June 2004

The brilliant Rio Paraguay divides the country for which it is named into two distinct regions: the eastern plateau has well nourished grasslands and subtropical forests and the western Gran Chaco region offers a dry expanse of inhospitable plain, much the same as our american midwest. We found Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, to be less than thrilling. Although it sits on the banks of the beautiful river, it offers no malecon (boardwalk) nor many views at all from city center. I overheard someone in an internet cafe in Potosi yesterday mention that Asuncion is the poorest capital in the world, that is to say, it has the lowest cost of living. I believe it…

Paul and I wandered aimlessly through the streets taking in the scene… I never really pay much attention to the current day of the week while traveling but it must have been a Sunday. The entire city felt dead… the streets were vacant of traffic and the sidewalks free from footsteps in every direction. Eventually we came upon a compound that occupied a city block alongside the river and what appeard to be the presidential residence. A sobering feeling came over us as we passed by on the sidewalk. At all corners of the surrounding streets and through the grounds, men in black chattering in code on walkie-talkies, others in camo gear—hate suits as Paul affectionately calls them—weilding their semi-automatics and shotguns. It seemed a bit overkill for the ammount of nothingness that was happening in the city. Who or what were they expecting? A civil revolt? A coup-de-etad? Maybe just citizens demanding explanations and for their corrupt? Impossible! From what we could tell thus far, the Paraguayans had been some of the most easy going people we’ve met, ranking right up there with the Uruguayans.

Anyway this feeling of awkwardness as we passed the guards was nothing compared to the blow we took as we approached the small overlook to the river located in a tiny unkept park to the immediate left of the presidencial palacio. There, below the overlook, scattered among the riverside vegetation was a sad, run-down favela, basically what we call a slum; and this was probably one of the worst we had seen thus far in all of South America. The absolute poverty juxtaposed with the offensive stature of the regal “white house” with its huge windows, towering pillars, multiple balconies, ornate mouldings and guarded heli-pad gave me an unsettle feeling. It was a slap in the face of everything americans are used to. Paul and I stood there for a long time absorbing the scene in silence: an older lady washing cloths in a small plastic basin, men repairing the hull of a large wooden fishing boat, kids passing time playing volleyball. The entire city posessed a rather tranquil feeling which came as a welcomed change from the hustle and bustle of Ciudad Del Este, the eastern city from where we had just arrived.

In the United States there is plenty of space to keep the rich segregated from the poor. The well-to-do can comfortably walk around in their own beautiful suburban comunities without being bothered by the existence of the ghastly trailer park or inner-city slum and the dirty people that ocupy them. The silent segregation that our system exists upon is quite an ugly phenomenon when it comes into view like it had for us today. Only here in this sad state, was I provided clear insight to the real and apparent differences between the socio-economic position of the struggling country and my own.

![1384256][small][alignright]We crossed the Iguazú river into the town of Foz Do Iguaçu in Brazil first thing in the morning. This city was considerably larger than its Argentinean counterpart, Puerto Iguazú and passing through there was somewhat like stepping back into Ecuador, vendors on the streets jumping on and off busses selling their goods to the passengers… more akin to the pace of other third world frontier cities we had been through near the beginning of our trip. Our bus was a direct bus to Paraguay loaded down with huge bags of rice, and other grains, cartons of fruits and veggies and people sprawled out sitting and standing where they could amongst the cargo. We made no official stops inside the Brazilian border but with the constant traffic jam we encountered while crossing the city and all the local street vendors hopping on and off the bus, it could have been fairly easy to get off illegally and stay in Brazil for a while. However, to leave the frontier town of Foz without a proper visa in order was a risk we were not quite prepared to take, so we stuck to the plan not knowing what would lie ahead of us in Paraguay.

The bus finally reached the other side of the city and crossed the Friendship Bridge over the Paraná river into Paraguay. To our surprise, the driver did not bother to stop at the border guard station nor at immigration so when we went to ask about why he didn’t stop: apparently they never stop unless someone asks them to, which never happens. We had two options, get off now and walk back with all our bags to the border guard so we could get a stamp, or ride to the bus terminal, store our bags and then walk back… so we chose door number two and stayed aboard the bus all the way through the city to the bus terminal. Although it seemed everyone at the bus station and the border were in such a hurry, we weren’t so we took our time, exchanged some money, stored our backpacks at the terminal, enjoyed a morning mate, and took a walk back to the border to enter the country legally on foot. Paraguay also requires purchase of a visa that can only be granted if the traveler has evidence (i.e., a ticket) of onward travel to leave the country and 2 color photos. We had the photos but without the valid itineraries we were stuck without the official visa. But a bit of the old greenbacks in hand we were able to get a seemingly official 5-day transit visa from the less than honorable customs/immigration officer. He assured us that we would have no problems leaving the country as long as we did it before the following Saturday. We left the office, our wallets $45 dollars lighter with a mixed feeling of relief that we were in, with a stamp in the passport, but equally the uneasy feeling that what had just occurred was slightly beyond the bounds of legality. For the mean time, there could be nothing else to do to remedy the situation so we dropped the subject and enjoyed an adventuresome stroll through the “Eastern City” as it is aptly named, being the farthest point in the east of the tiny landlocked country.

As is the case with most border towns where one country celebrates a stronger economy than its neighbor, this town was a huge bazaar, in fact, famous enough that it has been referred to as “the biggest shopping mall in South America.” The Friendship Bridge into Brazil has 10.000 people crossing it daily to do business in the tax free market. The chaos began as soon as you step off the bridge and set foot inside the border just beside the immigration office. The mall extended for two blocks on either side of the main avenue and occupied at least 10 blocks between the bridge and the center of town. To each side of the main avenue was a different department: to the right was the clothing (everything from cheap leather sandals to cheap heavy coats almost useless in this hot climate); to the left was electronics (everything imaginable from fake Rolex watches, to computers, to digital cameras). I mean there were people everywhere, stands on every square inch of sidewalk, and the buildings as well were filled with small outfits specializing in some electronics trade.

It wasn’t until we entered one of the multi-floor mini-mall galleries that I fully understood the gravity of what takes place here. You see, I failed to mention that on our original arrival to Paraguay while crossing the big bridge from Brazil I saw people crossing on foot carrying humongous rolls of some white materials on their backs. I later realized upon closer inspection the rolls were plastic bubble-wrap, but I still didn’t make the connection at that point. In the gallery we arrived on the third floor to find a series of merchant spaces occupied by packaging companies. Cardboard boxes, packaging tape, and of course….. bubble-wrap lying all about. People come here from Brazil, purchase cheap products and send them off where ever they need to go. Its a huge business and it preoccupies the entire existence of the Eastern City.

After several hours of meandering through the dirty crowded side streets and merchant galleries in constant awe at what we were seeing, we set pace towards the bus terminal discussing the complete and utter disgust at what we had just witnessed. How could we come to one of the most naturally beautiful places on earth and encounter such a filthy greedy honey-pot just down the river that seemed to totally ignore its existence? The answer to the question seemed bigger that just our immediate situation and for the moment I left it alone. But now looking back and reading what I’ve written it is all making me feel a bit queasy—slightly green in the face, at the risk of sounding cheesy—from all this lust for man-made green in the midst of, or better put, at the cost of losing all the natural shades of the same color.

The two day journey from Colonia Uruguay to our inland destination of Iguazú Falls up the Rio Paraná wasnt exactly a trip into the heart of darkness, however it was rather boring and slow, just like the book. I guess also like the book the climax hit once we reached our final destination. The enormous horseshoe-shaped falls lie deep in the heart of a tropical forest where three countries (Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay) that are divided by two rivers (the Paraná and the Iguazú) come together.

So we had a hell of an adventure getting out of Urugauy that Friday night. We were basically dropped off in the middle of nowhere in the Uruguayan countryside at a place known as the radial where the principle road along the coastline forks; the upper fork would be our route inland to a northern border crossing with Argentina, such that we would end up in Santa Fe. We sat at the fork of the busy highway for a few hours watching darkness creep up and hoping that we would be able to recognize our bus and successfully flag it down. The hour came at which time the bus was supposed to pass, but no bus. I was getting worried because I had already seen three buses pass with our border crossing destination lit up in the windsheild. We were starting to think up a “plan B” when our ride finally rolled up. After boarding this extremely nice double decker overnight semi-cama bus whose ticket we purchased for $5 dollars back in Montevideo, the attendant promptly served up a quality whisky on the rocks to our surprise free of charge, afterwhich all was smooth sailing to Santa Fe. Our stay in Uruguay was short, maybe too short, but well worth the detour, and certainly a worthy point on the map to return to in the future.

Saturday in Santa Fe, was uneventful. Since our bus had arrived at 4 am,we slept off a few more needed hours of sleep in the bus terminal. Our connection up to Puerto Iguazú, the Argentinian town located nearest to the falls, wouldnt leave until 5 pm. So we stored the packs at the station and walked around the city. Nothing expectacular, just a normal city in the middle of nowhere Argentina. There were churches, plazas, and pedestrian malls. The fad among the youth of the town seemed to be sweatpants, everyone was wearing them, and every store on the ped. mall sold them in multitudes of colors and stripes; the girls usually opted for solid white, the guys, whatever Adidas striped pair matched their shoes.

The city bus picked us up at the same station where we arrived earlier that morning and hauled us and the handful of other tourists out of town about 8 km to the National Park. I was completely baffled at how few gringos there were aboard, as well as in the park. Most everyone around us were actually speaking Spanish or some indigenous dialect. There were many indigenous people in the park selling their carved crafts and jewelry spread out on small blankets, the same they use to wrap up their goods and carry on their back. They sat on the grounds scattered around in seemingly random places along the various access trails to the falls. Most of the carvings were surprisingly poor quality for indigenous work and it seemed that everyone had the same items laid out on their blankets. Maybe the artisans decided to “incorporate” the carving business to step up production levels to meet the dollar demand. I didn’t let this constant reminder of the pervasiveness of capitalism overpower the excellent time in this beautiful park. It was nice to get off the bus route, out of the concrete jungle and into some real green surroundings. The natural aroma in the air as Paul and I walked between the lookout points was exhilarating: clean, fresh oxygen. I had the realization that this is in fact where a lot of our world’s oxygen is produced, through the natural and wonderful system we call photosynthesis. The same system by which we receive all these brilliant shades of leafy green.

The falls were absolutely incredible to experience in person, and certainly have already made it to the top of my list on highlights of the trip. Our first approach to the falls was from below. After a glimpse at the falls from one small deck at the base of the right most corner, we hopped on a boat that crossed the lower river to Isla Grande San Martin, the island that sits in the middle of the horseshoe. We hiked around the island to the various decks that offered cool views of the various falls. The enormous amounts of water falling over the horseshoe shaped falls is much more impressive than that of the comparable Niagara falls of North America. There are over 275 cascades spread out along the horseshoe. Then we returned to the mainland for another point of view, this time from the top of the falls. There were two main vantage points above the falls, one directly above the right corner of the falls and the other more impressive view much farther up river that we accessed by first hoping on a small passenger train around the perimeter of the river. The area known as the garganta del diablo (devil’s throat) has fourteen falls dropping 350 feet with such force that there is always a 100 foot cloud of spray overhead (read more about the falls @ about.com). We reached the top of the garganta via a long catwalk that reaches out over the approaching Iguazu river and peered over the edge seeing an impressive white cloud of water vapor. The winds changed and we became soaked with this vapor that suddenly reached up and over the 350 foot fall.

We spent the entire afternoon roaming the various trails and overlooks and left the park both tired and satisfied on the last passenger train of the day. That night we planned our course, setting sights on Paraguay, a new and unknown land that presented itself across the Paran� river. Passage to Ciudad del Este (East City) in Paraguay would be slightly more involved than simply crossing a bridge from Argentina. Interestingly, if not at least ironically, even though Argentina and Paraguay share a border separated by a river, the only way to arrive by bus is to pass through Brazil first. There is no bridge that connects the two countries. Luckily though, there were busses that made “direct” trips through Brazil without stopping, meaning we would not have to stop at Brazilian immigration, get fingerprinted, and pay the US$100 visa fee. The ridiculous ordeal is levied on US citizens in reciprocity of the same that the US does to Brazilians.

So we’ve got about a month left to make it back to Ecuador, on the other side of this continent, with such a variety of things to see between here and there, we were feeling the rush of our trip coming slowing to an end. In montevideo we had to figure out how we could make it up to Iguazú falls some 1000 kilometers away. It would clearly require us to travel back into Argentina, but the problem was there was no direct bus from Montevideo. We decided that it would be worthwhile before leaving Uruguay (after a stay of only2 days!) to visit the small port city of Colonia de Sacramento.

The side trip was definitely worth still retained much of its seemingly original colonial style. This small port was the stopover point for colonial contraband being smuggled out of the Spanish controlled Buenos Aires. The spanards prevented free trade with other colonies and countries, requiring all booty be brought back to mother spain. The colonists didnt like this at all and of course they found ways around this distributing their mining, sheep, and cattle products through Colonia, until their ultimate campaign for independence which began in 1810.

So we had fun running around town on the ruins of the huge fortification walls that protected the colony, pretending to be pirate smugglers, arrrgh. The town seemed to exist relatively untouched from gringo tourists (as it appeared was most all of Uruguay) with not a huge selection of hotels, bars or internet cafes. There was an interesting museum on the indigenous people that lived in Urugauy before the Jesuits came to spread the good word in this part of SA. That night we found the one town bar, El Dorado, and were fortunate enough to have a quality convro with the refutable town drunkard, Sandro, a wine-drunk close-talker of the worst sort who liked to spit out his S’s, T’s, and P’s with enTTTHHHHusiaSSSSm and flail around his cigarette hand wildly so as to burn our pants and shirts.

We spent Thursday walking around the Uruguayan capital city, of which I cant really think of anything for which it might be famous. This city and perhaps all of Uruguay in general have a distinct aire. I believe that the warmth of the people and their interesting cultural and social habits, mixed with the exceptionally calm temperate climate creates what I’m experiencing here as an overall buena onda. The people are very curteous and the mate (pronounced mah-teh) is more prolific and ten times as sociable than the Starbucks-on-every-corner coffee culture in the United States. People on the streets can be seen carrying a thermos under their arm and a mate gourde in their hand. The popular mateá , a small ornate leather “pic nic” bag, serves as the mate travel case, holding a thermos, the yerba, and a mate gourde.

Its an incredibly nice experience to be invited to share a friendship mate. The warm, bitter herbal infusion is an aquired taste but an invitation should never be turned down… especially for the opportunity to talk to some new and interesting people. I decided that here I would pick up some souveneirs of the mate culture and found a nice tanned leather mateá and thermos on the streets in Montevideo and the day before had picked up a nice mate gourde and bombilla (the cup and metal straw that filters out the leaves as you sip) in Punta del Este. The last thing was to purchase some yerba mate the herb. There are a multitude of diferent brands, and not knowing much of a difference betweent them, I went for a mid-ranged brand… man, this stuff is cheap here: 16 ounces of herb costs 22 pesos uruguayos (like US$.60 cents) whereas the imported package of the same size in the US costs $8 dollars.

We walked out to onto the large jetty that points out into the Rio De La Plata for an excellent view back upon the peninsular city perched on a small hill. There were many people fishing for what appeared to be their daily lunch from the jetty and almost no one catching anything sizeable. That night we headed up river for Colonia de Sacramento, another much smaller port town on the large rio.

We left Buenos Aires on tuesday night for the Uruguayan border. Its possible to cross to Montevideo, the capital city and Buenos Aires’ smaller scruffier cousin, by a ferry boat across Rio de La Plata. But the cost of the boat launch was, once again, more than we were willing to pay when we could catch a night bus (that goes quite a bit out of the way up river) for much cheaper and at the same time saving us the cost of lodging for one night.

So we thus arrive in the capital city early in the morning, and after reading that the Uruguayan coast line is magnificent, we decided to head up the coast a bit to check out the premier beach resort, Punta del Este, located at an “eastern point” for which it is named where the Rio de la Plata river turns into the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, the peninsular city claims the water to the north as the Atlantic Ocean and the water to the south as the Rio, it all looks the same to me.

Well, first I have to say that the latitude of Uruguay is exactly that of North Carolina on the other side of the equator, so the flora and climate were VERY MUCH reminiscent of home sweet home Carolina. The bus ride very much reminded me of driving through the rolling hills and pastures of central NC along highway 64. The coast line we saw was a bit different than that of NC, there being rather large hills roling down to the rocky sea. In Punta del Este we walked around the peninusla seeing many luxurious summer homes and ran into only a few locals out walking their dogs. Since we are here in winter, the beaches and ports were empty and most if not all of the large 20 floor hotels were boarded up and empty.

It took us a while to find a restaurant that was open (none of the ones suggested in our book were open including the italian place that boasts being open year round 24/7). That afternoon we left the resort, after extreme boredome and lack of things to do and see. We headed along the road back to Montevideo 3 hours away.

Not far outside Punta del Este, we stopped to visit Casapueblo, the impressive eccentric home of a famous uruguayan artist perched up on a cliff. The house itself was quite cool, white-washed with no straight lines in the roof, walls, or really anywhere in the house. We werent able to see much more than an informative video on the life of the artist and the rear terrace overlooking the sea below due to a talkative austrian that held us up until closing time talking about his travels around south america. One most interesting thing about the artist was that his son was one of the survivors of the airplane flight that crashed into the Andes back in the 80’s… remember the movie Alive!

The house/museum closes at sunset, whereupon there are supposedly excellent views from the terraces, but naturally it was overcast that day. We hiked back to the main road and missed 2 buses to Montevideo. The fog began to roll in, the temperature lowered to “frigid” and finally in the pitch dark of night we were picked up by a bus headed to another town, that had to speed up to catch up with the 3rd bus we would have otherwise missed as well. We blamed all this bad luck on the Austrian.

There were other cooler more relaxed places more up the coastline towards Brazil that we decided to skip due to our rushed schedule, but we concluded that this beautiful place would be worth a return trip in peak season.