Santa Cruz and Parque Amboro

Arriving in Santa Cruz was one of the most difficult driving experiences I’d ever had. The city is huge, with traffic for kilometers in all directions outside of the city center and very poor signage. And, once you get close to the center, the downtown area is organized in giant traffic rings, so every few hundred meters was like a 4-lane, turned 8 lane, traffic circle to fight through. And between the circles were a bunch of one way streets with no parking and a plaza in the middle that all the roads just dead ended at with no warning. Very difficult.

We ended up staying in this dingyish hotel, that cost a bit under $10 USD  for both of us. In our rush to get our paperwork together for a Bolivian visas we had purchased airline tickets to Santiago, Chile, where we were flying out of to meet the Vivio family in Europe, so we had some time to kill in this city. Unfortunately, it wasn’t too exciting. We ate some pizza, attempted to shop for some clothes that would make us a bit more presentable to the family, enjoyed some legit coffee, made the terrible decision to make bloody marys with tomato paste, walked really far to find a park office that didn’t actually exist, and that might be about it.

With 3 days before our flight we decided to drive to a nearby town, called Buena Vista, where we planned to enter a national park for some camping and trekking. On the way there we had two major predicaments. The first had to do with the police, who is surprised on that one? We didn’t have a fire extinguisher, so were forced to pay 100 Bolivianos ($14USD) , as a fine/bribe. The other was a bit more serious. We needed gas, but all of the stations we went to couldn’t serve us because we had foreign plates. We were sent all over this crossroads town (which had loads of gas stations). Finally, an hour later, we found a station that agreed to fill a gas can for us that we could them fill our tank with. In Bolivia foreign plates are charged 3x as much for gas (the unsubsidized price?), but all of these stations couldn’t change the price of gas in their computers, so couldn’t serve us. But if they sell it to a foreigner in a can, it’s the local price. So our hassle did save us like 30 bucks or so.

We arrived in Buena Vista fairly late, grabbed dinner, found a hostel and went to bed. The next morning I wandered around the market before Acacia was up and discovered a few cow’s heads as well as cakes and coffee. Acacia and I ended up going out to breakfast at the same place we had dinner, since it had wifi, and then coordinated a jungle trip with a French guy staying at our hostel. We found a guide, then wandered around the town to find the national park office to get permission to enter the park, and then headed towards one of the entrances to the park. Upon reaching a large river that people where wading across, it was pretty clear we wouldn’t be driving to that entrance. Our guide informed us that one option would be to ride in the back of a horse drawn cart for 4 hours, or spend an hour driving to a different entrance. We opted to go to the different entrance since it would give us more time hiking.

However, the locals at the other entrance were not allowing visitors to sleep in the park, so we had to sneak around the main trail by following a river bed to the entrance of the park. Unfortunately, we were spotted by more than one local. Thus, we had to sleep at this lodge on the outskirts of the park.

Our secret hike in

We were only camping, and ended up being charged 35 Bolivianos each. While that isn’t expensive in American dollars, it is pretty pricey for Bolivia (example: right now we are staying in a large hotel, we have our own room with decent beds and a clean shared bathroom for 20 each). Anyway, that night we went on a hike to try to spot some nocturnal animals. It was too windy for us to hear anything, so we likely scared anything away before we got close enough to see it. There were some large spiders and John got himself attacked by ants. We closed the loop by walking back through the river again, where we saw more than a few fresh jaguar prints and our first mammal of the night, a tapir.

The next day we woke up early to do some more hiking. We sat in a tree for awhile above a wetland watching birds, saw a cayman, more jaguar prints, some giant trees, a viewpoint, and some monkeys. We ended up having to rush back because this whole time it had been raining and our guide was worried that the river was going to rise too much for our transportation to come and pick us up.

Back at camp we packed up and had lunch and began our walk out to meet the jeep that was probably not going to make it across the main river. After 2 hours of walking and more than a few rivers to wade through we met the jeep, on our side of the river. So our walking had been unnecessary, but I still enjoyed it.

Back in Buena Vista we stayed another night, had some disappointing happy hour drinks with dinner, and then drove to the Santa Cruz Airport.

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.

Middle of Nothing Paraguay

Like I said in the last blog post, Paraguay has under 7 million people in it. Of those 7 million, probably 6.5 million live south of the line made by connecting Ciudad del Este and Asuncion. That means the northern half of Paraguay is barren. And, for good reason. Its mostly Chaco, which can be further divided into wet and dry, with the wet half being swampy and largely uninhabitable and the north half being like San Diego dessert. Incredible that life exists there at all, and even more incredible that people choose to live there. That, my friends, is approximately where Acacia and I were heading.

Our journey starts from Asuncion, where there are three main highways out of town. The one we came in on which goes east towards Ciudad del Este, one that goes almost straight north, and the other one goes northeast towards Concepcion, the only city of size in the northern half of Paraguay which is the main hub people leave for river trips north into Brazil along the Rio Paraguay. Thus, we had a 50/50 chance of getting the right highway out of town since we would at least recognize the way we came from. Fortunately, signs were well marked leading us along the Ruta Transchaco between Bolivia and Paraguay, which is a part of the Pan-American route. Unfortunately, signage stopped leading us along the road that we kept following. And after about an hour of driving and not seeing signs for any of the towns we should have been passing, we stopped at a gas station and asked if we were on the right highway. "Ruta 9?" The gas station attendant asked with a smile on his face that said 'you are very lost buddy'. And, there was really no shortcut back to the Ruta Transchaco. So, an hour back we drove to the intersection about 5km out of Asuncion where we should have made a left to stay on the right highway.

The road was relatively well paved for the first 5 hours or so, which actually made the drive a straight-as-an-arrow kind of never have to turn the steering wheel kind of drive. Oh, also we had left the phone charger in the hostel in Asuncion so no phone music. And, turns out radio is scarce in the middle of nowhere. So we just had each other for entertainment. Anyway, after about 5 hours the road turned into a pot-holy road which was fine until it got dark and I was trying to fly down this 120km/hr road trying to spot these pot holes with the world's weakest headlights. Lets just say the car took a beating. But, we arrived to this town that had been described to us as a small Mennonite colony in the middle of nowhere. Well, it kind of shattered my expectations at least. You could see the light pollution from a few miles out, and I dunno much about Mennonites, but there were plenty of "hoodlums" wandering around late at night, and cars driving around, etc. I guess I was expecting more of an Amish village from the 1800's. This was not that. Filadelfia was actually surprisingly much like any other city of its size we'd been to in South America. After driving through the main drag of town, we pulled over to find the address of the hotel listed in the Lonely Planet, and discovered that we were literally parked in front of it. Good sign.

We checked into the hotel and got our super hot west facing room, and then went to the restaurant at the hotel, which was pretty much the only one in town. Apparently Mennonites don't go out much. Dinner was good, we had a few beers and played some card games and went to bed since there really wasn't a whole lot going on in Filadelfia late at night.

The next morning I woke up wanting a giant breakfast, as usual. Fortunately, the hotel we were staying at had a buffet breakfast. Unfortunately, the breakfast was not included in the price of the room, so it took a little bit of convincing Acacia that we should in fact pay for a huge buffet breakfast, at which point we spent the next couple hours hanging out by the buffet. It was great. As we were trying to leave the hotel, an entire posse of missionaries walked in to use the computers/internet. We asked them a bit what was worth checking out in the area, and they pretty much said that they don't tour much when they're supposed to be working. Ouch!

Leaving the hotel we tried to go to this museum across the road, but it was closed. So, then we decided to try to find a phone charger before we began the longest stretch of driving without a city of the whole trip. But, as we were driving towards the center of town, there was some huge parade going on. We parked and watched as traditionally dressed Paraguayans danced and played music through the streets. It was pretty fun. But, it meant that, like the museum, any store that might have had a phone charger was also closed for the day because of the parade. Bummer.

Hardly traditionally dressed... John must be confused

 It also meant that getting out of town was pretty tough, but I managed after being directed around a roundabout the wrong way. The road was terrible, like it had been at the end of the day before. Loads of deep pot holes. After about 100 km the road got even worse, there would be meter deep ditches across the paved highway, or the highway would suddenly have a 50 cm drop onto a dirt road, riddled with more giant holes. It was terribly slow going and so hard on the car. On the way we had to stop at immigrations, about 400 km from the border to get our exit stamps because there was pretty much nothing between there and the border. After a police stop we attempted to navigate to a park that we were planning on camping in that night

The most interesting thing at immigrations, he was just hanging out with the truckers

Driving to Asuncion and our Mennonite Camping

Driving through Paraguay we got stopped at literally every single cop stop there was. It definitely slowed us down a bit. We had about an 8 hour drive by the maps  from Reserva Itabo to Asuncion, which was our next destination. We did lots of listening to The Bottom of the Bottle podcast. It was a fairly straight drive with a single turn I think, but the traffic was heavy and we ended up averaging about 60km/hr instead of the planned 100. That combined with the cop stops, we decided not to get all the way into Asuncion and instead stop about 50km outside of the city at a town called San Bernardino. It was a pretty touristy town on a large lake, with a pleasant square, some pretty fancy hotels, and a casino or two. Its essentially a weekend getaway for Asuncion residents. Lonely Planet recommended a campground that was a bit difficult to find, but after stopping at a market to ask the lady for directions (and get a case of Paraguayan beer that wasn't "low fermentation") we found it easily. Unfortunately, the place which advertised itself as being open 24/7 all year long on its sign was definitely closed. We waited for a bit, tried calling the numbers on the sign. Nada. We drove back into town and I walked into one of the fancy looking hotels to act interested in a room but really was just trying to get info/maps of the town. After discovering that it was about 60 bucks a night for the cheapest room and asking for a cheaper place, I eventually got a map and the receptionist gave me directions to camping.

As per the receptionist's directions we drove about a km out of town looking for a turn to the right just past a huge casino that "we can't miss".... we missed it. And kept looking for a casino. Nothing but a huge billboard for the champagne of beers, Miller High Life. But no camping. Then we stopped at a gas station and asked for camping. The guy directed us back the way we came and we eventually found a very nondescript gravel road across the street from the beer sign and followed it a ways towards a campground. It looked closed, but I jumped out of the car to see if anybody was there, and a German dude came and asked what we needed. I told him camping, which initially he seemed reluctant to have, but after reassuring him we'd be gone by the next morning he led us back through the property to a campground that was clearly set up to entertain a lot of people. BBQs, playgrounds, showers and bathrooms, dorms, a bar area. All closed down when we were there, since we seemed to be the only people staying. He apologized for not having cleaned the bathrooms after a large group of students had stayed a few days before, but other than that let us be. As usual, cards, Frisbee, and some Paraguayan beers put us to bed.

The next morning Acacia was not feeling well, but we had promised we'd leave the campground by 10. So we left at 10 exactly and then I wanted to check out the town in the day. We drove over to the main plaza and Acacia sat in the car while I walked down to the lake and checked out the lakefront and then checked out the farmers market in the plaza.

Farmers market! Is that bratwurst! German beer? Pickled things? German desserts? Woohoo! Of course I was freaking out and had to go back and tell Acacia. I told her what we had on our hands here and she sent me back for a few baked goods and supported my decision to buy some pickled goods. And that I did. I also got a 6 pack of a German pilsner (turned out to be InBev, the same company that owns Budweiser, so a bit of a disappointment after reading the bottle)  of sorts as well as a brat. Yum.

 From there we drove to Asuncion. This was dreadfully painful. The traffic may have been going only 60km the day before. But I'm pretty sure the next 50km to the city center took us 3 hours. Stop and go traffic with intersections that appeared to have no right of way designations. Also, this drive included turns; turns we weren't really sure about. In any case, we snacked on pickled peppers and garlic to give us the energy to keep going. Finally we arrived in downtown Asuncion and after going in circles around one way streets for a bit to find the hostel we were trying to reach, ended up at an old mansion-turned-hostel that felt super colonial with an open courtyard and ridiculously high ceilings.

We rested for a bit at the hostel and then were both pretty hungry so went to the closest restaurant, which also happened to be one recommended in our guidebook. Perfect! As soon as we entered, we felt super under dressed. But really only because the waiters were dressed in suits and bow ties. The rest of the crowd wasn't super fancy.

After lunch we walked around downtown Asuncion for a bit. We saw a few artisans making some pretty legit looking bags and things, saw some old colonial buildings and watched some kind of a festival or competition of sorts from afar. Acacia wasn't feeling well so she walked back to the hostel while I explored the town a bit more. Most things were closed since it was a weekend and all, but I did see the building where Paraguay declared independence (the first in Latin America to do so).

After I got back to find Acacia sleeping/reading I hung out at the hostel and watched a movie and then chatted with a French family who had been biking around South America for a few months. I went to the main square near us and smoked a cigar and then came back and did some reading while Acacia rested.

The next morning I was up super early since we didn't really do anything the day before. So early that nothing was open. But, I was bored so I went for a run, showered, and then went out to find the street vendors starting to open. I got a coffee from one of the street vendors and then hung out with a couple of locals who were also getting coffee. One of them was studying English at the university in town so could speak pretty well. The English speaker was 24 and wanted to move to the United States, and the other guy was 50 and probably still drunk from the night. Anyway, he asked about California and then told me that Paraguay had 7 million people, and they both found it pretty funny when I was like "only 7!" Seriously though, its a tiny number for how big the country is. Its gotta have the population density of Wyoming or something. While we were chatting I saw a guy driving a car around with a huge megaphone on top yelling about having coffee and cheese bread. It reminded me of The Blues Brothers. "And it's lady's night tonight!" Anyone? Anyway he was driving around selling breakfast out of his car. And people were flocking to him. Pretty genius idea to capture the early morning crowd before stores were open.

After getting back to the hostel I packed stuff up, Acacia showered, and we checked out of the hostel. We walked down towards the main plaza again and did a bit of shopping from the artisans. We also bought some food from the supermarket closest to us since our next destination was supposedly in the middle of nowhere and we weren't sure what kind of provisions would be there. We stopped and asked a taxi driver for directions out of town towards Filadelfia, a Mennonite colony/town and were on our way for an 8 hour drive or something like it.

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.

Getting into Paraguay and Exploring Near the Border

Driving through Foz do Iguazu (the much larger of the two cities with access to the falls--the first being Puerto Iguazu in Argentina) on our way to Ciudad del Este was a bit of a challenge following Portuguese signs and then being pulled over by a random guy on a motorcycle who was trying to direct me towards a huge mall in Ciudad del Este with free parking. Anyway, we eventually made it to the Friendship Bridge which connects Brazil to Paraguay and had to find our way to a customs office in the middle of the bridge to get our exit stamps from Brazil, which was not an obvious thing since Argentinians, Brazilians, and Paraguayans don't need to do this.

Upon entering Ciudad del Este it instantly reminded me of entering Tijuana. People everywhere trying to sell you shit you don't need and making it very obvious they could tell we were foreigners with money to spend. Again, finding the customs/aduana was not very easy. This time we just pulled over to the side of the road, walked into an official looking building, and were directed towards an unmarked office where a guy was supposed to be sitting. Turns out he was hanging out with friends in the office next to his and had to come over behind his desk when he noticed a couple of confused gringos wandering the building wondering where the immigration officer was supposed to be. After we got our stamps and asked about where to get the car paperwork processed he kind of just pointed in the direction of another building. This building was not easy to get to, and we ended up going down a road that was almost definitely a one way road that we were driving the wrong way on, which made it more obvious we were confused gringos so some guy walked down the road following us and upon reaching the parking lot in front of the aduana building he told us we had to pay $20 to park there. What!? Bullshit dude, we'll park 3 feet from here on the street then. Then he said it was actually ok and another guy approached us offering to sell us windshield wipers and the 'security' guard for the parking lot also wanted money. Acacia guarded the car for a few minutes while I went into the aduana building and got the car paperwork completed.

Once we and our car were legally in Paraguay Acacia tried to direct me towards an Asian restaurant we had heard about. Driving here was definitely difficult. Every single intersection was a 4 lane roundabout with people driving like mad-men. Finally we got to the rough area where the restaurant was supposed to be, parked, and wandered through a neighborhood that was essentially little Asia, so there were lots of quality looking restaurants. We ended up going to a Korean restaurant and had probably the tastiest meal of the trip so far, save maybe for the French-ish dude on Algodol.

After lunch we got back to the car where an old man was trying to collect money for parking, which we offered to pay but only in large bills so he just kind of waved us goodbye. What a nice old dude. Then we were headed to Saltos del Monday (pronounced mundayuuh or something that I clearly could not say correctly) which were supposed to be epic waterfalls. We followed signs east of town near the Argentinian border and could not find the falls to save our lives. Acacia had to pee. After driving in circles for a while I jumped out to ask a store owner where the falls were. He pointed us in a direction that I followed. Then I ended up driving down a one way street the wrong way literally right in front of a police officer. He kindly blocked traffic for me to turn around and then pointed us back the direction we had come from to find the falls. Mind you, Acacia still had to pee. Kept driving in circles. Asked more people. More circles. Acacia still had to pee. We stopped at a gas station to pee and saw a giant mural of the falls on the bathroom wall. Clearly we were very close, but gave up after about an hour of searching. So then we were off to Itaipu dam.

I bet most of you have heard of the Three Gorges Dam in China on the Yangtze and been told its the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. In some sense it is. It can theoretically draw more power from its turbines than any other dam int he world, but it doesn´t have a constant supply of water to turn the turbines at full capacity all year. So, on a yearly basis, the Itaipu Dam produces more electricity than any other hydroelectric project in the world. And, until visiting it I hardly recognized the name. Itaipu Dam is shared by Brazil and Paraguay with each country owning half of the turbines. The Dam is on the Parana river which forms the border between Paraguay and Brazil. The company that runs the dam gives free tours, so Acacia and I took one and learned all about the dam. The dam gets its name from an indigenous word describing the sound of water as it laps against rock, which was the name of an island where indigenous people use to live before the reservoir covered it up (kind of devastatingly sad really). It cost about $20 billion  to construct, employed over 40,000 people, supplies about 20% of Brazil´s energy needs and 90% of Paraguay's. Also, the company that built and runs the dam was responsible for developing several natural reserves for the species they were taking habitat from, as well as building a zoo and museum to house artifacts of the indigenous cultures they flooded.

Much like Iguazu Falls, the Itaipu Dam was gargantuan and without scale from a human perspective. Parts of it looked like it could have been a water slide, except it was wide enough for like a gross of elephants. The pile of rock used to build a sort of retaining wall could also build a highway around the earth like 7 times or something. It is definitely an impressive feat of engineering, and words can´t really do it justice, so we´ll leave it to the pictures.

From the Itaipu Dam we began our drive northeast to Reserva Itabo, one of the reserves set up by the dam company...

Paraguayan Visa and Our Day in Brazil

So, according both to the website and the guy working next door to the consulate, it was supposed to be open at 7am in the morning. Unfortunately we had forgotten to ask while we were actually there the day before figuring out what we needed to get the visa. I woke up bright and early to get there at 7 because we wanted to get this processed before the end of the day so we could leave Puerto Iguazu since it really didn´t have a whole lot to offer beyond the falls. I got to the consulate at around 7:15. Closed sign with no hours posted. So I waited...and waited... and I figured by 8 they would be open. So I grabbed a baked good snack at the bakery nearby and then waited some more. Finally 8 rolls around it opens! And these Paraguayans are punctual! By 8:03 the entire staff had walked in the door and was starting their work. So I walked in and the nice lady at the reception informed me that I should sit down and wait for the man who needed to process my visa. After waiting a bit longer and playing some Settlers of Catan on my phone, she finally approached me and told me that the guy needed to process the visas wasn´t going to be there until 8:30 or later. She also told me that I would need to grab Acacia to have her sign the paperwork. So I ran back to grab Acacia and woke her up to grab everything to head back to the consulate. By the time we got back, this very inconsiderate man at reception just told us to sit and wait. After like 30 minutes finally the nice lady saw us sitting down and explained exactly what we needed for the visas. Including the $160 dollars which had to be USD and could not be 100 dollar bills with number starting with DB or CB and none of the bills could have any marks, folds, tears, blemishes, etc. of any kind. So all of a sudden we did not have enough money for the  visas. And, Argentina is not the place to try to get US cash because the grey market due to the inflation of the Argentine peso means you have to pay nearly twice the exchange rate to get USD.

Since I thought this would be a much quicker process, we hadn´t cleared our stuff from the room and checkout was at 11. The process to change the money was going to take way past 10, so Acacia went back to pack since she had now at least signed all the necessary documents and I was in charge of getting the cash. First, I went to a private cambio and asked what they would change AR to USD for, and was told 7 to 1. Perfect. So I went to the bank to withdraw enough pesos to change for enough dollars to add to our set of valid dollars to have the 320 necessary for the visas. But, when I went back to the cambio, a new guy was working there who wanted 8.3 to 1. So now I didn´t have enough, and I was mad at that place and my patience on this whole process was wearing thin. So I walked to the bank to change my bad 100 for a valid 100, but the line was like 8 hours long. Literally wrapped around 2 blocks. No way. Back to the official cambio who would change pesos for 9 to 1. First I changed the Argentine pesos, then I changed the leftover Chilean pesos into Argentine pesos and then into dollars, and finally had enough. So then I rushed back to the consulate so submit all the paperwork which they then said would be ready by 2 or 2:30pm, right before they closed. Phew! Got it in in time.

At that point it was way past checkout, so I knew I needed to get back to the hostel to turn in the key, but I figured if we were a bit late that it wouldn´t be a huge deal. So I wasn´t rushing now. But, when I got to the hostel, Acacia was adamant that I needed to quickly pay the 30 pesos short she was, and submit the key because the lady at the front desk was really angry or something. But the lady wasn´t at the front desk. I quickly peed. Apparently this is frowned upon because the lady came back to the front desk while I was peeing. Then I paid and we left to find food.

We found the first place selling fish and sat down outside. The chef came out to greet us and spoke a bit of English because he had family in the states or something. We ordered the two specials, and told the chef that we liked it spicy. The food was actually really good. I basically ended up with a huge slab of river fish baked with tomato sauce and cheese, like a pizza but with fish instead of dough. Acacia got a shrimp and tomato sauce pasta that was mighty tasty. And, there was some noticeable heat. Definitely not as spicy as either of us could have handled, but maybe the spiciest dish we´ve been served in South America.

After lunch Acacia remembered that we left some food in the fridge at the hostel. So I ran back to the hostel to grab the food. Then we went to the gas station which was cash only, ran to the bank for cash, and then got gas, and then headed to the consulate to collect our visas.

The embassy had fortunately approved our applications, so we just had to watch the visa guy to make sure he entered all of our information correctly and then got the fanciest passport decorations and were out of the consulate by 3:30 and on our way to Brazil!

We had to go to Brazil for two reasons. First and foremost, the ¨Overview¨ side of the Iguazu Falls is reached from Brazil, and because the only way to enter Paraguay with a car is to cross over a bridge from the Brazil side. Both of these things are so close to the triple frontier that if you´re just visiting the falls or passing through Brazil/Argentina have no Customs forms or car import/export forms, so it felt a little weird how nonchalant these border crossings were. Nobody checked for fruits and veggies, and we had to go out of our way to get the appropriate entry/exit stamps in the passports.

Anyway, since it was still light and we probably had enough time to tackle the Brazilian side of the falls, we headed straight there with a slight pit stop at the airport on the way to use an ATM. The infrastructure here was similar to the Argentinian side, but with a 12km bus ride from the entrance to the actual falls instead of a train. The open air bus was actually pretty fun though, albeit a bit chilly on the ride back with damp clothes and dusk setting in.

We paid our 40 bucks or so for parking and entrance ticket, then hopped on the bus, and again took the bus all the way to the end while most of the patrons got off part way. The Brazilian side is interesting because it has a walkway that goes out over the edge of some the falls, so you´re probably 100 feet off the ground over the edge of the cliff that the falls go over. The first stop was a ledge near the top of the falls, and then you take an elevator down to a lower platform at the bottom of the falls with access the walkway out to the edge. We had the pleasure of being in the middle of a Brazilian military field trip or something, so were constantly walking around guys carrying shotguns and rifles hoping they didn´t slip on the wet walkways. After checking out the huge waterfall from below, we walked out along the walkway to the edge and got soaked (no pictures since there was a bit too much moisture and we´re close to killing our second camera of the trip). Afterwards we walked another kilometer or so following the edge of the river with views over to the Argentina side and where we had been the day before. You could see the whole curtain of falls from the Brazilian side, and it had spectacular views but this part was definitely less of a rush than being right next to the gushing water. Nothing particularly interesting happened except that some random guys took a picture with Acacia.

The trail along the river ended at a bus stop across the street from the in-park hotel on the Brazilian side, which was much more elegant and discreet than the one in Argentina. It was a cold ride back in the shade of the jungle with wet clothes on an open air bus.

After reaching the car, we headed to the campground listed in the Lonely Planet, which required a surprisingly large number of turns off the main road that we most definitely would not have found had it not been for the well posted signage by the campground directing us. When we got there, we immediately realized this was unlike any campground we'd been to before. It was much more of a resort, with a bar and pool with some ping pong and billiards tables. Naturally, we had a few beers, played some ping pong and 9-ball and camped next to this huge truck labelled 'Da Mogul on Tour.'

Since breakfast was included, and was just a buffet from 7-10 I figured the best way to maximize the value was to eat immediately at 7, then wait for Acacia and have my second breakfast just before 10. Solid Brazilian breakfast too, with fruit, baked goods, quality coffee, and hot dog soup or something like it.

After breakfast we packed up and did some car cleaning since we wanted to be compact and organized driving in Paraguay and be able to hide our stuff reasonably well in the car. We took off before midday and headed for the Paraguayan border!