four countries in two days

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But all good things must end and so I had to leave lovely Samaipata, for a much wilder adventure:

The bus to Paraguay
I took the bus from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, to Asunción, Paraguay. In my guidebook, it´s advertised as a "gruelling, minimum 30h bus ride on one of the most bumpy roads of Latin America". At the bus terminal, the companies advertised it as a 20h ride in a comfortable sleeper bus with toilet. In reality, it was a gruelling 24h bus ride in a bus that was definitely NOT a comfortable sleeper bus, and a toilet you definitely did NOT want to use, on a road that was mostly bumpy and partly paved.
Much more annoying were the three zillion drug traffick controls on the way: paraguayan military checking all the luggage for drugs several times, letting you wait for so long that you have all the time in the world to think about all the movies you have seen about tourists having drugs smuggled into their bags. I wish flying was more environmentally friendly.

Asunción, Paraguay
Arriving in Paraguay on a sunday evening is eerie. Empty streets, closed down hostels, glitzy shops, dirty shacks, and nothing nothing open. The first hostel we (two lovely americans who took the same bus) wanted to go to didn´t exist anymore, the second one was a run-down colonial mansion with lovely hosts, but I preferred to sleep in my sleeping bag... Asunción does not really cater for the tourist (eh - traveller). Food was also a difficult issue: our hosts told us that we shouldn´t venture out too far, as it´s dangerous on a sunday evening, but closeby was a seafood restaurant (in a landlocked country...). My favourite, as a vegetarian - but since on the bus, the drug control squads managed to take away ALL my food in the morning before I had eaten anything, I was starving and ready to eat a cow.
Next day, we walked around a bit in Asunción. Nothing I saw made me feel more comfortable in this city of stark contrasts - too many glitzy shops next too too much dirt poor shantytowns (Good thing that in their recent elections they elected the only candidate who might bring a change to this country - a president for the poor. Bet the rich don´t like him). Admittedly, I hardly saw anything because I felt sort of queasy all day and went to bed at 4pm. But check out the video - taken only one block away from glitzy shopping streets, on a well-groomed plaza.

Leaving Paraguay
By the next morning, we somehow all agreed that we wanted to leave, heading to Iguazu falls. So we managed to cross a whole country in just two days. The title to this blog entry comes from the fact that we went to Puerto Iguazu on the Argentinian side of Iguazu falls - but from Paraguay, you have to go to Brasil first - so I actually spent time in Bolivia, Paraguay, Brasil and Argentina in these two days.

Arriving in Argentina
Puerto Iguazu is pleasant enough, even though it´s just the base for all tourists heading to Iguazu falls, which was our plan for the next day. It continued to be Beth´s and Trevor´s plan, while mine dissolved itself into the fact that upon arriving, we went for dinner, even though I still didn´t feel like eating. But thinking that two days without substantial food is not a good idea, I had two gnoccis (yes, two gnoccis, not two plates!) and then went directly to bed with the worst stomach cramps I ever had. Conveniently, just when I decided that I am surely about to die and need to see a doctor, the guy in the next dorm bed sprang up, announcing that he was a tropical doctor and assuring me that I was not dying just yet. So I took a painkiller and already felt better in the morning, but still stayed in bed while everybody else went to Iguazu.

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