Driving To Deadline

Monday morning Chris our German mechanic in Paraguay will replace our water pump and related parts to stem a persistent but small coolant leak so we have to ready to drive into his shop by nine am Monday.

That means seven more Google hours of driving across the Chaco, the flat featureless plain that hovers between wilderness and imposed farming orderliness.

The road surface has improved as I remembered it did so we sit at 50 or 55 miles per hour watching the fields go by, waiting for Rusty to start panting when we stop for him to stretch his legs, roll in the grass and drink a bowl of water. Temperatures are hotter here, in the eighties so we are all drinking more. 

It shouldn’t take so long to get the miles driven but we start late, stop often, and try not to hurry. We have reached  a stage in Rusty’s life where sitting all day, and he refuses to lie down, requires breaks and I am not here to deny him, so the journey is slower. 

300 miles supposes an average speed of 50 mph which means a stop to take a shower at the gas station in Formosa followed by a lunch break later plus a couple of Rusty stops.

The border crossing at Clorinda most likely won’t happen today, or maybe we will drive after dark and make it happen as the border is open 24 hours.

We figured we might take a break from the road and the succession of gas station stops by spending a night by the Paraná River at a proper campground offering grassy shade and serenity (we thought; we hoped); it did not go well. The first shock was the dirt road which slowed us down. 

We meandered through an increasingly impoverished landscape of huts and shacks whose residents were taking the evening air sitting outside watching as it happens the gringos go by.

The road was on a levee raised above the river waters which pushed up on both sides. Layne remarked it looked and felt like a Louisiana bayou. 

The truck and the motorcycle we were following stopped and I pulled alongside knowing what was to come. 

I sought confirmation so I asked if the road ended here… “Ya…no mas,” he replied succinctly. There and no more, he jerked his chin at the floodwaters covering the road. The supposed campground was one Google mile ahead in the waterworld.

The pick up driver stood looking at the water rushing under the low bridge while the motorcyclist in a fit of unwarranted optimism went ahead hoping I suppose there might be a way. There wasn’t. I meanwhile executed a brilliant five point turn deploying the tight turning circle of a front wheel drive van and we turned our back on the Paraná and it’s out of control tributaries, led now by the motorcycle who had also given up.

Back to Highway 11 where half an hour later, just before sunset, we found refuge at a YPF gas station as usual.

Rusty ate like a horse as usual and drank deeply as the heat is requiring more water for each of us.  It’s hot and sticky now and feels like summer. 

I was ready to pass out as was my boy. Layne fed us asado meat leftovers and washed up. I passed out with Rusty’s back pressed up against mine. It was barely nine o’clock. 

That Monday morning deadline still looms.