Another Travel Blog

My arrival in Ciudad del Este was after sunset and perceived that this is not the place to be after dark. Argentina and Brazil aren’t far away from Ciudad del Este but the journey would have involved a few border crossings and I decided to opt for a hotel close to the bus terminal, which was it’s only value. Ciudad del Este is interesting for shopping, but not much more as the tourist attractions (waterfalls) are just across the border. In fact, almost every traveller before and after Paraguay has been asking me if there is really anything to see there, and I would agree that there probably isn’t. But this made my stay in Asuncion even nicer in terms of having a nice rest and a few evenings with entertainment which made Asuncion a laid back stopover destination without seeing any particular tourist attractions.

I stayed one more night at the Argentinian side (the same place I stayed a few weeks ago) and had another delicious steak, and a short sleep before my worst travel itinerary (from Puerto Iguacu, AR  to Rio de Janeiro) ever started. The bus was announced to leave at 0300am, the travel agent told me to show up at 0500am and the bus left at 0900am. I was waiting in the freezing cold (-1 degree celsius) for 4 hours and had a stroll through Porto Iguacu in the predawn. The bus arrived in Sao Paulo at 0230am in the morning (definitely a safe place to be on that time of the day…) and the buses leaving for Rio started only at 0630am. Another 4 hours during the night to kill in the gigantic bus terminal of Sao Paulo (nevertheless safer than in the city) By then, the journey has already been taking 24 hours, with very little sleep in between. The bus from Sao Paulo to Rio took 6 hours and i finally reached Rio at 0100pm.

Highlights from this trip:

• The Bolivian Altiplano and the culture of the highlanders. The scenic landscapes, which make you think being on Mars rather than on earth along with the andean culture so different from the western world, albeit the indigenous people seem to be more or less aware of the western civilisation, yet maintaining their own traditions. In this context, it is worth to mention that the highlanders are very quiet, almost cautious towards westerners, it is noticeable, especially if entering from a westernised country like Argentina or (parts of) Brazil. The cautiousness towards westerners is most likely even increasing in Peru. Definitely going back to the Altiplano to see Peru’s and Colombia’s share of it, too.

• For the adventure seeker: the dusty bus ride through the Gran Chaco (including the very special border crossings), but passing the high Chaco during the daytime. At the time of my visit, no other departure times were available except 0800pm from Santa Cruz, but it could be probably done the other way around.

• The Argentinian beefsteaks and their luxourious buses.

The walk to the top of the hill felt quite like doing sports (many locals were actually jogging up the stairs) and I think that I have been loosing some weight during the trip as well. The walk was supposed to be to be 1000+ steps. The view over the town was pretty nice and definitely well-earned after this steep walk.

Back in the town, I tried to sort out my camera problem (I forgot the USB to camera adapter at home and have been asking about every traveller if he/she has a Sony camera) The solution which a guy from the hostel came up with was to get a CD burned in the local photo store (which was quite expensive in the end) But – the computer here doesn’t have a CD-Rom and seems to be 10 years old.. Aaaagrh.

I met a French guy who has been travelling for years through India, Spain, Ireland and South America and is originally from Paris. He made me some really nice spaghetti! (the hostel has a nice kitchen but he was still hunting for salt for a while) In general, I seem to be currently on the long time travellers trail as I have met a few people who are travelling for a few months and started their trip in Ushuaia (southernmost city) But by far, the most people I have met so far were Israelis. The whole country seems to be into travelling.. The evening was nice, with a large BBQ and with two tango dancers. I will be leaving Salta with the nightbus at around midnight to the Bolivian border and arrive in Bolivia in the morning where I need to take another train to Uyuni which will arrive again during midnight. The distances are getting shorter, but I don’t feel like I need less time for travelling. I am currently already about 1500 kms away from Rio where it all started and all this in just about one week.

For the next day after my arrival in Argentina, I planned the waterfalls (they were supposed to be incredible) I passed over to the brazilian side, got my exit stamp, stayed in front of the customs officials 1 minute later to get my Brazil entry stamp again. I earned a few raised eyebrows but got my entry stamp and headed towards the waterfalls, which are only a short bus ride away from the border. The waterfalls were indeed incredible, the largest I have ever seen.

After my re-entry to Argentina, I bought tickets for the day after to Salta, which is in the northeast of Argentina. Another 26 hrs bus ride starting the next morning at 1100am. The approximity to Bolivia should be already noticeable in the Salta and Jujuy provinces, which are one of the northenmost ones in Argentina. The bus ride was incredible, I didnt’t see any civilisation apart from cattles and horses in the pasture for hours. During the middle of the night, the driver woke me up and told me to change the bus (I was told beforehand I don’t have to…) I arrived in Salta during the siesta time (1300 to 1700) and the city looked deserted. During siesta, no shops or cafes are open and it is very difficult to find anything. On top of that it was a sunday and most of the clothing stores were going to open only by the next day. I urgently needed some warm clothes though as the thermometer has been climbing upwards but not enough yet to wear shorts. And as I am heading towards the high Andes next, the climate won’t be getting any warmer. I used the siesta time to do my laundry (which immediately reminded me of Southeast Asia where I used to wash clothes in the beach bungalows) As the hostel did not have any laundry facilities, I did my laundry manually (when have you been doing your laundry last time manually?)

Salta is located in a nice valley and close to the hostel, there is a path to the top of the hills. I planned the daytrip to the hill for tomorrow as I felt like I have caught the cold and decided to have a rest for the day (of course with a nice beefsteak in the evening as I am heading to Bolivia soon and it would be one of the last opportunities to have such a great dinner!)

After departing from Rio, the bus passed Sao Paulo and a couple of other cities. A 25 hrs journey.. Quite exhausting. Sao Paulo is one of the world’s largest cities (5th) having about 20 million habitants. The sad part of the journey happened just as we departed from the bus terminal in Sao Paulo and headed towards the highway. Suddenly, I heard two gunshots, first not realising that there were gunshots. I had a look to my left and outside of the bus, about 30 meters away, on the highway, someone was killing someone else with a gun. I witnessed two more gunshots and saw the man laying on the side of the highway. I couldn’t believe what I saw and the whole bus supposedly felt the same. As we were just heading towards the highway, the bus slowed down initially, but after a half a minute, the scene was gone. As crime is a serious issue in Sao Paulo, such situations are going most likely to happen daily, we were just unlucky to witness it.

The rest of the long journey is not worth to mention, but I was happy to get out of the bus after 25 hours and headed straight to the Argentina side (a small town with about 24 000 habitants, Porto Iguacu) Admittedly, I started to feel quite unsafe in Brazil, even if I was a couple of hundreds kilometers away from Sao Paulo, but the insecure feeling obviously won’t pass that fast. The hostel I was staying in was great, including a swimmingpool and 5 bungalows. As a cold wave has started to pass the night before over whole South America, it was freezing cold in the bus and so was the evening, the swimmingpool was not much of use. I went to the town with two girls (a danish girl and an israeli girl) from the hostel and enjoyed a nice (and huge) $5 black pepper steak for dinner.

This felt already quite like real Argentina! I wished I had brought more warm clothes with me though. For the next day, I had planned the waterfalls and also to get my Brazil exit stamp as I did not get one on the way into Argentina.