Author Archives: The Chronicler

On the forecourt of the petrol station

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A familiar feature of the gas station – a dispenser for
agua caliente, or hot water for the mate termos
Also very suitable for the coffee fix.



New country, new environment, new currency.  We need to find an ATM, a hole in the wall.  The cajero automatico will never be open to the street but in a glass cabin sometimes with an armed guard sitting in the corner.  The tourist officer, who shares an office with immigration and passport control on the Brazilian: Paraguayan border, has recommended the Esso gas station, on the grounds that it’s on the main through road; on a roundabout, so should be easy to find.  It is easy to locate, it’s on the roundabout; only on the wrong side for us.  New environment: how do Paraguayan roundabouts work?  Of course they work, everybody does their own thing, in their own way, all with respect.  The motos might aim for you and have you in their trigger sights, but they won’t actually hit you.  We plunge into the rotunda and get spat out, unscarred thee exits later.



The streetscene outside the immigration/tourist info office
in Ciudad del Este. Paraguay
The bean counter goes off to interview the money machine and try to extract a few million guaranis.  I am left to guard.  It’s then that I notice the two men standing at the corner, beside the pay desk.  Both have kahki coveralls, kepi hats, heavy leather belts, and shield shaped arm badges.  Uniforms of quasi militaristic regalia.  Both are holding what looks like the business end of a Karacher high pressure water washer.  Second glance confirms that the gun that’s attached to the tap is waiting to wash windscreens.  The other has shotgun cartridges bandoliered around his belt, he then turns to expose the night stick and hand gun.

We’ve arrived in Ciudad del Este, the hub of Paraguayan mercantile enterprise and counterfeit central.  I’ve already been offered Titanic 11, sunglasses, lotto tickets all whist being stamped into the country. It’s a local election Sunday, so most of the major emporia of electronica are closed.  Such that the only people around are the security guards outside the jewellers, the pharmacies, the credit unions and the petrol station.
It makes them very stark and very noticeable.  Security is big business.
　
The bean counter survives our latest encounter with an ATM,  returns with a fistful of new currency.

The Chiperia Barrero

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The Navigator’s Posture Coach



It’s like the corporation’s number 57 bus, you wait an hour and then along come three, all at once.

Yesterday’s hotel breakfast in Caaguazu was fresh crushed pineapple juice coffee and the local bread speciality: a white dried out rusk that explodes if you try to break it open.  Best to dip it in a liberal dose of dulce de leche. So we headed off, some what underwhelmed but with confidence that we would find the chipa man at the side of the road, long before the call for second breakfast or an early ‘onces’.  No chipas in Repatriacion, none in Oviedo, none in San Jose. None all day. We end up with a millanesa: minute steak in batter served with a wilted lettuce leaf and a styrofoam roll.  Added for good measure were some deep fried dough balls of indiscriminate provenance. There’s never a healthy option on truckers’ roadside stop.  So today we head off, this time with no inclusive breakfast and little hope of our chipa fix.  We turn the corner out of Itacurubi, a van is coming up hill, his loud-speaker crying “ cheeee…..pas cheee…..pas”.  We flag him down and inside two minutes he’s got the navigator’s ‘phone number.  Bloody fast workers these Latino lotharios!  We get four large round rings that turn out to have bacon chips and maize polenta in them.


So, fully victualled we’re ready for the day.  By El Ayala we have passed three chipa bakeries and twelve road side stands.  Not to mention all the itinerant sellers going door to door with their baskets balanced on their heads. The roadside barras are always manned by ladies.  The chiparias, the bakeries, provide them with a uniform of the classical “French maid” style: frilly white apron, short black dress.  Only some of these ladies haven’t been “maids” for over half a century.  By Caacupe and San Lorenzo the score has gone beyond recall.  As we start to hit the outskirts of Asuncion the colectivos and the local buses start to multiply, rushing past in a roar of diesel smoke, only to suddenly pull in front of us.  They barely stop either for ascending or descending passengers.  The chipas lads, it’s always lads without sexist uniforms, leap from moving bus to bus.

Given the number of buses that pass I’m surprised that a No 57 isn’t one of them.

The War Between Bottom and Brooks: a butt of a problem

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There may be a land where saddles are made of rainbows and stuffed with clouds…… (Three Men on Wheels, Jerome .K . Jerome)
Planning is everything.  Which  is why I decided to buy new leather Brooks saddle one month before setting of on an extended cycle trip. For those hillwalkers of a certain vintage, those of a pre-Gore-texed age may remember dubbin and blisters stacked on blisters as they tried to break in a new pair of Scarpa leather boots.  It took about ten Munros, three strips of moleskin, and a trip back to the cobblers to get your old boots resoled.  You told yourself that it would all be worth it in the end, as you hobbled down the Lairig to  Luibeg. Your mates faked sympathy, always fifty yards in front.  As with Scarpas, so with Brooks.
They are the first choice of the long time, long distance cyclists.  We met Eric and Amaya in northern Uruguay, who had had a new Brooks DHL’ed  out to them in French Guiana when the old one collapsed, not prepared were they was to accept any substitution.  However, like  your 1970’s boots, they take a lot of perseverance.  You know from experience that eventually a love affair will blossom, it’s just that at the moment it’s all loathing, revulsion and red inflamed sores. To convert these devils to angels will take the power of a saint and a tub of Hypercal, probably from fiend to  friend somewhere around Asunción.
In the interests of a photo montage I had considered taking a series of pictures, say one every 100 kms to show the slow but inevitable conversion of raw cow hide to a seat for a journey. Then I realised that the other side, the back-side of the problem might need depiction.  That’s a picture too far.
So for now it’s regret that I didn’t plan a new saddle sometime last year, calendula cream and the desire to find a cloud stuffed rainbow. 

“Three Men on Wheels” by Jerome K Jerome

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No, I’d never heard of it either.  ‘Three Men in a Boat’ is well known and much loved, and this one is utterly delightful too.  The same protagonists (without the dog) head off into the Black Forest with a tandem and a single, and the tales are classic Jerome.  Written in 1890, my favourite passage is about the teaching of languages in English schools:
“In England we have a method that for obtaining the least possible result at the greatest possible expenditure of time and money is perhaps unequalled.  An English boy who had been through a good middle-class school in England can talk with a Frenchman, slowly and with difficulty, about female gardeners and aunts; conversation which, to a man possessed perhaps of neither, is liable to pall.  Possibly, if he be a bright exception, he may be able to tell the time or make a few guarded observations concerning the weather.  No doubt he could repeat a goodly number of irregular verbs by heart; only, as a matter of face, few foreigners care to listen to their own irregular verbs, recited by young Englishmen.”
How perfectly does that describe my own experience of learning French at school, and sadly, more recently, my experience of trying to learn Spanish.
The Navigator

Books

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A peaceful moment at a very nice gas station camping spot



One of the joys of this trip so far has been the reading material, which has occupied the time not taken up by cycling, camping and living.  The Kindles are a total joy – this from both of us.  Those of you who have seen our home will know that we love ‘real’ books, and there are rather more than you could shake a stick at in every spare corner of the place.  However, we are travelling in Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries, where reading material in English is not easy to come by.  That, and books are heavy to carry on the bike.


It does have to be recharged from time to time….



Being the ‘economical’ types that we are, we’ve been happily exploring the free e-books; there are thousands on the Kindle list, and hundreds of thousands more elsewhere.  Mostly these are ‘out of copyright’, generally pre-1926 publications, and we have found some gems.  I’ll review some of them as we go – maybe you’ll find them interesting too. 
The Navigator

Siesta Santa Rita

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Yes, we know that siesta gets earlier in the day the further north that we go. All too often we’ve made  a habit of arriving in town moments after one o’clock, the point where bustle turns to torpid, lively to lethargy. When the still dead humid heat descends and the national flag outside the town’s police station hangs in the doldrums.
So arriving in Santa Rita at 11.36 am we had built up our hopes. The graphics on the atlas suggested a habitation of some import; it should have a panaderia and supermercado, and it does.  It also has the full gamut of peluqueria, carniceria, heladeria, funeria and even a  whiskeria.  Only they are all closed! Both the petrol stations are open but only to sell fuel, nothing from the kiosko or the minimercado.
Have we jumped time zones?  Got the clocks wrong?  I’m sure that daylight saving was two weeks ago.  Maybe it’s Santa Rita’s day, but it’s evangelical country and anyway the chapels are all closed. Strange and hungry. It’s going to be pasta and sauce with a side of salt tonight. Which is all fine and well, only been on the menu for the last three nights. I’d spent the last 40 kms dreaming on chorizos empanadas  and ice creams. (Note the plurals; that ‘s how life is lived these days.)
Siesta does start earlier. The working day is in full swing by 7.30 and dies at midday only reviving  when some of the heat has dissipated out of the walls and pavements , around 5.00, for another  two and a half hours of activity. I know all this because we checked all the ‘eria’ businesses’ doors.
Later on , on that same day and we are luxuriating and  ruminating; somewhat  hungrily, on the joy of such a quiet road. The average had been a couple of motos, a lorry and  several ox carts per hour.  Fast elevating  Ruta 2 into our top 10 all time greats. We’re sitting sheltering from the sun under a mimosa tree at a lookout over the Rio, when out of nowhere, a lady in flowing cotton prints and straw hat comes striding past. A lady on a mission, very determined with her ‘Census 2010’ bag slung over her shoulder.
It’s next day in El Soberbio, where we are over compensating on forage, to make amends for the famine of the previous day, when, in conversation, we learn that yesterday was a day of Biblical judgment. Everybody had to stay at home to be counted. Explains everything.

Gasolina for Cyclistas

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Fast-acting indigestion!

 An early start to beat the heat , so we’re on the road before the shops are open. This is always a risk as we might not make another shop or service station before siesta starts. Going around a roundabout we both spy a man with a cloth covered wicker basket. In unison we both chime “chipas!”.  Usually baked dough of manioc flour and cheese, which can be bought by the 100 grams. In our case it’s nearer to the half kilo. Only this  time he had a different version alongside the usual two bite ones.  First bite in reveals the absence of cheese, and in its place is beef dripping.  A lot of beef dripping! They’re still fresh and warm so you just have to stop for an early second breakfast. Third bite and you realize if you could squeeze them you could oil both bike chains. Oh, those lovely big round fatty molecules working their evil wiles on the pleasure receptors! Fourth bite and I think i might check the nutritional information, only there’s no wrapper big enough to print the fat  content .  A’ nanny state’-ment might be more appropriate.  The sensible quarter of your brain is telling you to slow down, you’re going to pay for it late;, the devil’s quarter says gratification is now! Six bites and one and a half chipas  have  gone down, settling down into the bottom of my stomach, my centre of gravity has  slipped a few degrees further south. Slow burning gasoline: fast acting indigestion. Pure dead brilliant!

Prospecting the Bordello

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All land in Paraguay is privately owned, right up to the road margin. The first 80 kilometres out from Ciudad del Este proves this point, soya beans are sown right up the very edge of the tarmac. So our last refuge for wild camping is going to be in short supply. The petrol stations still have showers and clean toilets, so if push comes to shove we can ask for a space. To date we’ve never been refused.
However this run through southern Paraguay is heavily populated, towns come at nice regular intervals. Likewise motels and hotels.
We’ve covered a satisfactory distance for one day and so we decide to start prospecting for suitable accommodation. There’s a building coming up in front, it claims a motel status. We decide to give it a try. I ask the proprietor, who’s sorting and washing the white linen, if he’s open and how much for a double bedded room.  The answer is somewhat confusing: yes they were open and the rate was the equivalent of $3.  He is somewhat reticent but we put this down to loss in translation. The Navigator is invited to view the room; she comes out and her face say it all.The beds were round and the rates were probably for the hour!  I’d noted but not clocked the very private and individual parking lots, the total lack of any windows and the painted “heart” on the wall.   Could the term “motel” have a different meaning here?
A few more kilometers down the road and another Anglicized Germanically named establishment hoves into view. The Navigator makes a surreptitious inspection before ringing the bell.  This will be our third night in an hotel named Austria. As of early evening it looks reasonably legitimate, that and the beds are rectangular.

Flying Pigs

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I’ve been giving some thought to these missives, waffles and diatribes. I’m concerned that they have a tendency to elongate into flights of fancy and streams of consciousness.  Sometimes the product of cycling over varying roads in differing sea states. From the near becalmed of southern Uruguay to the heavy 40 metre swells in northern Misiones. We sometimes need to use psychological stimuli, especially at the end of the day to help us over the last few hills, the last few kilometers to the campground. Word games like A to Z batted between us work well, but after you’ve used up Countries, Rivers and South American dictators there’s a need for a change.Creating collective nouns for illrelavencies like parillas and mate bombillas (I’ll return to these at some point, they’re totally synonymous to here). Then there are alliterations- If you have Berwickshire Bends what is the equivalent in the pronince of Misiones? The Navigator’s response was instantaneous:  ‘Misiones Mumps’ – it was the end of a long hot day.  These communications also squander away your useful megabytes and probably a good part of your employer’s time.  So I’ve come up with this novel idea.  What if I was to create a special site, where you could access these perambulations at your leisure?  I’m not sure what you would call this’ a travel diary, possibly a web log. Which will no doubt, if it were to catch on, be truncated to some inane diminutive? I’ll leave that to others.
We’ve been heading towards the Tres Fronteras, to cross over Paraguay and back into Argentina. If you check a map you will see just how complicated the national borders are in this small area and the logic of our route.  We leave the camp ground in Puerto Iguazu around 9 o’clock and moments later collect an exit stamp from Argentina.  Check duty free for the vastly over priced electrical goods.  Then by 9.30 we’re stamped into Brazil.  Fifteen kilometers later and we’re stamped out again.  Over the Rio Paraná and we collect stamp number four.  It’s only 10.15 am.  Others might be able to claim a similar record, what I know is, if we do this too often we’ll need new passports.
Tres Fronteras; where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet, equals a smuggler’s paradise . We’ve heard all the ‘them over there’ stories; trafficking in women, drugs and counterfeit goods.
It’s the last that I think I might have acquired. Pigs are flying tonight. I’ve procured a second piece of electrical wizardry: a netbook that is joining the Kindle, all in one year.  A netbook that cost just under a couple of million guaranis; I’ll frame the receipt when we get back, but at somewhat less than the Argentine duty free joke shop.
So I won’t be bombarding  your in box, inflicting you with diatribes and waffle, burning useful  megabytes of your lives.
The blog site title is :  “The Long Commute”, and the address is: http://escapingthewinter.blogspot.com/
Don’t expect any fancy graphics or pretty coloured clever bits.  Pictures will be next on the learning curve
Please come and join us there.