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Saturday, 02.03.2002: Voz do Iguaçu - Asunción
Next stop is Asunción, Paraguay's capital city. Built on the banks of the Paraguay River, Asunción's city streets are arranged in the Spanish grid pattern, lined with beautiful orange, rubber and jacaranda trees.
Our driver, Darrell, had not got his passport back yet (he'd sent off for a new one as his old one was full and although he'd sent the money and passport by DHL, the money didn't arrive, just the passport - well that was the story anyway!!). So we had to hire an HGV driver, Nicholas (Argentine) to drive us and the truck to Buenos Aires where, hopefully, Darrell would catch us up. Some of us were privately hoping that Nicholas could stay with us to Quito!!
So we had a new driver and left at 7-30am. We got to the border between Argentina and Paraguay at 7-50am. It took us 1 1/2 hours to cross the border because half the people didn´t put their departure forms in their passports and had to search for them. The Famoo truck overtook us easily although they left the campsite an hour later!
We stopped for duty free shopping at Ciudad del Este, the border town, which is not government controlled so you see lots of people with guns.
It was a very hot day so most of us had a snooze on the truck. We passed the other truck, which had found a nice shady spot under the trees for their lunch - tables full of food and probably not a hint of mouldy bread.
We stopped hours later at a service station to get some bread and to have a pee stop and decided to have ham and cheese sandwiches on the truck since we were only another 38km away from Asunción.
We got to Asunción at 4-15pm but got lost on the way to the hotel where we finally arrived at 5-15pm. Famoo arrived only 10 minutes later.
The rooms were excellent - nice and cool (it was about 38°C outside). We all met up for dinner at a nice restaurant around the corner.
Our room in Asunción
Sunday, 03.03.2002: Asunción
We decided to go for a walk around the city in the morning, but after half an hour we went back to the air-conditioned hotel! In the afternoon we did a city tour, seeing all the sights with a really good local guide.
Asunción video
Monday, 04.03.2002: Asunción - Bushcamp on the way to BA
We left at 8am, stopped at a petrol station for 1/2 hour too get a tire fixed and got to the border at 9-40am. The lockers got checked on the Argentine side and we all changed money.
We had 3 police stops that day and kept driving and driving south through the Chaco, a swampy region used mainly for cattle grazing. At 9pm we passed the Famoo truck, which set up their tents and were cooking next to a service station with a toilet. We stopped for a quick wee and truck sandwiches half an hour later and kept on driving. There was lots of lightning.
Helen is throwing the sandwiches into the rubbish
Nick was still doing OK and we all wanted to get as close as possible to BA. We finally stopped at 0-45am on the side of the road at a grassy strip and Paul said we´d be camping as they hadn´t found any places with beds. We put up the tents in a field full of mozzies.
We did 900km today!
