Reserva Itabo

Paraguay has several reserves within its boundaries, and while they aren´t as geologically impressive as the ones along the Andes in Chile and Argentina, they are ecologically teeming with life. However, people in Paraguay seem much less stoked on the reserves than in the previous countries we´ve visited because signage to the parks was all but non-existent, and asking people where they were didn´t seem to help because most of the people didn´t know what we were talking about. Without a map, or even an idea of what towns were around, this made finding Reserva Itabo difficult.

After being pretty sure that we passed a turnoff for the reserve I flipped around on the highway and then drove back to the turnoff. I stopped at the turnoff to verify the sign I saw, hoping the cops sitting at the intersection wouldn´t check us out. As they approached, I asked them if they knew where the reserve was (a general strategy of asking the police for help has seemed to be beneficial as it puts the police in the role of helping rather than intimidating).  In any case, these police clearly did not like our Chilean license plates or American passports. So, they searched our car for drugs and sniffed the bottle of wine? Then they had no idea where the reserve was. Anyway, we continued down this turn off which eventually became a dirt road through lost of agricultural land, mostly corn, and a good distance from any town. According to the pamphlet we had received at Itaipu Dam, we had to enter the reserve by 5pm. At 5pm and about 40km from the reserve it was pretty clear that was not going to happen. We kept on anyway since there wasn´t any place else to go.

We got there at about 6pm to find construction going on at the entrance and had to drive around on this large field towards a group of buildings hoping one of them would be administration or something. We ended up finding some guy who we proceeded to give our signed document of permission to stay to and he took us to a huge empty dormitory with kitchen, hot showers, and a great front porch with a view over the lake. Best part was, it was free. We hung out for a bit throwing Frisbee in the super lit up road (they obviously wanted to use that energy they were producing) had a couple of "malt" beers and made a vegetable hash for dinner. Hanging out playing some cards that night we heard some of the employees at the reserve playing a soccer game and others just hanging out at one of the other dorm buildings making dinner together.

Working at Google made me feel a bit like I was on some kind of a compound where everything was provided for me to keep me there as long as possible. But this place had a bit of an eerie compound feel, but worse because it was so isolated.

The next morning I woke up before Acacia and walked over the the administration office to see if anyone was around, and there were a few guys all hanging out drinking Terere (Paraguayan mate, served cold with mint and lemon). One of them, who seemed to be the guy in charge, asked what I was doing and if he could help me with anything. I told him I was here with my friend and wanted to go check out the nature trails into the reserve that we had been told existed. All the guys were like whoa! You can't go in there yourself! There's jaguars! And then they all proceeded to act out being a jaguar and eating me. It was strange. But, the dude in charge called his boss and said that his boss would drive us into the reserve later in the day and show us around. In the meantime, one of the other employees took me on a walk all around the living/working area of the compound. He told me where he worked, showed me the fruit trees, walked me down to the lake/reservoir from the dam. He seemed to be pretty stoked about working there and said that most people are. He also told me that the reserve is one of the major drug trafficking routes into Brazil because its very difficult to police so Colombian drugs work there way south through Bolivia and Paraguay and end up on boats crossing the reservoir. He told me to listen for motors in the night because they are probably drug traffickers. Alright, reason two not to go into the reserve ourselves!

Later that day the boss came by our building, introduced himself as a ranger at the reserve, and said he'd be back in about an hour to give us a tour. Perfect. Acacia and I hung out reading, or at least looking at words to pretend like I was reading, and playing Frisbee. It was super mellow here. The boss came back about an hour later and we hopped into his truck and he explained that he'd been working for the Itaipu company for the last 14 years as a ranger. He went to university for biology, studied for a bit somewhere in Europe, and started working at one of the other reserves but got transferred to this one just a year or two ago. Fist he drove us to an interpretive nature trail. It was only a couple kilometers, but through jungle that was definitely too dense to explore without a trail or machete.We saw several large spiders, he showed us a couple important trees, and explained that it was out of season to see any of the cool animals. After the trail walk he drove us to a large camping area where mostly university students come to learn and/or do research in the park. There was a pretty fantastic looking waterfall and pool.

After he drove us back, he gave us some packets of information about other reserves and then took our picture to document us. I can't imagine there's very many tourists visiting the reserve since it must be impossible to reach via public transit, even though its the perfect backpacking spot. Free, comfortable, off the typical tourist track, etc.

The rest of the day we hucked disc some more, made some pretty disgusting wine and beer concoctions, which actually improved both of them. The other trick was to add vanilla extract to the malt beer, which was a super sweet "low fermentation" beer, because it made it taste like cream soda. I walked down to the reserve to smoke a cigar, which besides being a good Cuban, also kept the mosquitoes away. I watched the sunset and some of the employees walk down to the reserve and do some fishing. Acacia and I played some more cards when I got back, listening to the sounds of another soccer game.

The next morning I was up early and made some pancakes, this time with the beer since I couldn't think of any other way I was going to consume it. As I was cleaning up though, there was some Itaipu official doing an inspection of the building and a bunch of guys were checking all the lights, toilets, sinks, etc, while Acacia was trying to sleep. So she was up earlier than normal. After the inspection we cleaned up and packed our stuff, waved goodbye to our most recent home, and hit the road in the direction of Asuncion.