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Published: June 11th 2010
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Travelling from Filadelfia to Concepción, the bus passed through the great Chaco wilderness, with not one town between the two cities. The road was surrounded by bush, as well as large cattle ranches and small wooden huts where the workers live. As the landscape is very flat, with not that many trees, you can actually see quite a bit from the bus - I managed to see numerous types of large birds as well as a flock of rhea (like ostriches but a bit smaller) around a small lake. But it was still strange that there was no town in the 250km journey. The buses in Paraguay so far seem to be a lot older and more uncomfortable than in the other countries I’ve been to; possibly the worst since Venezuela way back in January. Our bus broke down in the middle of nowhere, though we didn’t have to wait to long before they managed to start it again. Nevertheless, the journey was very uncomfortable, with not all of the roads paved, and I was relieved when we eventually got to Concepción.
I was only staying in Concepción as it was too late in the day to reach my next
proper destination, Laguna Blanca. Not much to say about the city really. Neither stunningly beautiful nor hideously ugly. It’s a large port on the Paraguay River upstream from Asunción, and had a moderately-nice city centre. The main street also serves as the city’s open-air museum, with large industrial pieces adorning the centre of the road. The centre-piece of the main square was a large mobile phone mast, which seemed an odd place for it to be. That’s about all there is to mention about Concepción. The following morning, bright and early, I proceeded to the bus terminal and was lucky enough to find a direct bus to where I wanted to go - Santa Rosa. This was a good 4 hour bus ride, but at least the roads were all paved. Santa Rosa, which is really in the middle of nowhere, lies 28km to the west of Laguna Blanca, where I was trying to get to. Laguna Blanca is Paraguay’s only truly natural lake, so named because the calciferous sand gives the lake crystal clear, nearing white waters.
Upon arriving at Santa Rosa I enquired when the next bus to Laguna Blanca would be, only to be told that
as it was Sunday, there were none. Half an hour later however, I found out that there were buses, so I was glad I wouldn’t have to spend the night in Santa Rosa, which wasn’t the most appealing town. The bus to Laguna Blanca had about twice as many people on as it should, so was actually even more uncomfortable than the bus ride the day before. The 28km along an unpaved road took an hour, only for me to find out that the main entrance on the road was actually a 3km walk away from the actual lake. But one of the people I asked directions for kindly offered to take me on his motorbike, though with my two heavy bags (filled with food and water for the next few days), I did nearly fall off a couple of times.
It was definitely worth the hassle to get to Laguna Blanca though, as it was absolutely stunning. And so peacefully quiet, as it is very much off-season here at the moment. And as it is so isolated, the lake seems much less spoiled than the ones nearer Asunción are. Even though it is winter now, during the day
the temperature was lovely, even warm enough to go swimming, but at night (I was camping - in fact the only person at the camp site) it did get rather cold. The only downside to visiting in low season is that the activities the owners arrange, such as horse riding and kayaking, are non-existent, so there is nothing to do but enjoy the lake, the scenery and the forest trails. There were so many species of birds (don’t have a clue what 90% of them were), as well as swarms of butterflies, though I unsurprisingly didn’t catch a glimpse of any of the large mammals that live in the area (puma, maned wolf).
After a few days relaxing in these tranquil settings, it was time to move on to my final destination in Paraguay - Ciudad del Este.
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