Why No one Visits Paraguay

As I have been travelling I've been getting advice from other travellers, where to go where to stay that sort of thing for most of South America. Its thanks to the advice of othersthat I'll be going to Columbia next March, everyones been so positive about the place.

However no one and I mean no one as been to Paraguay that I have met and now I know why. Basically there is no tourist infastructure, there's not alot to do there and its too bloody hot and humid to see what there is. Whilst I was there it was 40C plus in the shade and 100% humidity.

I am glad I've been there and the some of the countyside is fantastic but unfortunately its just too hot for this average northern European to enjoy for long.

I think I have already told you about my journey across the Brazilian/Paraguay border on the back of a motor scooter in an email. From the border I travelled to Conception where i found a steam crane made in Leicester (the L is missing in the photo). I hoped to travel to Ascuncion by boat along the Rio Paraguay but not for the first time the Lonely planet had wrong information so I had to get there by bus. Ascunsion is nothing special but the addition of a thunder storm, power cut and then public holiday the next day made my visit there a little flat.

Still its another stamp in the passport!

Picures are:
The Irish influence a street name in Ascuncion
A stean crane from Leicester in Conception
Beautiful but very hot and sticky countryside

Finally, after a run of poor results and a wash out UP THE LATICS!

Sucre Santa Cruz and the Death Train

The Lonely plant Guide has a habit of using the adjective "death" when describing certain activities and places in South America...Death Road...Death Train and i wanted to check out the later, being a bit of an anorak an all.

To get there from Potosi (sothern Bolivia), where I parted from Richard and Anika (thanks guys for some great travelling, see you in London next year) I travelled to Sucre for a couple of days, the capital of Bolivia, although the Presidencial Palace is in La Paz. Sucre is a pretty little colonial town with some attractive archtecture but not a great deal to keep anyone there. I did bump into a French guy I had met in Uyuni and we crashed a student end of term party so fun was had.

From Sucre i needed to travel to Santa Cruz to join "The Death" train, so called as it takes over 20 hours to cross the Chao region of Bolivia to the border with Brazil, a distance of around 400KM.

So another uncomfortable night bus via mud roads and I was is the steamy town of Santa Cruz. It was a bit of a shock actually as its very western by Bolivian standards, there's even a branch of Benetton there.

Santa Cruz is the centre of the oil producing region of Bolivia and very rich in comparison, so much so that the area wants some form of independance from the rest of the country and as part of the protest the inhabitants of the city staged a one day strike which co-incided with my second day there. The streets where empty so I spent my day sun bathing and watching the locals play football, bit like a sumers days on Finsbury Park.

And so it came time to leave Santa Cruz and join the "Death Train". You can't buy tickets in advance only on the day of departure when qeues (sp) reach Cuban proportions, I was down at the station by 7 a.m. by which time there were already around 100 people in front of me, by the time the office opened there wre around 200 behind me!

It will come as know surprise to most of you that far from finding the journey a chore i actually enjoyed spending over 20 hours on a train. It operated rather like a local bus, stopping in every little comunity it passed to pick up and set down passengers freight and live stock. On each occasion seamingly the whole town came out to feed and water us passengers and the food was very good.

So we chugged on through Menonite communities, Canadians who had come down in the early 1900s to farm the area, the gene pool dosen't appear to have developed since, they al looked very similar and the fringes of rain forest to arive at the Brazilian boredr at 11 a.m. around 4 hours late, no passengers charter here though.

Tired but strangely happy i made my way into Brazil for a short two day hop through Corumba (the deadest town ever where the only other English speeking guy was a Greek vangrant) and Campo Grande where I bought some great flip flops on my way to Paraguay.

Pictures are:

Menonite farmers (spot the differences!)

The Death Train

Deserted Santa Cruz

Colonial Sucre

The Siulver Mines of Potosi

This was my last trip with Richard and Anika as they wre leaving Bolivia directly to northern Argentina and I was off on an anoraks journey through Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay to get to Argy.

Thanks to the mines, Potosi was once the richest town in South America and amongst the richest in the world. The Spanish colonists had discovered silver there in the 1500s, although the idigenous population probably knew of its existance long before, and set about extracting the stuff to make coins for the whole of the Spanish world. In the late 1800s the silver bagan to run out and with it the prosperity of the town. Although Zinc is still mined today silver extraction is minimal but it is still possible to hit a rich seam and become very wealthy.

Potosi is now on the Gringo trail thanks to tours of mines. Richard and I visted one with our guide Luis, the space in the mine was rather reminiscent of that on Bolivian buses....great! We spent a couple of hours in the mine after touring the miners market and buying dynamite. This bit was rather scarey, I certainly havent held this stuff before and of course we did the whole "stick in the mouth to to look like a cigar" bit.

Is was a very humbling experience as children as young as 14 are working down the mines (illegally as the minimum working age is 16), their famliles cannot afford to keep them. The working conditions are primtive and there are no air filters, the miners all chewing coca leaves all day.

Still is was a great experience and one that will stay with me, pushing a wheel barrow of spoil was incredibly hard, the miners have my admiration.

The first picture is me pushing a wheel barrow of spoil, but I don't think its come out too well.

The Salt Flats of Uyuni

So still travelling with Richard and Anika and a day after our suceesful descent of the "Worlds Most Dangerous Road" we set of on a night bus for Uyuni, a small town in southern Bolivia, formerly a railway centre and now a tourist town and the starting point for tours of the Salf Flats nearby.

As with most Bolivian transport the world uncomfortable sprang to mind as we left La Paz and speed down dirt roads at unrealistic speeds, my knees becoming intermate friends wth the seats in front quite qickly (the height of your average Bolvian must be a good foot shorter than me and the buses are built accordingly).

We arrived battered, bruised and sleepless in Uyuni at 7 a.m. ready to do battle with the hordes of touts just waiting to sell us all inclusive and exclusive packages for a wonderful 3 day tour of the flats. We also met around 7 other Gringos on the bus that we had met at previous locations around Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, we really were on "The Gringo Trail" now.

So to the Tour. The Salt Flats are, I think, caused by colliding land masses sending what were once salt lakes or sea areas thousands of metres up. So its totally flat and very white which makes photography fun due to the lack of perspective. After driving across the flats and a visit to the Fish Island (it looks like a fish and was once an island when the salf flats were water) our tour guide, cook and general auto mechanic took us to a supposedly "exclusive" salt block built hostel, remember the touts. This was of course rubbish as there were loads of other groups there but it made the dynamic fun even though our guide had buggered off without leaving us any bread or water, we did eat of course, the usual Bolivian faire of chicken and chips.

The second day was another journey through fantastic wind and sand carved scenery across deserts and fascinating rock formations. We also manged to get to a shop ( made our guide go to a shop) so as well as water we had a good supply of Bolivian wine for the evening and it wasn`t too bad. The guide Raul even let me drive the Jeep for a while, I think he was feeling guilty about leaving us the night before.

The third and last day saw us continue across Dali esque scenery and take a dip in a hot springs, my first full bath for over two months and then back to Uyuni for a fantastic tea at Minute Man Pizza. If you are ever in Uyuni go there, but do not use the tour agency we used BLUE LINE.

OK I'm going to keep this brief as the computer I'm using is doing weird things and may crash at any moment.

With Richard, a mate fom the Truck tour, and a 60 year old American, oh and our guide I mountained biked down what if offically (by some UN office) considered the most dangerous road in the world, probably because on average there are over 100 deaths on it each year on a round 40 miles of road.

The road is part of the main connection between La Paz (Bolivia) and its northern territory. Its being gradually upgraded but land slides mean much of the "new" road is inpassable in many places and this "old" road has to be used.

The deaths are not down to speed but to the fact that its mostly a dirt road, in some places only just wide enough for a truck and in most places over 400 meter sheers drops. It certainly focused the mind and the beers at the end were well deserved.

I'll try and get a few pics on but its a this point in my blogging proceedings that I get frustrated at the time it takes and give up so we'll see.

By the way there is an article about this road on the BBC website, if you search unedr La Paz Bolivia and the worlds most dangerour road you should find it.

Anika, Richrad's girl friend, came down in the support vehicle which I think was far more scarey, at lesat I was in control of whether I plunged over 400m down a mountainside or not.

When Rich and Andy met Max from Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere

Really this is a piece about the Isla Del Sol in Lake Titicaca but as soon as a Richard and myself got down to the jetty in Copacabana to get the boat we spotted a guy who looked just like Max (Peter Kaye) and spent some of the rest of the day trying to get pictures of him. The poor guy realised somehting was afoot later on the way back so we came clean and he agreed to pose for a pictrure with us.

As for the Sun Island, its where the Incas thought the Sun was from and is a sacred Inca Island. Basically, the water around the Island is so cold it acts as a cloud barrier so its pretty much sunny all year round. It is a fantastic place and Richard and myself had an enjoyable day hiking from one end to the other.

Copacabana in Bolivia is also a lovely town, much better to visit than Puno in Peru the otehr side of the lake which is a total dump. We spent one night there and visted the Reed Islans where idigenous people still supposedely live on Islands made of Reed in huts made of Reed going around in boats made of Reed. However, the Reed boats had exposed heavy duty plastic sheeting and the Reed huts where just for show. Now the locals live in tin huts with tin rooves and sell the same tourist tat that you can find all over South America just with different names on it.

Pictures are:

Me and Rich with Max look alike.

The others were suposed to be:
Isla Del Sol and Reed Islands but.