Paraguay

There is a Filadelphia in Paraguay. It is the last major town before the dirt road to Bolivia starts - so we are told. We knew nothing about Paraguayan roads until that morning, in Asuncion. We found the local Automobial club. The tell us that 150 km from the Bolivian border, the asphalt becomes dirt or sand. "The truth is, we don't know much, only that it is really difficult to cross," they tell us. "They will know everything in Filadelphia".

Hmmm... don't they know that Filadelphia should be spelled with a "ph"? Filadelphia is a nothing town. I enter a botique, looking for information, and find a blond woman speaking German to another blond woman. Everyone here is blond haired and blued eyes. She knows nothing. I ask her about the town up the road. "Oh, you don't want to go there," she says, "Paraguayans live there. It is better for you to stay the night here." Aren't you Paraguayan???? I do not ask this question, but this is a far cry from the color rich Brazil we had left one day earlier.

Unsatisfied with the advice and attitude, we proceed to the next town, Mariscal Estigaribia, the last town before the border. There we find out that the "blonds" in Filadelfia are the Mennonites, colonsists from Germany, Switzerland and Canada who were given free land and money to help develop the country over 100 years ago. I wonder if the Paraguayan government thought that they would integrate more....

The border guards in Mariscal shake hands with us and pose for pictures. They tell us that we are planning to take the "wrong road" to Bolivia... there is an 80 km stretch of pure desert along the 300 km stretch of road. Take the Picada 500 they tell us. Picada doesn't sound much better... it is a road that has been "picked" so to speak, by the shear wear and tear of trucks that have passed by.

In Mariscal we encounter an unlikely entrepreneurial French who moved here a year ago and set up the only hotel, bar, restaurant in town. At least they seem to be mixing pretty well with the locals.While I practiced my French, Enric made the rounds, asking residents and truck drivers about the road conditions.

The Picada 500 beats out the straight road through the desert. We are crossing what is known as "El Chaco" - a semi-tropical desert that forms the border between Paraguay and Bolivia!

We pass through Paraguay in 2 days - this is no time to see a country, but enough to pass through stretches of tropcial roads, endless fields of Palm trees (Southern Paraguay), negotiate the terribly crowded and messy capital of Asuncion, and stop and talk with countless military control personnel who are looking for Cocaine and Hewlett Packard computer smugglers.