Hola Beast Crew

The Beasts have travelled through the little known and little visited country of Paraguay back into Argentina.

Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) – Ascuncion (Paraguay) – Corrientes (Argentina) – Presidencia Roque Saenz Pena – Santiago del Estero – San Miguel del Catamarca – La Rioja – Valle de la Luna – La Rioja – Catamarca

10th February – 26th February 2007

We crossed over from Brasil into Ciudad del Este in Paraguay via a bridge.  We needed to be stamped out of Brasil and into Paraguay but there was no border crossing post, just a chain of trucks transporting cheap Chinese goods into Brasil.  After confusion we drove back over the bridge to get our passports stamped and hand in out temporary import before being let loose on the third poorest country in South America.

Paraguay is predominately an agricultural community with many poor people living subsistently.  We drove through police blocks with the grumpy police men demanding all our paperwork.  The road to Ascuncion was lined with cows tied up on the grass verges.  We pulled up at a german signposted hotel, where we had dinner at the restaurant across the road and were surprised with enormous families of blonde, blue eyed people who trouped in, sat down ordered enormous jugs of fruit juice before praying for their dinner.  A bit like walking into the village of the damned.  The Menonite community left Germany after the WWII, many bringing Nazi gold with them to set up and buy large tracts of land, converting the Paraguayan land into profitable soya, sugar, peanut, wheat as well as other agricultural products.  They are a stark contrast to the darker Indian looking Paraguayan people.

We carried on down the main highway through the rolling green hills, to the laid back capital of Ascuncion where the only place active on a Sunday was the street corner where the money changers touted for business.

We headed south back into Argentina and attempted to participate in some of the Carnaval activities of South America.  Having missed out on the fun of Brasil’s crazy festivities we thought we would try and get into Corrientes where they hold one of the largest Argentine Carnavals.  Our plans were brought to halt when a policeman ran across the road and told us that we weren’t allowed to go into the centre due to not having a bumper bar….!  We were so annoyed that we carried on to the spa town of Presidencia Roque Saenz Pena handing water out to people on the highway who had run out of water in the their radiators (we should have taken notice!!).

Our headlights had been playing up for over 6,000km inhibiting us driving at night time so we finally decided to the electrics sorted.  The headlight stick had a broken connection that the electrician couldn’t sort out so he replaced it with a pull up switch.

We were two weeks ahead of schedule for meeting up with our motorcycle friends so we decided to get prepared for our journey across Bolivia and some of the worst roads in south America so we got all our oils changed, with the exception of the engine oil. 

We headed up from the dry plains of Santiago del Estero up to 2500m and down windy roads that dropped 17km to down to San Miguel del Catamarca.  We had to cruise down on petrol fumes until we finally run out about half way down the mountain and had to use our last water ridden petrol to stagger into Catamarca.  We staggered in to the petrol station and then headed to the nearest mechanics.  The mechanics worked out that we had knackered our universal joint on the crap roads.  The young mechanics were rally drivers and gave us a guided tour of our grease points and oils and suggested that we get our UJs greased every 5,000km (something we have never done!). 

We drove into an oven as we drove down through red sunbaked valleys heading to La Rioja.  The day time temperatures hit 45oC and evening temperatures of 35oC, unbearable in a Beast that retains heat.  We headed down to the Valle de la Luna, a beautiful concoction of red striped rocks and wind sculptured piles offering names like the submarine and the mushroom.  As the sunset over the red rocks our oil pressure dropped as an indication that our oil filter needed a change and that our oil was dirty.  It never rains but it pours when you are on the road!

Notes on Paraguay:

 Notes on Argentina: