Thursday, July 22, 2010

Paraguay

Asuncion
It’s funny how things work out, Paraguay was on the bottom of the list but here we are. The border crossing into Paraguay was the same old, nothing new or difficult about it despite all the warnings. Asuncion lies about 50kms from the border on the east shore of the Rio Paraguay. It’s a huge city, with rich and poor living side by side, mansions and shanty towns in the same neighbourhoods, and Mercedes and horse drawn carts sharing the same streets. About 5kms from the centre is the botanical gardens where they have camping, so needless to say that is where we stayed. It’s a beautiful park and was only four dollars a night. Although every local seemed to think we were crazy for staying in the “dangerous gardens”. From the gardens we took the bus into town to meet the Swiss guys. They were working in one of the most upscale neighbourhoods in Asuncion at a very western shopping mall. We had only been in contact with Patrick so we were surprised to meet Lukas his friend and work mate. For some reason we both thought we were selling the van to a couple. Our hearts sank knowing we were actually getting rid of our van and Karen was upset that it was going to be a “dude” van. We all went back to the campground and showed the boys the van. After showing her off and telling them every little detail about our baby, we went for a short test drive and then back to the mall to make an internet money transfer. They loved her!! Wow, it all happened so quickly and now we just had to wait for the money to come through. We kept the van while waiting for the money and stayed at the botanical gardens relishing our last nights in Patience. The first two nights and days we hid out in the van because it was pouring rain. Then on our third night we got fellow campers in the gardens!! Two Argentinean families moved in and kept us entertained with stories and taught us how to prepare mate the “official” way. They also insisted on feeding us and including us in one of the son’s 13th birthday party. We spent a few days wandering the city of Asuncion and it’s “zona roja” which is a strange area on the Rio Paraguay where the city’s slums back onto giant palaces and people permanently live in the plazas where giant office buildings are located. What a bizarre contrast! Since the transaction was done on Friday evening we ended up waiting until Tuesday before the cash was in Pete’s account. We then had to deal with the paper work and vehicle transfer forms. The guys had a contact for a public notary who said he could do it but when we paid him a visit, it was a different story. He sent us down the street to see a friend of his, who could only write a letter saying that Pete allowed the guys to drive the van but not transferring the ownership. The notary told us that they would have to visit the consulate of every country they would be visiting to cross the borders without any problems. They decided to at least get the letter stating they had Pete’s permission to drive the van in Paraguay and then since there was no legal way of doing the paper work we decided to fake them. Using the computer they changed names and licence numbers on the registration papers and then printed them out. They looked great, no South American police or border officials will know the difference, hahaha. We spent the night at a four star hotel and the boys took off for the border. We wished them luck and told them to call us if they had any problems checking the van out of Paraguay or importing it into Argentina. We almost died when we heard the phone ring, maybe the paperwork didn’t work. But when Karen answered we found out that everything was cool except that they needed insurance to enter Argentina. So we told them to try our insurance with Pete’s name on it and after they showed every piece of paperwork to the border official, he told them to move on and not to come back. Yeah!!!!! It’s all done. So we celebrated with two ice cold litres of Stella Artois and chilled in our two bedroom, two bath pad. The following morning after an amazing breakfast buffet we were off to Iguazu Falls. After a six hour bus ride we arrived in Ciudad del Este, where we changed buses. From here we waited for the last bus to Puerto Iguazu. Back to Argentina!!!

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Thursday, July 15, 2010

Argentina Part II

Cordoba

After a lengthy stay in Mendoza we made a move towards Cordoba. The first day we drove east until we reached Parque Nacional Sierra de las Quijadas, a miniature Canyon Lands. We arrived just in time to enjoy the views of the red canyon walls in the setting sun before setting up camp. The next morning we drove to Mina Clavero, a beautiful tranquil village nestled in the foot hills of the Sierra Cordoba. We managed to find the one campground that wasn’t closed for the winter and bartered for a cheaper price since the hot water was turned off. After settling in we went into town to watch Argentina lay the boots to Greece in a four nil victory. The town went wild and we were entertained by the post game parade which consisted of teenagers ripping around on scooters, honking, yelling and flying the Argentinean colours. Back at camp we barbecued steaks and drank red wine before retiring for the night. The next day we decided to get some exercise so we went for a jog. The trail wound along the river passing beautiful homes and farms and then the river turned into a small canyon full of small swimming holes and boulders. At camp we met a couple of Argentinean artisans who were also travelling to Cordoba so the next day they hopped aboard and kept us company. The drive was beautiful; it went up in the mountains and passed through a Condor reserve before descending into Cordoba. We dropped off our passengers and then found the camping Municipal, where we stayed for night. Since the camping was 15km from the city we decided to find somewhere to stay closer to the center. We checked out a few hostels in Nuevo Cordoba, but weren’t impressed (a sign of age maybe?) so we moved to the old city and looked for something there. On our way we met Alejandro and Flor, two warm hearted locals who pointed us in the right direction. When we finally found a decent place for a good price we couldn’t find a 24 hour garage for the van. By this time we were almost going to turn around and head back to the campground, but we decided to look at one more place. The Gran Victorian Hotel, is a beautiful old two star hotel located right on the pedestrian street. Unfortunately it was undergoing major renovations which meant that you had to walk up the four flights of stairs and there was also a lot of noise during the day, but we got a great room with a balcony overlooking the city and also got a special price due to the circumstances. This would be home for the next week. Our first objective in Cordoba was to find Karen a wedding dress. So we wasted no time and went dress shopping for the first few days. After Karen had tried on almost every dress in the city with no luck we found the Palacia de las Novias(Palace of the Brides), a store with hundreds of wedding dresses. Here we found “the one” and they were able to make some adjustments in just a few days. During the rest of our stay in Cordoba we went suit shopping for Pete, watched the Argentinean World Cup games (with Alejandro and friends), went out for dinners and drinks, went to a play directed by Alejandro and watched tango in the main square. We were also able to learn a lot about the history of Argentina from some of the locals we met and how corrupt and brutal their government has been in the not so distant past. The more we learn the more we understand their culture and why so many now live as Artisans enjoying every day as it comes. You never know what could happen tomorrow. The bank could steal your money or you could “disappear”. Wow. We also posted our van for sale on a few forums and within a couple of days got our first reply. A Swiss guy, Patrick, seemed very interested and wanted to see our baby. Our intention was to sell the van in Buenos Aires but he convinced us to drive up to Asuncion, Paraguay and meet him there.

The drive to Paraguay

We took our time on the drive to Paraguay and enjoyed every minute with Patience knowing it could all be coming to a quick end. First we visited Tanti, a small village outside of Cordoba. One of our first hot days in awhile, Pete went walking in sandals on the riverside trail. Unfortunately along the way he tripped on a branch and cut his toe. We hoped that it wasn’t too deep of a cut but when we got back to the van and had a closer look; it was deeper than we had expected. So we went to the clinic and Pete got three stitches. When we went to pay for the bill we were surprised to find out that it was free. Free public health care even for foreigners, nice. The following day we drove up to San Marcos, a small hippy town complete with the “world’s first hippy museum”, and spent a couple of nights there. Our next stop was Mar Chiquita, a large salt lake which is home to numerous birds including flamingos. We found a camping municipal right off the highway and immediately went down to the salty lake shore to take in the sunset and watch the flamingos. We kept making our way up north and stopped for the night in Tostado at another camping municipal on the river. Here we met a local family who insisted on giving us their town flag as a gift. Our next stop was Resistencia. The campground here was very nice and only a few dollars a day. Since it was school holidays and a weekend the place was packed during the day with families cooking up huge asados and we even had some fellow campers consisting of some strange artisans that we hung out with quite a bit, and an even stranger biker couple. The bikers were riding an imitation Chinese Harley with a skull on the front, a skull flag on the back, a small trailer full of skull decals, a samurai sword strapped to the front shocks, and to top it off a pet hawk which they carried in a small box decorated with skulls. We’ve met some weirdoes on this trip and these two are definitely in the top three. Formosa was the next destination, but wasn’t any camping in town so we drove 30 min. North and stopped in at an animal reserve where they had many injured birds and cats. Unfortunately we were told that we weren’t allowed to camp there because it was too dangerous. The previous night a wild cat attacked someone and was now in one of their cages and there were also many poisonous snakes in the area. Their solution was to drive TWO minutes down the road where it would be much safer to sleep on the side of the highway. We took their suggestion, but didn’t venture out of the van the whole night. The next morning we drove to Clorinda where we got our visas for Paraguay and then drove a few minutes outside of town to the border. Onto country #15...Paraguay the world’s most corrupt country outside of Africa to sell Patience.

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