Little Bavaria

 Paraguay the paradox, a country unknown that offers surprising campgrounds for overland travelers. We left Pedro and his free campground and drove two and a half hours on Monday afternoon to Chris and Astrid’s Pequeña Baviera (little Bavaria) campground near the town of Caacupé an hour outside the capital of Asuncion.

We were greeted oddly enough by a German couple we’d last seen in Argentina last March. They have a Toyota four wheel drive pick up truck with a camper and are anxious to get into the mountains to escape the torrid heat  as they don’t have air conditioning to sleep by, unlike us. We awoke to 55% battery capacity after a  cool air conditioned night and the solar panels and a little driving got us fully charged by the we arrived at 3:30 pm yesterday at the campground. This 12 volt system is really proving to be excellent on 100 degree days. The drive was as we have come to expect in this country. Agriculture is an important industry here : 

The roads were a mixture of smooth pavement and stretches of rough patching and potholes which are annoying and slow us down. Even on the good stretches we barely make 50 mph but on the rough bits it’s 25 mph if we’re lucky. The road sign says slow down to 25 mph as the road is full of potholes (baches):

Laundry is a perpetual requirement where washing machines are too expensive. 

Tire shop and lunch counter in the sand place. All trucking needs attended to I guess: 

Not completely fascinating countryside I will admit: 

Lots of tire shops (gomerias) in Paraguay. Tires are so expensive the locals generally like to get by on used replacements for well worn tires. We gringos riding on knobby all terrain tires with treads are the lucky ones. 

I include road signs as a reference but I have no idea where these cities are located and I doubt you do either but here they are. 

Paraguay, like most poor countries, sells stuff roadside so people can try to help make ends meet. 

We discovered they make some pretty good empanadas in Paraguay, fried and filled with ground beef and chopped boiled eggs. 

We have encountered a few toll booths. The attendants smile and charge 75 cents. With gas at $3:40 a gallon we can afford to drive. Pretty nice country. 

Here’s another town no one’s ever heard of…Paraguay, land of mystery. 

The capital of pineapples and bananas apparently.  

Layne says the small pineapples are best when juiced. We don’t have a juicer so we passed on by. 

Need a Chevy? They sell models you’ve never heard of (and some you have). Chinese manufacturers stick a Chevy logononntjeir cars and sell them as prestige American cars. And Chevy makes  money for next to nothing. Cool, eh? 

75 cent lunch. 

There are some hills and outcrops but most of Paraguay looks pretty flat and dare I say noting looking.

The Promaster gets about 15 miles per gallon and burning gas is our single biggest expense. If overlanders want to save money they slow down or sit still for  awhile. 

Consider a $15 a day campground compared to driving at 15mph at $3:40 a gallon. So a day in a campground is a money saver usually. Never mind free camping in the wild if the area is suitable.  

The campground’s address is in the town of Caacupé: 

The road to the campground is half a mile of dirt, red dirt, and uncomfortable reminder of the Amazon. 

We have a neighbor. She’s called Fran and is sweet enough Rusty tolerates her and her owner, a well traveled Englishman. 

This campground wasn’t meant to be our next stop but Chris the owner does mechanical work and our new shore power system isn’t hooked up properly. I’m slightly annoyed as we should have checked even though we were running out of time. I’m also annoyed the electrician didn’t get it right first time. 

So we have to pause our tourism to deal with unintended consequences. Life on the road.