The Missing Link...Traveling Through Paraguay & Argentina to Bolivia

Note: As promised, my good friend Ross forwarded me the blog I had typed up but couldn't open. So, here it is, over a month later...

I know I'm skipping a few weeks here but several bizarre things have happened during the past few days that I really do want to write down as I'm afraid if I record them in order I will have forgotten most of them. So, I've decided to break with tradition and mix things up. Not that you haven't been missing anything the past three weeks or so. I've done lots of interesting things but these are bizarre. So, they preempt interesting in my mind at least.

Today is February 1st and right now I'm in a hotel room, which I overpaid for...I should have been paying 30 Bolivianos but instead I'm paying 50. It's amazing the things you will agree to when it's 1:30 in the morning and you're exhausted. But this part of the story began several days ago, so that's where I'll head...back to January 28th, to Asunción.

Setting: Asunción, Paraguay. Located near the border with Bolivia to the West and Argentina to the South.
Number of visitors outside of South America who come to visit: Not that many
Reason for such few visitors: Not really much to do there.

On the 28th of January, my traveling companion, Ross, and I left Cuidad del Este for Asunción. Cuidad del Este is where everyone from Bolivia, Brazil, and Argentina go to purchase electronic items. It's an absolutely crazy border town (just right across the river from Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, where we spent a few days...more on that later.) There were people everywhere, selling anything and everything you can imagine, all for South America rock bottom prices, which aren't nearly as good as U.S. rock bottom prices. I did purchase an 8 gig memory stick for $30 which I think is a good deal, that is if it works.

Ross's camera had had problems since Torres del Paine when apparently it got dust on the sensor then got wet. So, for the past month, he'd been using my camera to take pictures while I took video. While we were visiting Iguaçu Falls on the Bolivian side, I suppose he'd had enough and really cracked into the thing. That went as planned but after he put it back together and then turned it on, he said it started smoking and that was all she wrote. He'd been looking for cameras along the way but couldn't find one that he really liked until Cuidad del Este. Now he and I both have a camera again. By the way, one little tidbit, if you're going to go to Cuidad del Este, do not go on a weekend. Everything will be closed. And never, never order from a menu without prices. I'll leave that one to your imagination.

From Cuidad del Este, we took a five hour bus to Asunción, which is on the opposite side of Paraguay. Once we arrived there we quickly found a place to stay the night, across the street from the bus terminal. If something ever says “Hotel” and “24 hours” on the same sign, my advice is it's a little sketchy. We got a deal on a room though, with air conditioning for 80,000 Guaranies, which translates to about $16. I can say a few nice things about the room. It had air conditioning, which when the temperate is 43 Celsius is pretty freakin' nice. (Think Oklahoma, August heat with full on humidity.) It also was probably the best mattress I've slept on since home and there was really hot water. And split between two people, it was pretty cheap. Other than that, that's the end of the nice things. Oh, I suppose, the fact that I'm pretty sure the sheets were clean is a good thing, forgot that one, sorry. We also didn't have to pay extra for our other roommates. I know, not sounding good...and it wasn't. There were two quite large roaches, although we found them dead in the morning, and there was an entire army of ants that had made there home in the bathroom. We didn't stay to see who showed up on night two.

For night two, we found a hostel near the city center, which we never visited. We did walk around looking for a museum that we never found. We also saw a dog who looked like he could use some food, so I bought some bread for him (not really great but what was near) and began following him down the street. When we caught up with him he had just walked into the courtyard of a hospital and no sooner had he walked in the gate when a little boy, probably 5 or 6 years old started picking up rocks and throwing them at him. I was stunned. It would have been a sad sight if the dog had been healthy but here was this child, in front of probably a dozen adults who did not even care enough to intervene, throwing rocks, kicking and hitting a dog who was at least 20 lbs. underweight. And the dog? He did nothing, except slowly walk away from the direction of the menace. I wanted to say something but I knew it would fall on deaf ears. So, instead, I walked up to both the dog and child, at which point the child stopped hitting the dog, and took out one of the pieces of bread and coaxed the dog out of the courtyard, all the while not saying anything to the child.

I don't know that the dog, who probably would be the finest friend a person could ever hope for, will make it much longer. I wanted to do more than give him one “meal” but I wasn't in a position to do more. Hopefully the child will remember that day the next time he sees a dog on the street and instead of throwing a fist he will offer his hand in kindness. After that, I was a little bummed, and I'm sure you can understand why. I don't remember much else about the day, other than I slept in a bed that wasn't too comfy, in a room with only a fan, thinking maybe my roommates from the previous night weren't too bad after all.

We had arranged for a taxi to drive us to the border the night before, and he showed up promptly at 11:00 to retrieve us. Ross at this point, wasn't feeling well at all having been up much of the night and the morning in the bathroom throwing up. Our ride to Falcon was uneventful but because of immigration we had to change taxis there to go to Clorinda where we could find a bus. The next taxi wasn't so great. It was hot that day and the only window that would roll down in the car was the drivers. With Ross feeling so poorly, we almost ditched the guy at immigrations and chanced finding another taxi, which would have been difficult not only because taxis don't wait there but because we only had 6 pesos left which just barely covered that taxi. So, we stuck it out and ended up waiting in Clorinda for our bus to take us to Salta.

As we were getting on the bus, Ross noticed tape across the bathroom door. When you're sick and in a new place, that's always the first thing you look for, the bathroom. 17 hours on a bus with no bathroom seemed impossible, so we took our seats and waiting for the bus to pull out. It wasn't too long after when Ross did go down to the bathroom and I could hear someone saying “cerrado” which didn't mean much to him but a world to me...closed. At that point, he wasn't sick but I can say he didn't appear as calm as he was before and I don't blame him one bit.

Once we got to Restincia (5 hours into the journey), we were told we needed to get off the bus and onto a different one. So, we grabbed our bags and went to the bus that not one but two people had directed us towards. While we where sitting there waiting to depart I kept hearing people talk about Buenos Aires. Ross was hearing it as well and started asking, “Are you sure this is the bus we're supposed to be on?” All I could say is what I had been told, so he went and asked again, since Buenos Aires, although wonderful, wasn't our destination of choice. Yes, we are on the right bus. That was until a young boy came up to us and asked if we were going to Salta. “Yes,” we replied. To which he responded, “You're on the wrong bus.” At this point, we were sure they were the most disorganized bunch of people we had ever encountered. So, we got off that bus and headed to another one. I was telling the guys standing outside that are bags were on the other bus and they kept telling me they were already on our “new” bus. If he hadn't said “todo” as in “all” I would not have gotten on that bus. Ross was concerned as well, and probably more hesitant than me to board the third bus because he knows very little Spanish, as in “Una mas cerveza por favor.”

We had an interesting meal on the bus that night, read for awhile, I finished Imperium, which is quite good. We played cards and finally slept for awhile after I was pretty sure the rest of the mosquitoes on the bus would stay away because like Crassus in the book, I had left the evidence of my strength and agility on the window next to me as fair warning to all the others who might think I was a tasty snack that night. We pulled into Salta at 7:00 and hung out in the station for the next two and half hours waiting on a bus to Jujuy. We had decided the night before we would go there, which was four hours away, stay the night, then take the earliest bus to La Quiaca (the border) so we could catch the train from Villaron to Uyuni. We were supposed to have a relaxing day of travel with plenty of time to spare and were enjoying the thought of traveling by train to our next destination.

Jujuy was an interesting town. We found our hostel right off, and got settled in. Then we went out for a look around town, ate non-Greek food at a Greek restaurant (I didn't see anything on the menu that was Greek.) Then we went in search of the post office, which we never found, but according to the map we walked by at least twice. The guy at the front desk was nice enough to take the postcards we already had stamps for and put them in the post for us. The rest, I'm still carrying with in hopes of someday finding a post office. We were hoping to mail them from La Quiaca but as you're soon to find out yesterday wasn't the best of travel days.

We left on the early bus to La Quiaca, 7:50 which should have gotten us to our destination around noon. That didn't happen though and we arrived an hour later than we originally thought, with only 6 pesos to spare after the baggage boy and Ross got into a semi-argument about what the guy would actually do with our bags if we didn't tip him. As the guy was taking our claim tickets, shredding them, and throwing them into the air, I was searching through my “Coins for Wilhite” stash. He finally picked out some that he liked which I don't even think were Argentinean and let us be. After that, we decided to go ahead and try to get some money out of the ATM. After months of me being the only one to be able to get money, Ross was finally the only one who was able to get some dinero and it’s a good thing because we didn’t realize it but we definitely were going to need some and pretty quickly.

We then found a taxi which was supposedly, for 5 pesos, going take us to Villaron. Yeah. Right. He drove us about 4 blocks then stopped and took out our bags. In front of us...the line for immigration. “You have GOT to be kidding me,” I said out loud. There must have been 50 or 60 people in line. After Ross went up to the front to scout out the situation and came back reporting that there was only one guy working, I was quite sure, even with the hour we were going to gain heading into Bolivia, that it was unlikely that we were going to make that train. We had arrived in La Quiaca just before 1:00 which meant we had an hour less than we had originally planned. We were both hungry at that point but knew that we needed to get across the border before we did anything about food. Almost three hours later, we were finally handing our passports to the kid behind the barred window. We then scuttled with full packs in tow to the Bolivian side, which interestingly enough seemed much more organized although not much friendlier than the Argentinean immigration office. We quickly filled out our paperwork...it was now a little past 3:00 and the train left at 3:30.

I have noticed how not-so-popular Americans are these days and it's especially evident when you look at the visa fees. For Brazil it was $150 US for a 30 day visa, in Paraguay it was $45 US for a 15 day visa (single entry), and Bolivia is $135 US and is only good for 30 days. The man at the Bolivian consulate office in Argentina told me I could get my visa at the border but when I got there the man basically told me (all in Spanish, which at this point in my life, I'm getting quite good at understanding) that he couldn't give me a visa there but I could get one in La Paz, that it was $135 ($5 more than the consulate office had said), and that I needed to get it before leaving the country and if not, they would kill me. He said all this with no so much as a hint of a smile while drawing an imaginary line across his throat with his finger for extra effect.

I'm not sure if the guy ahead of me had made him mad or if that's how he greets all Americans but I definitely got the hint. The guy in front of me, who actually, is a great guy, was apparently disagreeing with him about the cost of a visa, apparently on their website it still says Americans don't have to pay. And since bribery is one of the most common things you're likely to see in Bolivia I don't blame him for thinking the guy was making it up. The reason why this guy is so great? He acted like a cambio when Ross and I didn't have enough Bolivianos to buy two train tickets and it was 15 minutes before the train was to leave. He traded me 150 Bolivianos for exactly $21 US, the going rate, and I was able to purchase the two tickets between that money and the money Ross had gotten a few minutes earlier.

Needless to say, our last hours in Argentina and our first half hour in Bolivia were a little stressful. Besides what was happening at the immigration offices, as soon as we crossed the border into Bolivia, the biggest storm kicked up and although it never actually started raining, the wind was kicking up all kinds of stuff from the dirty street and flinging it into our faces as we walked quickly towards the train station. I remember the first few minutes on the train just wiping dust off my arms, my face, and my back.

The train ride was interesting and a much needed respite from the overnight buses. Although it was eight hours, it really didn't seem that long and there really was some pretty scenery. I also learned that trains can get stuck in the mud but was impressed at how efficiently the crew worked to clear the tracks so we could continue. At nightfall, you could see the remnants of the storm in the distance which although far away was still impressive.

We headed off into the night once we arrived at the station in Uyuni in search of a hostel with two German girls who had gone through the same predicament as us that day. After almost being accosted in the street upon arrival by a drunk lady, thinking I was going to witness another group of kids beat up on some street dogs (they only talked about hitting them, thank goodness), and finally deciding to take a taxi drivers advice on a place to stay, which is never a good idea, we found some beds for the night, which brings me to where I am right now.

I think we're going to visit a train cemetery today. Then tomorrow head off on a three or four day journey to the Salt flats. I've seen some incredible pictures from there and am looking forward to coming up with some interesting poses. After that, we think we're heading to Potosi to visit the silver mines, then Sucre to see dinosaur tracks. Then we have plans to take a bus to La Paz to visit San Pedro Prison and hopefully bike the most dangerous road in the world. It's the rainy season now and although I may be crazy and adventurous, I'm not yet stupid so we'll just have to see how it goes. But for now at least, that's the plan.

One little part I've forgotten to tell you about (at least I think I forgot it) was the Tati Yupi conservation area we visited near Cuidad del Este. It is an area that is overseen by the Itaipu dam and supposedly is a neat place to visit. Let me tell ya...Ross and I had a blast...not. We took a buggy ride with the wildest horse on the planet. We took a very strange horse ride in a corral, and then a bike ride down the same road we came in on and then another we took the buggy ride on...oh my. At least it was free, except for the taxi we had to pay to take us there and back. Don't think that that guy didn't have a laugh at our expense, literally.