Good bye Paraguay, Good morning Brazil!

Lady, sir, non-lady, non-sir, a bit of both, welcome! Paraguay is now behind me as I am gently prowling the whereabouts of the Iguazú national park. But first! Let me take you back to my departure of Asunción. I wish I could call it the descent but I couldn’t decently call it that. Paraguay definitely had its ups and downs hill-wise and people-wise (thankfully not ill-wise!). To come out of Asunción you first have to put with about 50km of suburbs. I know this is something to expect from the capital of a country but it makes it not less fun! Especially once you experience the Paraguayan driving style. I thought I saw chaos on the road before. Oh boy was I wrong. Do you have more than one cat? Do you also witness the merciless daily battle whose winner gets first to the food? Well imagine that for 50 cats, except the cats are cars, buses, motorcycles and have honks. The sole way for a bicycle to get through is to closely follow a vehicle which will ruefully shove aside any smaller vehicle than itself. The bigger the vehicle you pick, the better!

And I have now left this for…

That is once you get far away from the city, but the road thankfully leads you through some splendid scenery. How nicer does it get than to have this tiny house in the countryside?

Along the way I have also met some people in a town happily drinking their terere (the “mate”, only with ice cold water). You quickly notice as well that drinking terere is the biggest national sport in Paraguay. Everyone (and I literally mean everyone) has his or her 2L thermos filled up with ice cold water. They also drink it all the time, from the crack of dawn to dusk, weither walking, resting, working or even biking (yes, biking. With the 2L thermos hung up somewhere and one hand to hold the cup). Well I guess it’s better than smoking, isn’t it? Back to my story. Those people I met quickly welcomed me to their ranks and began to talk with me. One question leading to another, we quickly found ourselves doing a duo/trio of violin+guitar+flute! This was quite a memorable afternoon!

Soon on my way again, I stumbled across someplace where magestic birds seem to have taken residence. And here, I present to you the long sought for, shy and beautiful Toucan.

But this wasn’t the sole habitant of the place!

And here may I present you Lolo. At least that how s/he introduced him/herself (“Hola Lolo!”). It left me a bit puzzled at first as to who was repeatedly hailing me while I was mounting my tent before finding Lolo closely watching my progress.

Some days after that, I found a nice camping spot close to the Río Paraná. Here are some pictures!

And this, my friends, was the last night I spent in Paraguay.

Brazil, here I come! Now we had planned (with my mother and sister) to meet up at Iguazú on the 21st of December. That leaves me about a week during which I had planned to cycle around the Iguazú Park (a small detour of ~350km). Looking up the map, I had located a bicycle trail borduring the park and set myself to it. Here is the bordure of the Iguazú park!

But right before entering it I had to deal with my bicycle. Apparently the prospect of touring in the park on dirt roads after so many kilometres of asphalt took her flatfooted. That’s how I found her anyway.

First flat tire! Well I suppose that is to be expected after (almost!) 2000km. But a quick change of tire and we quickly were on our way. As dusk approached I spotted a nice camping site which would host my tent very nicely. Quite tired from my trip, I set up the tent all right and prepared my meal. And that’s when I spotted it! Looming dangerously some kilometres away were a huge pack of dark, dark clouds. Then you hear the rumble of the storm. They had not planned that on the meteo (“sun with clouds”). I thus quickly wolfed down my meal as the menacing mass dangerously crept closer. And no less than 3min after securely stashing away all my gear and sheltering myself in the tent does the silence come. First all birds stop singing, as do all other critters. Then the air suddenly feels thicker, almost solid and palpable. Then comes the first gush of wind and with it the extinction of all light sources as the obscure clouds finally engulf what was left from the sun’s light. The wind blows harder still and when finally comes the rain. The noise of it deafens you and leaves you hoping you built your tent properly (turns out I did! Yay me). And then when you thought this couldn’t get any worst, lightning strikes zoom around.

Like I said. Nice camping spot. Running water easily accessible, electricity provided. 5/5 would recommend to a friend.

Admittedly I wasn’t feeling so brave in my tent, but after some time you get used to the ever closer lightning strikes and sleep finally took me in. On the morrow, I started of fresh as ever and not the slightest wet! Following my bike trail led me to really interesting place (including the next opus of Jurassic Park? I did not see any T-Rex though).

That, until my path led me to a bridge… Which didn’t seem to exist anymore. The way around actually took me so long that I decided best to just hang around for the week and take some rest days instead of rushing the tour of this park and get myself exhausted. First village I went through desperately seeking something to eat, I saw one guy lazily having terere under the shade of a tree. I approached him, asking for directions. Turns out he only spoke Portuguese and I Castellano and after a few failed attempts at conversation he brandished his thermos saying “Terere?”. We then spend a few nice moments drinking terere together. I told you this was a big deal here.

Here’s what my hotel chamber looked like on the night. Laundry+tent drying. Ah well.