Driving to Paraguay

We had to be up very early this morning with tents down before a 5.45 breakfast and a 6.30am departure. We didn't have that far to go to our next destination - just 241 kilometres - but the first 120 kilometres would be on dirt roads, and then we would have a border crossing to do, too!

In the event, it took us four and a half hours to complete the dirt road. It wasn't as bad as the one we came in on. Once we hit tarmac, Ritchie and Tim (taking it in turns to drive), put their foot down and we were soon at a service station for an early lunch break.

After lunch, we drove to the border which is a bridge across the Parana River. We exited Argentina for the final time and got stamped into Paraguay, country number 69. Both sides passed without incident. The immigration officer on the Paraguayan side was very jolly. He thought it was great that the majority of us don't work! I think he got a picture of us all travelling the world together endlessly in the truck! 😀

A couple of fun facts about Paraguay - 1. It is the only country in the world with a flag that has different designs on each side, and 2. It has the largest navy in South America despite being completely landlocked! It is also the country in South America with the largest divide between rich and poor. There were certainly lots of high-end car showrooms (Porsche, BMW, Jaguar, etc.) in the border town we were driving through. In the countryside outside town, people appeared to be living in much more squalid conditions and eking out a living from the land. We also noticed how much cheaper petrol prices are here, as compared to Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. In those countries, the price was around US$2.20 per litre. Here, it is around US$1.20!

Once we were over the border, we only had 34 kilometres to go to Trinidad, our destination for the next two nights. The reason for our visit was to see the Jesuit ruins, a World Heritage Site built out of red stone quarried locally. As we got closer to Trinidad, we saw that all the roads were paved with this red sandstone and all the local buildings were constructed from it.

We arrived at our posada just after 4.30pm. They didn't have enough rooms for our group, so we were accommodated in a room across the road. It was very comfortable with air-conditioning and good wi-fi. The family who ran the posada were lovely. They were a Paraguayan lady married to a German man. Their 16-year old son, Hendrick, was obviously fluent in Spanish and German and had taught himself English using Duolingo! He was a very personable young man. The whole family couldn't do enough for us!

Mark was in an awful lot of pain when we arrived, so he went to lie down. He said he wasn't hungry and didn't want to wait for the dahl that cook group were doing for dinner at 8pm. So, I ordered a chicken milanese and fries to take back to our room. The prices here are so cheap compared to where we have been the past few weeks! The meal was around US$4 and beer and Coke Zero were less than US$1 each! The food was very good, too.Baca lagi