraguay, and we had yet to shotgun a beer there. Accordingly, I packed a couple beers in my back pockets, and then we went on this mile or two long trail through dry chaco. It reminded me a bit of Anza Borrego.  We stopped by a large cactus and shotgunned our beers, then continued on. At some point there were a few signs describing where battles had been fought (who would fight over this land?) between Bolivia and Paraguay, and a couple names of plants.

Back at the building the Chilean guy and French lady invited us to play some cards and we learned a new Chilean game similar to rummy. We did a bit of planning for our route out of Paraguay, and had a pretty low key night.

The next morning I woke up and tried to make pancakes on the range in the kitchen. It took me a while to figure out that the gas was out, which meant that pancakes were gonna be made on the wood fired stove. They were fantastic, like always.

 The couple we were sharing the compound with were also headed to Bolivia, so we gave them a ride the next 300 km to the border. After driving more terrible highway, we arrived at the true political border, where there wasn’t immigration, but there was a customs office for both counties. Odd. We first turned our paperwork into Paraguay, which was a house manned by a couple older men who were pretty good natured. Then we had to walk across the yard to the Paraguayan office. John and the Chilean went while us ladies protected the car from the chickens and dogs roaming the yard. They were gone for A LONG time. At one point the Chilean came back to the car to grab more cash. Apparently we weren’t going to get the car into Bolivia without a $40 USD bribe. Bullshit.

Not much for scale, but this was the middle of the highway. Pavement to this in 10 meters!

Poor Al, but he's toughing it out. It hasn't gotten worse.

We were so excited! And then our dreams were crushed.

Then, we had another 60 km of driving in Bolivia to get to customs office. Once there we had to get our visas, which we were aware of, so we had our documents in order-passport photos, US cash, yellow fever vaccination proof, and copies of our passport. Our friends were welcomed into Bolivia, because they didn’t need visas, while John and I were denied entrance because the border official had a completely (and we suspect outdated) different list of requirements for Americans to obtain visas. He also didn’t like that some of our photocopies had been folded in half. It was ridiculous.

What came next was more ridiculous. We were literally in the middle of nowhere. 3 buildings could be seen;  the immigrations office, an adobe house, and a small store front. Since we weren’t allowed into Bolivia, the immigrations officer sent us to the store to fill out car up with gas for the 5 hour drive back into Paraguay to the nearest town with internet and a printer to get out documents. I asked the lady who was selling us gas out of a plastic jug if she knew of anywhere closer with internet and a printer, and to my relief, she said her husband had one, and that he would be at the store in 5 minutes. What!? So this dude shows up and I’m like “hey, can I use your computer, internet, and printer?”. He was stoked because he couldn’t figure out how to use a printer and I told him I was a computer scientist, so win-win situation, right? He plugged in his USB 4G internet modem into his crappy Lenovo laptop and hooked up the printer all connected to the generator out back of his store, and I went to work installing the printer and getting the documents needed for the visa. While this was happening the immigrations officer must have noticed our car still there and came over to tell us to drive back to Paraguay. What a dick!

And not just drive back as a formality. More like drive back right this second, you can’t be here so you definitely can’t be using this man’s internet. Back we went, pretty furious (and still without music because there was no radio and the phone with all of our music was still dead). We turned in our car paperwork to the Bolivian customs officer, the one we had just bribed, and then when to the Paraguayan office to get our old paperwork back. The Paraguayan customs officials were pretty appalled when we told them why we were back. They had a computer and internet, but no printer, so they couldn’t help us there. Instead, the Paraguayans went to ask the Bolivians if we could use their printer, but they refused. We were seriously out of luck. The closest town with internet access was 4.5 hours away, back along that TERRIBLE road. The Paraguayans gave us contact information of their friend who worked at immigrations, where we got our exit stamp 2 days before, and said he would be happy to help us.

Back we went. It got dark quickly, which made everything worse. We were traveling slower and the car was taking a beating. There was a storm going on to the north, which at least provided some lightening to watch, but otherwise morale was pretty low. Hours later we arrived to this town, and started asking around for our contact, who had apparently gone home to Filadelphia for the night.

Not really a problem though, because there was no way either of us was going to drive back to Bolivia that night. So we drove around the town to realize there was no place to stay, so we slept in the car that night, which was maybe the worst night of sleep yet. Hot with mosquitoes. At least it meant we were up early. We found our man who would let us use his computer and printer, and was super nice. Just let us use his office and everything for like an hour and a half in the middle of the work day while he occupied himself outside his office. We drove back to Bolivia, passing all the cop stops and officials for a 3^rd time, having to explain every time why we drove back and forth and everyone just being in shock about it. At the actual border, the Paraguayans at the customs office were super friendly and gave us lunch of rabbit stew and a pile of vegetables for Acacia, and then said that if we didn’t make it into Bolivia this time they would throw us a party with lots of beer on the way back. Haha, awesome!

But, for whatever reason, Mr. immigrations officer in Bolivia was feeling nicer today. We had been careful to keep all our documents perfectly flat and legible, and when we presented him with all our documents he couldn’t have cared less. I mean, he wanted 8 documents and he wanted them crisp. But, “this is your airline reservation, right?”…. “no, that is our yellow fever vaccination”…. We could have had any 8 pieces of paper and he would have accepted it. AAAAND! He had been explicit about needing American Dollars for payment the day before, but didn’t like our dollars because any slight blemish made the bill unacceptable. So he had us go to the store and change our dollars into bolivianos and pay in the local currency.

It was all so frustrating. And to make it worse, as we were finally leaving he asked me if I was single or married. Seriously?! Even if he hadn’t been such a jerk the day before, he was 30 years older than me. By the time this was all over it was just getting dark. We had to immediately stop at a toll booth, paid, and then as we were pulling out were surrounded by men in military uniforms. They started opening doors and asking both of us questions at the same time, it was quite hectic, but other than being intimidating wasn’t really an issue after we showed them our brand new entrance stamps and let them look for drugs in our incredibly disorganized car. We kept going and about 10 minutes later we nearly rear-ended a truck parked in our driving lane without any lights or reflectors or anything. We slowed as we passed and the guys there asked for some water because their radiator was broken. We gave them what we had, which in hindsight wasn’t the smartest, since we were in the middle of nowhere, now without water, but how could we not, given our previous broken radiator situation.

Another 10 minutes later and our beautiful highway came to a T, without any signs. First we chose left, which seemed more traveled. But after 10 minutes of driving a rutted empty road we began to have doubts. Back to the T and then right. After 20 minutes that seemed even more wrong. So then we went back to the T and waited… and waited… finally we were able to flag down a car and ask for directions to Santa Cruz, the big city that we were headed to, eventually. He painted straight over a 6m high wall of earth. There were tire tracks, but that obviously seemed like the least correct way, so we hadn’t even considered it. With no other option we followed him over this wall, and who would have guessed, it was paved on the other side!? Another kilometer or so later there was another huge road block with rocks, trees, and dirt blocking the road, but a 2m high mound that we were able to climb over on the far side. In another kilometer the same thing, but this time there was a dirt path that led off the road to get around. We continued like this for 50 km or so, with these road blocks every kilometer or two.

Nothing Alejandro couldn’t handle, but definitely required added focus for the driving. Finally we got to a city (something with a V pretty sure) that was large enough to have some places to stay and places to get food. It was not a destination by any means, but the city was big enough to have a gas station, a central market where we picked up a phone charger, and a hot shower.  After spending a night there we were off towards Santa Cruz. With slight issues only ever 100 km or so, where we had to stop and show our paperwork to the police.

The best huminta- cornbread with cheese wrapped in a corn husk and cooked over a fire. We bought this from a vendor at a toll booth on the road to Santa Cruz.