The never ending road

This post is a part of a series from my travels with friends Hazel and Ami from back home who are currently travelling South America. We went on a 3 day mission, camping at Ybycui which is “3 hours” by bus south of Asuncion. Then we went onto UNESCO classified Jesuit ruins of Encarnacion, located at the southern tip of Paraguay. These posts go to show that Paraguay is a travel destination that is more about the adventure, the experiences and people met, “it’s all about the journey man”! Enjoy.

After waiting a couple of hours for a collectivo that never showed up we made our way back to the centre of town. We managed to get a ride down the road that supposedly took us within 8km’s of the camp site. From the sign our “8km” trek started, and then 2 hours later we were still walking along the road that never ended. The prey that our missionary friends did for us must have paid off, as we stumbled across the super friendly old park ranger who was willing to sell us a beer for the road. Walking a never ending road seems a little easier with a beer in hand.

All roads lead to somewhere and ours led to a “light at the end of the tunnel”, well actually it was just a light on the side of the road attached to a ramshackle family house. It was dark; we had been walking for a couple of hours on what felt like a treadmill not a road. We went into ask the family sitting around on miscellaneous chairs and rural objects watching the men fixing a motorbike how much further to the campground. We were answered, “about 4-6 kms more” Paraguayan travel tip #546: don’t trust distances on road signs.

Thankfully the men offered to take us the rest of the way on their motorbikes for a small $5 fee (we didn’t read the small print and actually ended up having to stop off and buy a bottle of petrol as well – cheeky buggers). With Ami and Haze on the back of one bike and me on the other bike we took off following the solo headlight of my bike as the other bike had none, although the driver was using his cell phone to light up the road at times.

The road that never ended finally led to a potholed dirt road, our drivers hooting out load as they drove 2 tall and one dreadlock foreigner, a story they would be telling for the rest of their lives. We finally arrived at the camp site after leaving Asuncion 10 hours prior. We thanked our drivers with new found enthusiasm which can only be found when you know that you are lucky that you didn’t have to experience Paraguayan emergency response services.

What better way to celebrate arriving at our destination than a box of red wine. Travel tip # 679 don’t buy Paraguayan boxed wine, it tastes like something between urine and vinegar with red food colouring, lucky for us we had 3 litres or Argentinean wine in reserve.