Gran Chaco Highway - En Route to Paraguay

Our time in Santa Cruz remained as sweet as it had been on that first afternoon. But I suspect it’s lucky for us that we were there in winter because every other shop and restaurant had enormous signs touting their air conditioning. We can only assume it gets ridiculously hot in summer.

We went to dinner at a nice restaurant on the first night, only to find that since it was the night before an election, it was illegal to serve alcohol. No alcohol for sale the day before an election is an interesting rule in that I would think it affects only those citizens who lack the foresight to stock up the day before. And then too, the law doesn't seem to be terribly respected.

What it meant in Santa Cruz is the same as what it meant a couple of months ago in Cartagena, Colombia – alcohol must be served in a cup that does not suggest alcohol. In Cartagena, the waiter skirted the law by pouring our beers into glasses and conspicuously placing empty Fresca bottles beside them. In Santa Cruz my wine was served in a teacup. (Both times we were fully ready to shrug it off and drink soda or water; it was always the waiter who suggested the subterfuge.)

The election day, Sunday, June 2nd, was an eerily quiet day, but in the evening the streets exploded into a giant fiesta, complete with music in the park that could be heard for blocks, and green ribboned revelers making up for the previous day’s enforced sobriety.

And today we bought our tickets out of Bolivia. This is the bus trip for all the marbles – something between twenty and thirty hours down a dirt road, the famouse Gran Chaco highway, complete with a border crossing. We planned to take the bus from Santa Cruz, Bolivia to Filadelfia, Paraguay. And we asked the guy who sold us the tickets several times if the Asuncion-bound bus would actually drop us off in Filadelfia.

We’d heard stories, see, of folks stranded at the side of the road, and we could see for ourselves on the map that the road to Asuncion does not actually go through Filadelfia, but is at least a fingernail-width away. But, si, si, si, Filadelfia, directo, directo, we were told. So we plunked down $45 USD each and the man started writing out our tickets.

 “Cuatro de Julio!” he noted as he filled in the date. “USA!” He pumped his fist in the air and smiled. I thought it was really sweet of him to remember and acknowledge our little holiday and after that I trusted that our bus would take us to Filadelfia.

After an almuerzo at the hotel – Hotel Copacabana serves the best almuerzo we’d had since Cuenca – we turned our attention to entertainment for the trip. Both our books were long since finished and we felt pretty desperate to get something new before this marathon bus ride.

The only thing we could think of was to head out to Jodanga, the new hostel that Tom had stayed at and recommended, hoping they’d have a book exchange. They did have an exchange, a small one, and the proprietor was willing to relax his usual two-for-one rule for us, in exchange for us promoting the hostel.

So, in great appreciation for my copy of Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride: Jodanga Hostel is gorgeous. It’s a converted private home, with the spacious kitchen, pool, and common areas to prove it. Everything was spotless, and very secure. It’s a bit outside of the bustling downtown that Michael and I prefer, but if you want to meet people and do the hostel thing, check it out. It really looks nice and the staff is very pleasant. We didn't stay there, so that's about all I can say, but I say it sincerely.

We got to the bus station at 7:40 p.m. for our 8:00 p.m. bus, well loaded down with provisions for the trip. While waiting, we met the only other foreigner on the bus, an Irish guy who recognized us from our visit to Jodanga. (He liked the place too.) He was going all the way to Asuncion, and said he’d talked the ticket guy down to $40 by promising he wouldn’t eat the bus food. (Let me end your suspense now – he was served food and he ate it.)

We boarded the bus at 8:00, but it did not actually leave the station until 9:00, and after that we struggled in fits and starts to leave the city, constantly stopping to pick up new passengers. Food was served right away, a pretty decent meal of chicken, rice, fries, dessert and a Niko Cola. Try to stay away from Niko Cola. It has a terrible aftertaste. And if you do insist on drinking it, at least hurry up, because the carbonation only lasts about four minutes.

Between struggling to use plastic knives and forks to eat chicken from tiny cardboard trays balanced on our laps, we peered out the window for our last glimpses of Santa Cruz. Scenery included many, many open fronted beer stores with plastic, logo-riffic tables and chairs set out in front for folks to sit and drink from 20oz brown bottles – dozens at a time, from the looks of it.

Immediately as we rolled out of town, the dirt road began. Just as immediately, the two guys in front of Michael and me reclined their seats fully. And to fully enjoy the reclined state, they stretched their arms up and back and folded their hands above and behind their heads. Or, put another way, they folded their hands below and in front of our noses.

It’s Michael’s luck. He and his long legs have always managed to get seated behind the one person on the bus who choses to recline. And this time his luck affected me. I didn’t believe his mumblings at first, about how it’s just him who has to suffer, but a quick glance around the bus confirmed that of the three reclined seats on the entire bus, two were right in front of us.

Oh well. We had been well fed by the bus company, and had overdid it with some of the food we’d bought from a Santa Cruz café, and we were tired enough to recline our own seats and attempt sleep.

The cold crept in slowly. First it was just that the rather uncomfortable warmth we’d felt on first boarding had dissapated. Then it became slightly chilly and I draped my fleece over myself. With every hour it became colder until by about 2:00 a.m. I was wearing both my Capilene and my fleece and had everything zipped up tight.

The locals were well prepared with heavy blankets, but I worried about the Irish guy a few seats back, in his flimsy shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops. Getting on an overnight bus without at least a sweater seems to me to be the height of foolishness in a place where the driver will make up for any lack of natural cold by jacking up the air conditioning.

Well, I figured, even though he was going about seven hours further than Michael and I, he'd managed to pay less for his bus ticket than we did, just by promising not to eat the food that he was even then digesting, so he probably knew what he was doing. I just hate being cold, and thinking about other people being cold makes me feel bad. So bring a sweater on your overnight bus trips.