I’ve have finally arrived in Paraguay, I travelled through Ciudad del Este.
It’s always the same at the boarders, “go here, go there, go everywhere” The key is to be nice, but adamant at the same time. In order to leave Brazil, I had to go to the ‘Incoming travellers’ office, this back and forth cost me around 2 kilometers. At least I had a fairly alright boarder control officer that could even speak a little German. He’s going to be coming to Oktoberfest 2019 in Munich, in the middle of October (he was a bit upset when I told him it’s not lasting the whole month)
I got an accompanying officer on the Paraguay side of the boarder to come with me the rest of the way, and just like that I was out and had my stamp.
Ciudad del Este is the city where you can buy anything thats not necessarily legal but since the police are roaming (and probably looking to make some extra money off you), we drove straight through and into Hohenau. The city is supposed to be very German, even the name gives this away. I didn’t see many German things except for a Timbered House that belongs to a
Brewery in Munich.
I drove further down to Encarnacion, spent two nights in
a hostel with a super narrow and tiny parking space, but it was a nice and peaceful place. From Encarnacion I was off to Asuncion to look for Eduardo, the farther of a friend. I had my package of spare parts delivered to Eduardo, it obviously hasn’t arrived yet and the German Post hasn’t installed the tracking for it
yet.
I’ve asked Michael to order a new relay for me, and have it sent to Chile with UPS. It should be there by the time I am, 3-4 weeks.
I camped on the ‘boarder’ of the city Asuncion, hoping it was the most quiet place. Unfortunately not…
Since the Championship of Triathlon is taking place in Asuncion, they starting setting up at 5am, and my sleep was over.
Paraguay is quite poor, but it makes the impression of a country that has everything under control and it’s relatively clean. Incredibly hot climate, sporting activities begin at 5am because at 7am, its already 28 degrees. Between 10:00 – 15:00, life is on pause, Siesta!
The 2 mast wakeboard park is fully booked on Sundays, so I decided to go
kiting at Lago Ypacarai, which is known to be quite a good place. The water is contaminated from a factory so its advised not to go swimming. No swimming, no kiting.
The route to the hostel had to be freed from huge roots with a saw. Emmazwo’s septic tank lies really low and it can sometimes be a problem, let’s see how long it lasts.
The hostel family was sitting in front of the house until 2am. I thought that if they can just sit outside there, there must be no mosquitos so I opened the window for a 10 minutes of fresh air. It took me almost 3 hours to kill all the mosquitos in the car (sometimes you just never find them, I must remember the mosquito net for the car!)
And so, I fleeing from this hot climate. I’m making my way to Bolivia, easier said than done..
The roads get worse with every kilometer, 500km outside of Asuncion my number plate tore off whilst driving the rough conditions. I only noticed 50 km later and immediately drove back. Believe it or not, I found my plate in the last sunlight and continued driving to find a petrol station. Up here, you’ll only find a petrol station every 100km. To insure that I didn’t run out of petrol, I drove 40km/h behind a truck on the rough terrain, without my air conditioning on (it uses 1 litre every 100km) As of now, I’ll fuel up earlier. Spending the night on those roads because of low fuel, in this hot Paraguayan climate does not sound like a peaceful sleep.
At the beginning, I could drive a fast 90km/h, then down to 70km/h, then 20km/h. The road signs say maximum is 20km/h, which was just hilarious for me at first. But a normal vehicle will not even be able to drive faster, it’s also super dangerous. If you over look a pot hole, you can easily land up in oncoming traffic and do serious damage to the car.
There were even a few building sites along the way, in that case I had to drive off road. Now the majority of the dirt road is on the exhaust and 
bottom side of Emmazwo. I fear that some dirt even got pushed and blocked in the septic tank. Once I get to Bolivia, I’ll take a good look at Emmazwo in the worksop. Despite the closed doors and windows, the dust still made it into the car, specifically the bed. Now everything is going to need a good sweep.
The one thing I noticed, is that the Paraguayan people are fatter than the rest. If you order a coffee without sugar, you are suspected to be sick and not allowed to have sugar because of health reasons, The fact that someone would willingly not want sugar is bazar. I ordered a freshly pressed juice and got it served with two extra sugars and a Paraguayan, would actually use them .
This humid climate is nothing for me. Since Paraguay is as big as Germany and Austria put together, it’ll take me 2 days to get from Asuncion to the boarder. I’ve discovered a better way to drive in a way that my right thromboses doesn’t flare up. Accelerate with the left foot as well as the brakes. Here in the North, the route is mainly straight, but you do have to take caution of the trucks, they can be up to 30m long.
The last 100km were super easygoing on a well tarred road that even had guard rails.( apparently EU money was used here, I didn’t even know they were in the EU)
When I got to the boarder, I had to unpack the boot of the car. I was asked to demonstrate how to drive the ninebot (electronic unicycle) and how to use the golf clubs. The boarder control officers, policemen and a few truck drivers, really liked these demonstrations. The policemen really liked my camping chairs, an even suggested I gift them to the police force. I told them this was unfortunately not possible, seeing as they were borrowed.
Paraguay is a flat country, extremely hot and dry with a rich earth. The settlements are spread very thinly over the country and it has lots of lovely National parks, but I still had to flee from that heat!
