A La Selva

A quick calculation teaches me that of the last 6 days I have spent 60 hours "on the road" on my way to the Bolivian jungle ...

Near Iguazu there is a 3-nations point of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. In the morning I had to go through Brazil to enter Paraguay, which I managed to do without being stamped out of Sambaland. The bus just steamed into Punta del Este, Paraguay and I was in hurry anyway. Yes, Too bad I didn't fill up my backpack with contraband.
From then it was a ripoff taxi ride to the terminal and 'hop' into the bus for Asuncion, Paraguay's capital.

Arrived at night and had a nice walk around during the day, although it was pretty hot. If I had the time I would have stayed a bit longer to get to know it better. I was playing with the idea of taking a boat up the Paraguay river, but there were too many unknowns and, for the ones who don't know yet, time is running out even for Señor Hans - my return date has been set ... boohoo I know :-(

So I took the 24 hour straight-through-the-Chaco bus the following evening. The part of the Chaco we crossed was a impenetrable wasteland of dry low bushes and scrubs. Bolivia and Paraguay actually fought a war over it in the 1930s (Paraguay won on penalties). I was stamped out of Paraguay at 3am by a border guard who just crept out of bed - the beds of the border guards were in the same office, two others were still in lala-land.

On to Santa Cruz then, Bolivia's second city. Finally arrived there the next evening and with two Frenchies from the bus (the only other gringos) we managed to get into a lovely hotel with super comfortable beds, a small swimming pool and satellite tv in the rooms (towards the end of his trip Señor Hans is not doing things as much 'on the cheap' anymore ... )

The next day was for scouting out the town with Adrien and Marie, but slowly for it was getting hotter by the city. I felt at home right away, being back in Bolivia; lively chaos and fresh strawberry juice: an unbeatable combination. We walked around the city center and the market a bit, sat in the square and afterwards I made full use of my fortunate connection with earth's orbit by watching Barcelona-Milan (Champion's League) and my team River Plate vs Corinthians from Brazil for the Copa Libertadores (we won 3-2).

But the next evening it was 'on' again. A night bus brought me the following morning to the town of Trinidad and after a three hour wait (used wisely for my third south american haircut and marveling at the numerous motorbikes buzzing around the town) the next bus was already leaving. This bus had to cross three rivers by 'ferry', but I doubt that is the proper description of the leaking random collection of wooden planks. Somehow, the bus didn't sink and we sped westwards at a steady pace. At the end of the afternoon we had to swap for a spartan little minivan, which doubled in height after all the luggage was put onto the roof. This made the thing extremely unbalanced and excruitiatingly slow ... we finally hobbled into the town Rurrenabaque, the goal of my 6-day Odyssee, at 1 in the morning ...

And tomorrow, Señor Hans is finally going into 'La Selva Amazonia', jungle beware !