AMAZING
RACE PART 1.
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| Christina and Richard, today's challenge is to cross the border from Paraguay to Argentina before midnight. |
Word
around Peace Corps had said that the last ferry or bus into Argentina
crossing the Paraguayan border left around 5 PM at the border.
Christina and I were at my site in the department of Misiones meaning
we had a 4 hour bus ride to the capital followed by a 5 hour bus
ride. Factoring Paraguay's notoriously unreliable, so much worse then
America but way better than rural Africa transportation system, we
left our site at 5:30 AM intending to get into Asuncion around 10 or
11 and leaving to Ciudad Del Este arriving at the border at around 3
or 4 latest. I figured I included enough extra time to account for
slow buses, wait time to board the bus to CDE and a little extra time
to figure out how to cross the border. We made it into Asuncion in
great time arriving at around 9:40 and booking a bus leaving at
10:40. At the window I told the lady that I needed a bus that got to
CDE before 5. I asked about 4 times if she was sure that it got there
before 5. She told me yes, it was a semi direct bus and would get
there before 5. We boarded the first worldy-looking bus and headed
out.
At
4:10 I began to worry that we would not get to CDE in time. I asked
the driver who promptly said oh, we wont be there until around 6:00.
It promptly starts raining as we get closer to CDE, slowing us down even more.We arrive at
the place to stamp our passports to leave Paraguay at 6ish and I ran
into the building panicked that we would be stuck in an unfamiliar city
until morning. What were we going to do? Luckily the immigration
people said there would be more buses until 8 ish passing through. I
had seen a bus that ended up being the right one pass by us when we
had gotten into the customs building so I figured maybe it was a bus
line that passed through every 10 or 15 minutes. After waiting 15
minutes I realized I should know better and went back in to ask when
the next bus came. It was only then that she said it would come an
hour or more after the other one that passed. I ate up the time talking to a
government tourism dude who spoke some English. Cool guy. Christina
sat on a chair waiting and after my talk Christina and I spent the
rest of the wait critiquing what looking like a pair of pretty,
prissy, rich Brasilian girls and their boyfriends or brothers with
like 7 suitcases for the 4 of them.
Anyway at around 8 its getting dark, its still raining and our bus finally arrives. We run out into the street and manage to lug our stuff into the bus and clamor on. The bus crosses the border and arrives in Argentina easily enough.
After telling the driver our hostel, he affirms that he knows it and proceeds to drop us off on the corner of a cobblestone street in the pouring rain in what I can only describe as a fitting set for a horror movie involving teenagers being gruesomely murdered one by one in the night.
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| Like this minus the lights, buildings, and first world-ness. So not like this... |
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| More like this, plus rain, plus jungle. |
To be fair to the driver, there was a sign that showed the name our our hostel and an arrow pointing towards the darkness. So, I ran around finding small hostels and asking where ours was until success.
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| Posing after arrival |
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| Posing after arrival |
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| The truth. |
We must of finally arrived and settled in at around midnight after waking up at 5 am, riding 4 hrs to Asuncion, being lied to be terminal staff and riding 8 hours on a stuffy bus to CDE, panicking and waiting about 2 hrs at the border, catching the last bus across into Argentina and frantically running in the rain searching for our hostel on darkened horror film streets... NICE.
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