Entering into Paraguay across the mighty Iguazu River into
Ciudad del Este requires some patience and making sure you look after your own
paperwork requirements. This border doesn’t
feel like a border with the thoroughfare of people moving through with the
majority not going into migracion or the aduana. We managed to find the migracion office
easy, but locating the aduana required the help of an official leading us up
the hill at the back to the office.
With all paperwork in tow we navigated through the crazy tax
free shopping area bumping into a few motorbike taxis and dodging the parking
attendees running at you to get your attention.
We had decided to move through Paraguay quite quickly not diverting down
to Encarnacion, so our first stop in Paraguay was with Walter who we had met at
the HU meeting. The main road was
pleasant enough, and we passed mostly agricultural land with a few towns along
the way.
It was great to see Walter again and his hostal “El Quincho
Pora” in the town of Oviedo is a fantastic stop over for overlanders. We spent
the evening exchanging travel stories and drinking some beer, and were enthralled
listening to Walters travels through the Amazonia in his custom citroen which
he installed another engine into to transform it into a 4x4 !
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| Nick and Walter checking directions ! |
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| Walters custom citroen 4x4 |
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| Amazinian grapefruit, MASIVE !! |
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| Nick and Walter the legend ! |
We said our goodbyes to Walter and headed off to the capital
city Asuncion. The traffic started about 20km outside of town,
stop start seemed to go on forever, and we were lucky to by chance pass the Honda
dealership where we stopped in looking for air filters. Unfortunately they did not have and
recommended we try in the town of Loma Plata on our way to Bolivia. After
driving around for hours looking for the hostal recommended by Walter with no
luck we found a nice little place to stay for the night with a small sign
outside “Pension Familiar”. It was only
when we logged onto their internet that we found that it was actually the place
we had been looking for: Pension da Silva!! That evening we took a walk around
town and passed what we think was the presidential palace with some amazing
lights, there are a lot of historical buildings in Asuncion and the town has a
lot of character. While walking around town the next day we saw a leather shop
that had some sheep skins for sale and we were sold !! No more sore backsides
for sure, we spent the afternoon cutting and mounting our sheep skins onto the
bikes and hoping that the rain would pass!
The straight drive across Paraguay was at times quiet
hypnotic and the lack of hills and corners quite something after the
mountainous stretches we had done in Brazil.
It was getting late so we were looking for a place to camp along side
the road but everywhere we stopped was infested with mosquitos due to the swamp
lands of the Chaco so we decided to push onto Lomo Plata. Arriving on a Sunday afternoon the town was
quiet, and we located the Honda shop to visit in the morning. We found a nice little hospedaje for the
night which had aircon a relief because it was boiling hot even in the evenings,
and opening a window wasn’t possible with the amount of mosquitoes in town too!
First thing in the morning we headed off to the Honda shop
to get our air filters, and the gentleman informed us they did not have any… we
started to think it was cause the bikes are very new and no one has done the mileage
we have done yet !! Any how he made some calls and in 15 minutes our new air filters
arrived for us !!
So we headed off on the trans chaco route to Bolivia. We had
been warned that the road gets rather bad with “some” pot holes WELL some of
these pot holes were big enough to loose a small truck in I tell you !! It was
an interesting drive dodging pot holes hitting soft sand and trying to aim for
the little bits of tarmac that were left on the road !! We filled up with fuel,
exchanged money with a local trucker at a petrol station and went to migracion in
Mariscal where we got stamped out of Paraguay.
Then we carried on along the Trans Chaco pot hole mine field !.
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| one of the smaller potholes !! |
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| Fuel station ! |
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| ah we miss the KLR's !!! |
The drive was pretty slow so we arrived at the customs for
the bikes in the dark. Using a torch to
shine on the computers we got all the paper work done so the bikes were cleared
out of Paraguay and into Bolivia.
However, migracion for Bolivia was another 180km further down the road,
so we camped the night outside customs. We met a very friendly Colombian chap who was
backpacking with his friends from Colombia to Argentina. They had unfortunately missed the migracion
out of Bolivia, and had been trying for the past 2 days to get a lift back to
the migracion. Poor guys had to somehow
hitch 360km (the return trip) just for a stamp in their passport. Lucky we had done our research and made sure
we were stamped out of Paraguay at Mariscal, otherwise we would have been in
the same position. Tomorrow we enter Bolivia…
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