IguaÁu from the Other Side - Paraguayan Tyre Shopping - 6 Dec 2002
Mana mana
Brasil - done it!
A nice change from meat
Hectic border
Tyred and hot
It was a day for chilling, Pat gave Ariane a lift to the airport. We read and took a bit of a break. Trying to find a place cool enough to sit, without running with a deluge of sweat, was a mission. So went for a walk.
A little boy came up to us and said what sounded like 'Mana mana' . I assume he was asking for money, but what he got was Pat bursting into spontaneous song and dancing around him ' Mana mana, dit...dee..de-did-de, Mana mana.....etc.' The poor kid looked stunned and mildly scared as this lunatic jumped around him. Then realising that it was harmless, began to smile then laugh. He got no money from us but, I like to think that Pat brightened up his day, more than a couple of shekels of loose change would.
Our room, was the hottest place in the hostel. For some reason, only known to the owners, they had decided to paint the exterior of our dormer room dark green. So that in the heat of the day, the galvanised roof and the walls heated up. By mid morning the place was like an oven, with the walls radiating intense heat. There was no window to speak of and the fan did a half hearted job of moving the hot air around. Leaving the door open to the corridor meant that cooler air of only 35 degrees could get in. The lack of air and heat meant that the rivulets of sweat could not evaporate. What with the compulsory splattering of mosquitoes - sleep was not forthcoming!
To get across to Paraguay when you've reached Puerto IguaÁu involves a quick dash through Brazil. We were up with the larks (or to be more precise Kiskadees) and over the border before you could say knife. The border was far by the easiest we have done so far. I actually had to volunteer myself to the scrutiny of the immigration and customs officials. Seemingly all the locals have carte blanche to nip over the border for the day to shop. Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay are free trade partners and this area is something of a buyerís Mecca.
Ensconced in our hotel bright and early and with little else to do, we decided to look for tyres. Following directions from our hostel manager, we quickly found a reasonably sized bike shop. Regrettably, all of their stock seemed to consist of glitzy extras for put-puts.
The nice man behind the desk rang around a couple of places and sourced some tyres for us. As he was speaking on the phone, he was writing down prices and I eyeballed his jottings. After the call was finished he turned to me and told me I could get them for 460 Reals. This was considerably more than the sum of the jottings and it became clear why. He was going to give me a lift over to get them because "it is very difficult to find". I insisted on not troubling him and said I would find my own way. True to form, we could not find the other shop and so we gave up and went home muttering that we would buy them when we need them in Mendoza rather than carry them with us. A couple of guys we met in one bike shop suggested that tyres would be cheaper in Asunscion, anyway.
We aimed to cheer ourselves up with a visit to the Brazilian side of the falls and so set off for the hot 12 mile trip wearing little of our safety gear for once. I mean, it really was hot and we were prepared to risk a bit of gravel rash in preference to being cooked. I rode nice and safely - just like usual.
Our initial response to the Brazilian offerings at the falls were not good. We got caught in the car park nightmare. I haven't had this moan for a while as most places seem to have been cool for bikes for quite a while. The car park was one of those 'take a ticket and the barrier rises for you' affairs. We took one look at the tariff board and rode around the outside of the barriers. When there is no price quoted for a bike, I've got to the point of believing that they go free. After locking up we sauntered down to the information area for the park and had a word with one of the assistants. "Have you just arrived on the bike?" "Why, yes" "Can I see your car park ticket, please" I proceeded to whinge and whine and Hippy got really miffed with me for giving this guy a hard time. My point was that it was only 9 Reals to get into the park so how come they charge 6 and a half for parking a bike - the same as a car. moan moan moan moan moan moan.
We were good little boy and girl and picked up our parking ticket and headed off in the direction of the other grockles. The bus taking us inside the park was a little tacky with pan pipe music and a voice over of introduction to the park. It would have been nice to be left to enjoy the scenery, but maybe other people like elevator feeling of it.
At the drop off point you get a full frontal of much of the falls. Somehow, seeing it, like that was less romantic than walking through the forest and seeing different bits of the falls bit by bit, as we had done on the other side. Maybe, it was the weather, which was overcast, today, and not the brilliant sunshine that had graced us two days ago. Maybe it was the lack of Ariane's company and instead the hoards of tourists gathering to have their photos taken with the falls behind the. But it seemed to me that this frontal view was less impressive than the Argentine side and top views.
As we shuffled with the other tourists along the pathway up to the views of the Devil's throat it became more and more overcast. The major highlight, if you can call it that, was the most hideous creature I have ever seen. No not Pat with a hangover. A huge slimy looking gruesome mandibled great big fat white maggoty thing (about an inch wide and 8 inches long). Truly gross. On the prettier side of things was a stunning little spider, with red, blue and yellow stripes.
The views of the falls continued to be poor, the weather and spray made it all seem a bit dull. Then all of a sudden through the mist a flash of lightning brightened things up a bit. We are now learning that there is no lightning in these parts without a good helping of rain. My, did it throw it down. Folk on tours from hotels had been provided with rain Macs to keep them dry by the cataracts. We gazed enviously while trying to dash from the shelter of one tree to the next. When we were a couple of hundred yards short of the visitor centre, it really started to hoon down. Were it not for a very nice man with a coach, we would be in bed, even now, with pneumonia.
We hoped to get a cup of coffee at the cafe and were most disappointed to find that all they could offer was cold soft drinks. We had to have a pretty ordinary burger just to get something warm inside us. As I queued a lady came in with a couple of pretty huge hail stones in her hand. A strange change from only a day ago. A poor chap was obviously dispatched with a squeegee to clear off the tables and chairs when the rain had stopped. He worked intently and I guess if I'd had more foresight I would have pointed out the huge black cloud that was looming, coming up from behind him as he worked diligently. Sure enough, as he finished his twentieth table (and fortieth chair) the next deluge hit.
Hippy and I played cards while it chucked and hoped that a nice blue patch of sky would appear just before we had to set off back. We had visions of poor Bertha stood out in the rain and our helmets slowly filling with water.
No blue sky came and after we'd paid our parking fee, thinking that our Kismet principle would award us with fine weather for having been so honest, we set off back.. We'll have to rethink this Kismet thing, then. Although there was nothing like the precipitation of earlier, it still had a bit of a go. As I rode along in the mild rain, I pondered whether we'd have been better off getting our entire riding gear wet or whether our shorts and t-shirts would dry more quickly. All I could really have wanted for was the boots. As I huddled hunched up behind Pat protecting the rucksack, with camera and all in it, I wondered what I was doing here. The water on the road, splashing up as the rain came down. There was no escaping the inevitable. But we did mange to keep the camera dry at least.
We ate out as usual when on a day in, day out trip to a town and were advised by the hostel warden of an ëall you can eatí place over the road. So we went. Expecting the same as we have been eating out at every turn; Milanese, steak, chicken served with chips or chips, we were astounded and pleased to be welcomed by a long salad counter with all manner of beans, rice and salads. Tip top. The waiter asked if we wanted the pizza-all-you-can-eat or the meat-all-you-can-eat. We settled on one of each and were served to bursting with all manner of stuff. If you are familiar with the Pizza Hut version of this kind of meal, as we are, you would have expected a choice of cheese and tomato or tomato and cheese pizza. Here they served up the whole gamut. The meats were similarly various; chicken, beef, lamb, chorizo sausage and pork. We stuffed ourselves good and proper for just over a pound each. Must spend more time in Brazil.
On the other hand, with food like this, I know I would eat too much. Letís head back to the dull fair of Argy and hopefully I will not instantly balloon. The local girls look far more normal shaped, anorexics need not apply. So in that sense, I prefer it. I have got a little jealous of watching hoards of women with perfect figures squeezed sexily into skin tight trousers. More to the point I am able to have conversations with Pat and not have him staring over my shoulder at the binty walking down the road.
We had heard rumours that the crossing into Paraguay, was a little dodgy, so with everything lockable locked we headed towards Cuidad del Este.
Hectic is not the word, imagine minibuses, trucks, 100s of mopeds weaving randomly in Brownian motion squeezing 3 lanes down to one across the border. This was not something for the nervous, every vehicle had the battle scars of previous altercations at the border; scrapes, dents and broken bumpers and lights.
This mayhem was not hindered by bureaucracy. All vehicles, apart from us goody goodies, seemed to sail through the police controls with no passports, customs, pieces of paper or even so much as a wave. It would have been easier to go with the flow, but we feared that if we did not enter officially, we may hit problems trying to leave, like being hammered for import duties.
Paraguay is a free trade zone, which apparently means 2 things, that there is no control on what goes in, and the rumours are that bike theft is high, as within a couple of hours there is nothing to stop a bike with foreign plates being stolen and sold on. Hence plans were to hoon across to Asuncion and back out again.
Paraguay also has a reputation for dodgy police, trying to find any excuse to stop and arbitrarily fine vehicle owners, especially if they are likely to have money, i.e. Foreign ones. We have never been so careful to stick rigidly to speed limits, as we did that day. And, sure enough, we were stopped and stopped again, but they failed to find anything to manufacture a fine for. It is always a bonus in these situations to have all your documents in a foreign language so the readers are not certain whether this is legitimate and merely stare at it blankly and pass it back (but I suppose this did slow things a little, as they tried to fathom their contents).
The down side of all this passing of the documents is that you have to sit on your bike in the baking sun while they ask a series of boringly familiar questions. Where are you from? etc In normal circumstances this makes quite a nice break and we quite enjoy the banter with the cops about our trip. Today, however, the temperatures must have been up in the mid to high thirties and humidity somewhere near total. By the time we reached Asuncion we were tired and quite emotional.
The usual rattiness flared up as we tried to navigate to the centre of this city with no signs. All of the fall back hotels mentioned in the Lonely Planet seemed to have closed and with a baked head I ended up agreeing to stay in one of the plusher hotels at twice what we would usually pay for a room. It was the near refrigerated reception that really attracted me.
Maybe its having less to think about, having less breathable gear or being sheltered from the wind by Pat, but on the back I was feeling decidedly ill by the time we reached the capital. I was a bit dizzy and trying to look at the map and match it with road names - my eyes were not focusing properly. When we stopped at the first closed hotel, I realised, that my helmet was radiating enough heat to heat up a small terrace in Manchester in winter, while Patís was only vaguely warm. We had chosen these helmets for their colour in the heat, I do not recommend silver, metallic, stick with boring white. This may explain why I had suffered more from dehydration in Sudan than Pat on the bike.
We were absolutely exhausted and we have only just come to realise that travelling in the cold and wet is in fact preferable from a physical point of view to being subjected to the heat all day. Mad Dogs and Englishmen, eh? Thankfully the room was reasonably well provided for with air conditioning and we managed to ward off the oppressive heat. Asuncion is definitely a city for the hardy traveller.
We were on a mission to find tyres. I mean, theyíd assured us in Brazil that rubber products would be a bargain here, hadnít they? All of the shops in town catered solely for the small bikes that swarm the streets and the only thing they could offer with a 17 inch diameter would have been like riding on a razors edge. Strange, but just as with Africans, the locals here have not a clue about how to draw or interpret a map. We wandered around fairly randomly following spurious instructions to no avail. Finally, a sensible bloke suggested a shop called Motospares Yamaha and we knew we were onto a winner. It was a bit out of town and so we resolved to check it out in the morning. We called in at the garage to pick up beer to fill up our frigo-bar in the room. Yes, that fancy folks! It always tickles me when garages sell alcohol and here they have reached new peaks in absurdity. Not only did they have beer, but all manner of exotic imported spirits including Virgin Vodka, no less.
The morning had us up and about and excited about picking up new tyres. I left Hippy in the relative cool of the hotel room and whacked up the road to the Yamaha dealer. He laughed. But he did point me in the direction of the Honda dealer with the assurance that he would surely have them. He laughed, too.
I gave up with the confidence that theyíd definitely have them in Mendoza in Argentina. We shall see how much they laugh.
Managed a bit of tourist stuff in Asuncion before the heat of the day drove us back to our air con. Not much to see, here, really apart from the ministry buildings which look in pretty good shape. The nice guards even let us take a picture for once. I felt for the poor guards in the sweltering heat, as they fidgeted with the rifle straps, while they read their paper in the shade. If you want to break into any banks, public buildings in Paraguay, pick the sunny side of the street in summer, all the guards are hiding from the heat around the corner.
I also have a theory on the reason why so many countries stay faithful to religion while in the West we have been more fickle. Itís the heat, you see. Churches are wonderfully cool places to escape the heat of the day. So where religion went wrong was not creating warm cosy places for more chilly venues. Instead the pubs created that atmosphere in UK so obviously there are more people in the pubs than in the churches. Come on C of E, ditch those cold church halls and cavernous places of worship and get cosy, watch your congregations rise.
We had lunch in a cafe that was a fusion of Eastern Europe with the previous night in Brazil. Here, there were all manner of salads and stuff, but it worked on the principle that you filled up your plate and then took it to the counter to get it weighed. Top nosh though.