Which country am I in?

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An 8 hour, Chipa filled bus journey away from Ascuncion lies the town of Pedro Juan Caballero. An 8 hour and 2 minute bus journey away lies the town on Ponta Pora. The important disinction between the 2 is that PJC is Paraguayan, whereas Ponta Pora belongs to Brazil. The 2 towns, and therefore by definition the 2 countries, are seperated by nothing more than the main road. The border security here makes Ciudad del Este look positively strict. I found this out the interesting way, by arriving rather late, and going on a wander to find a burger. How I rejoiced when I found a place selling them for just 3 Guaranies. Then my brain clicked into gear, and I realised I had somehow inadvertently ended up in Brazil. Time to retrace steps.

Fed, watered and slept, I awoke the following morning planning on making an early start to the Cerro Cora National Park. However, my 40,000 Guarani (about a fiver) room had a television, and this television was showing football. So instead I made a midday start to the Cerro Cora National Park. Keen blog fans who read the last episode might already know how this ended. If you need a hint, I didn't take a torch.

But we'll get there later. The first part of my day at the park was a stroll around the visitors centre, and the area of the park that is dedicated to those who had died in the Triple Alliance War, which for you history fans was Paraguay vs Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Now, I don't want to trivialize war, and this particular was a catastrophic loss for Paraguay, but if you're a country of Paraguay's size, it does seem a little silly to pick a fight with 2 countries that are much bigger than you, then another about your own size just for the hell of it. That would be a bit like Germany declaring war on Russia, the USA and France. Can't see that happening, can you?

Before I offend anyone else, I will move on to the second part of my day in the park, which was the nature walk, which the helpful chap at the visitors centre told me was a pleasant 2 hours, with a side trip to a mirador over the jungle. What he didn't say was that the grass hadn't been cut for the best part of a decade, which made walking a little bit tricky. So much so, that when I reached the turn off for the mirador it was starting to get dark. I contemplated doing the sensible thing and giving it a miss, but then I found myself bearing left and heading up the hill. I'm glad I did too, because the view of the jungle from the top was great. Nonetheless, I now found myself with very little light left, and still wandering around in the jungle. Up until now, I hadn't seen a single animal, but I didn't fancy sticking around to see if any came out at night, and broke into a light jog until I reached the main road as the stars came out.

Now, the man at the visitors centre had told me that I could flag down any bus and that would take me the 2 hours back into town. This turned out to be his second lie, as the first bus I waved at ignored me, as did the second. I thought maybe they didn't see me, so walked a bit towards a light spot, which conveniently had a bus shelter. I was slightly surprised to see it occupied in a spot miles from anywhere, and was a little wary of the occupants. Once again my mistrust was misplaced, as they gave me a ham sandwich. Yum yum. Eventually a bus came past that did stop, but I was surprised to see I was the only one getting on. To this day I have no idea what those people were doing at that stop, and possibly I don't want to know.

That wasn't the end of the nights excitement for me though. Back in PJC, I had to get to Paraguayan immigration before it closed, else I'd be stuck in this town over the weekend, and I'd just spent the day at the only attraction nearby. Imagine if you will, someone charging down dimly lit streets, arriving at immigration 5 minutes before closing and slamming their passport down on the desk before passing out. That wouldn't be me, as I actually arrived 10 minutes early, and there was a group of drunk Brazilians already at the desk, so no passport slamming took place. Shame. But I was heartened when aswell as my exit stamp, the lady also had a stamp with her name, so I can look back and remember the time I was emigrated by Jenny Lindstrom. Either that, or it was her subtle way of giving me her Facebook details. I suspect the former though.

But that kind of summed up Paraguay for me, home of some of the friendliest people I've met on my trip. The problem is, that being as there's no real infrastructure for backpackers, backpackers don't go, but being as there are no backpackers, noone wants to do things like set up hostels as they'll just lose money. Which is a shame, as it's definitely a country worth a visit, perhaps not a long visit, but a visit nonetheless.

Stewart

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Photos

Panchito
This is one of Paraguays war heroes, who was nicknamed Panchito. Literally "Litle hot dog" No wonder they lost

Hmm
It would help if I could see the path

Oops
Darkness closes in