More Straight Roads

We are busy crossing the flatlands of Northern Argentina’s Great Chaco wilderness.

There aren’t officials rest areas which is a drag. Gas stations have space to park which helps, roundabouts come up now and again and often have open space though not very scenic. Some of the best stops are with El Gauchito Gil:

Gil was a gaucho (cowboy) born in Mercedes Argentina in 1847. He was murdered there in 1874. His romance with the daughter of a local big wug might have something to do with it. He has become the patron saint of truckers and travelers and his red shrines are everywhere often under a tree which makes them a good spot to park and have lunch.

Later we drive a section of highway that illustrates the difficulties of modern Argentina and its failing economy. The section of road we were driving was going to be turned into a four lane freeway  and it’s been paved.

They even built the bridges and then the new government of President Miley took office and he slashed government spending and fired vast swathes of public employees. Work not finished was abandoned.

Inflation plummeted and the government’s spending is within budget without deficits but unemployment is rampant and relevant poverty.

Argentinians are famous for scraping by with self deprecating humor and surprising resilience. And they have had awful economies for decades so voting for something completely different came easy. But the peso keeps sliding against the dollar; good for us and bad for them. 

A forty trillion dollar deficit is making headlines in the US and I fear some slashing and burning at home will be justified by the numbers. I doubt the people at the top will suffer and I fear those further down lack the qualities Argentinians summon up when faced with catastrophe. We shall see. The other moment that set me thinking was crossing the mighty Paraná River and how shrunk it is become.

The city of Corrientes in the background, a surprising urban agglomeration in the wilderness. 

91 degrees a dry heat but it still felt hot. The solar panels were putting out forty amps almost as much as the engine and our batteries were charging all right. Even smaller rivers are low in the heat:   

Great town names we saw: The Lioness, Resistence, Reconquest. 

The road was to bad which is surprising for Argentina where potholes, ripples, bumps and lumps are the norm. 

On and on it goes.  Be glad it’s not you this week but at least we are moving and that’s great. 

Air conditioning that runs all night on our batteries is great too. Our new system will be excellent when the last glitch is ironed out.

Our stop for the night a ten dollar campground with hot showers. All we need.

Argentina

As you can see above we crossed into Argentina over the Pilcomayo Bridge, which river is the border with Paraguay, and we achieved that milestone around 9 am Thursday.

The border crossing was fast and easy as we had read the iOverlander entry and knew to stop at the white trailer to hand in GANNET2’s Paraguayan Temporary Import Permit. Argentine Immigration logs you out of Paraguay and logs you into Argentina in one stop then vehicles Ca like ours that aren’t in the Mercosur (Southern Common Market) have to get a new import permit.

And with that, less than an hour, we were in Argentina driving south to Buenos Aires 14 hours away. 

But before we took off across the Chaco wilderness of northeast Argentina we had another problem I had had to handle the night before.

We pulled into this modern gas station around five after our last day driving Paraguay. We took the day slowly, Layne cooked Rusty’s hot dogs so customs wouldn’t confiscate them. In the event customs checked his papers and our car insurance but ignored our foods. You never can tell at borders which is why we always carry all potentially necessary papers. Our route to the gas station took us back to Caacupé past the campground, but we stopped at our favorite eatery run by a Swiss immigrant. Spetzle and stroganoff, with a creamy mushroom sauce.

Then we took on the traffic  in the capital Asunción which is among my least favorite cities to drive. 

We made it to the gas station around five pm and I was ready to stop. It had been a very warm 90 degree day and traffic in the capital on potholes streets had been tiring. That was when I discovered one of our new Victron batteries  wasn’t showing up on my Bluetooth screen. 

It felt like the last straw after all our struggles to get the new system working properly. We regrouped and put in a WhatsApp call to Thomas our Swiss victron guru. He said the battery is still working even if it’s not sending Bluetooth signals and that was a relief. After a while it came back and looked normal so that was a partial relief. 

However this minor failure was a harsh reminder that the communication cable for all the batteries hangs by a thread. Thomas said if one battery fails the whole system shuts down so we thought about that for a while knowing one of our batteries, a brand new $1600 beast, was hanging by a thread. I worked myself into some anger and fired off a note to Adrian  who installed the system. He tried to deny he installed a bad battery but in the end he promised to install a new one under warranty. I was surprised.

Rusty enjoyed sitting out in the breeze as the sun went down and looking at him all serene calmed my aggravation. I do not understand why, after installing a battery with a bad communication cable built into it, and seeing the red light come on he didn’t just say “it’s the battery cable” and put in a new battery. He kept hoping his shrink wrapped connector would work, and all he had to do was send the battery back to victron as defective. Damn him for an idiot. 

The problem with the cable is it’s built into the battery and you can’t replace it separate from the battery  but Timo Adrian’s support has steady agreed to send it back as defective. Meanwhile we struggled in the dark trying to make it work. I feel betrayed. So now the plan is go back to Uruguay and get the new battery after our friends from Florida fly out of Buenos Aires on the 20th of September. The start delay  isn’t significant for our goodbye tour of Argentina as spring is just now firing up but it sure is annoying. Anyway that’s the story and I leave you now with some pictures from the road. First Paraguay.

Next year we want to come back and stop a few days the Alte Liebe farm, green, shady, lots of grass for Rusty and a pool for us. We might even rent a cottage. 

Speed bumps, always speed bumps. 

We met a young man who saw our US license plate at the gas station, who told us of his travels. His family exports bananas from Ecuador’s port called Guayaquil, a place we never visited as it is renowned for drug related violence. The cartels export their product through the city and he said violence is getting worse so he took off on a Honda 500 five years ago and has toured all South America  and he spoke good English too. 

We traded stories about traveling the Amazon and he went to put up his tent in back of the gas station. Then in the morning we found a young couple in a Paraguay registered Chinese built truck having a breakfast of coffee and pastries on the hood. Felix and Elena:

He owns a carpentry business in Germany but he lived two years in this country though he speaks no Spanish. I’d bet he had relatives who emigrated to Paraguay but nowadays he comes back for a few months of the year to tour and then goes back to Germany to run his business and go skiing in winter. Not a bad life. 

And so we did the border and took off south from Paraguay. The Chaco wilderness that stretches across Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. Dog (and child) transport: 

This is not exciting driving so we were all relieved to take breaks to help Rusty relax.

It looks like the Everglades to me with swampy areas :

Isolated ranches: 

The idea is to arrive at a campground just south of Buenos Aires by Saturday lunchtime so there’s lots more of this long straight driving to come. Lucky us.

We Moved

After three and a half weeks stationary there was a slight sense of feeling overwhelmed at the thought of wrapping up the component parts of our campsite but after five years on the road everything has its place and it was merely a matter of picking up the accessories and putting them on their places. Chairs, stools, sand mat, sand planks under the tires, electrical cord and so forth.

The last thing was to fill the water tank and we found ourselves saying our goodbyes to a small group staying behind. At last it was our turn so I rolled up the hose, nearly forgot to call Rusty, and set off. Forgetting Rusty? Sure…

The highest from Asunción to Ciudad del Este cuts across the country in a smooth four lane path through pretty flat uninteresting country. We started with open windows and devolved to air conditioned silence as Layne fired up a book on tape. It was time to remember how to be in travel mode again.

It was an hour long drive to a campground we had discovered in the heat of summer with a pool and a shaded garden to park in. We wanted to stop for a night before we cross to Argentina.

It was an easy pleasant drive, not much traffic on decent pavement. The campground is located on the owner’s father’s farm and Attilio’s dad emigrated from Germany so the farm is called Alte Liebe - Old Love. Luckily we knew where to look for the entrance as we approached. Granja means farm in Spanish.

Luckily we knew there was no problem getting up the scenic narrow driveway. 

And then we pulled on thick soft grass. Rusty was delighted; we took a nap.  

The guest house hiding the restaurant. 

Darkness fell and our hopes rose for a pizza dinner. Attilio makes an excellent crispy thin crust pie. We ordered a pepperoni and a vegetarian.

Rusty had already had his dinner so he knew what to do as we ate and planned our forthcoming tour of Argentina.

There is a full ish moon floating around and it looked good over the greenery. Spring will soon be springing down here.

The border today we hope.