El Roble

Day 28 – Another trap sprung

We were awoken early by the room phone in the morning. I don’t really enjoy speaking on the phone in English, let alone in Spanish and I would say that having to do it half asleep is one of my absolute least favourite things. I thought the receptionist was telling me that our buggy driver had returned to take us to the bus station, something he had offered but we had politely declined given it was only a few blocks. When I went downstairs to sort things out, it turned out that she was actually telling me that we needn’t go to the bus station as Peter (of El Roble) had called to say he was in town running errands and would come collect us in an hour.

Peter is a wiry, well tanned guy in his forties, he speaks good English spattered with amusing eccentricities and smokes an endless succession of small local cigars. As soon as we got in his van he started regaling us with fascinating and amusing stories. His repertoire seemed bottomless and when we finally parted four days later he was still going strong! Rather than trying to slot each story into our own story in the correct chronological order I’ll give a brief cross section here.

Various aid agencies operate in the vicinity of Concepcion, some of these seem to frustrate Peter immensely. As an example of some of the ludicrous actions carried out he told us of a German agency that is compelled to comply with German as well as local law. Obviously this is intended to ensure that the agency conforms to environmental and social best practice. This agency was building a bridge, but the locals had become confused about why all the beams had to be so massive. When questioned, it was revealed that the bridge also needed to comply with the German building code, which included the necessity to withstand two metres of snow!

After pointing out some owls nesting on the ground in a field just outside the farm, Peter told us of how owls needn’t fear predation by other animals as they are all far too afraid to approach the owls’ nest. It seems that the owls cohabitate with a poisonous snake. Unable to dig for themselves the snakes take advantage of the holes the owls dig, in return the owls (including their eggs!)receive the protection of the snake.

After taking his three kids to school of a morning, Peter likes to engage in an activity he calls ‘Backpacker Hunting’. As previously mentioned there is no Lonely Planet (or Rough Guide) to Paraguay, and the section in the South America guide could be described as brief at best, El Roble is not mentioned. What the guide does mention is the possibility of catching a river boat in Concepcion north into the jungle toward Brazil, however the information provided is hopelessly out of date and still changing. As a result many backpackers arrive in Concepcion (6 hours or more from the nearest place of much consequence) only to find that hitching a ride up the river isn’t as easy as they thought. So Peter waits in his ‘Backpacker Hunting Place’ for these delayed / lost individuals to pass by. He introduces himself, dispenses current information about river voyages and in passing explains that he runs El Roble and leaves them with a brochure. He estimates that 80-90% of people end up coming to stay with him for a period of time (one such person ended up staying eight months!).

The perilously overloaded Aquidaban preparing to depart upstream

One day Peter was surprised to encounter two English backpackers with their two young children. They didn’t need information about the boat because they had come the other direction, this is apparently quite unusual. What was more unusual was that they had not come from Northern Paraguay or Brazil, but all the way from Bolivia. There are no boats that ply this route, passenger services or otherwise, they had bribed a Bolivian Military boat to take them hundreds of kilometres into Paraguay / Brazil (the river forms the border at this point), had they been discovered they could have started a war!

Anyway, having finished running errands with Peter we bounced up the poorly maintained gravel road towards Belen, in the outskirts of which El Roble is located. El Roble (literally The Oak, link here) is about 30ha of paradise amongst the otherwise mistreated Paraguayan countryside. Peter and Andresa’s (Andresa is Peter’s wife) primary form of agriculture is fish farming. They have a series of large ponds in which Peter grows a variety of mostly native fish species. At least one of these species has to be trained to feed in captivity, making for what sounds like quite a challenging process (apparently a Brazilian company owns the patent for the training method). Also spread across the property is a variety of other forestry and agricultural pursuits.

Peter and Elmer feeding the fish

Sunset over the big pond

After arriving and taking the shopping into the kitchen area, passing through the family’s living space complete with tortoise and various other skin wall hangings and paintings demonstrating traditional Paraguayan lifestyle, we were introduced to Andresa, their three children (Nestor, Hannibal and Ameli) and Andresa’s niece Judith. Next was the tortoises, the guinea pig looking rodent, the howler monkey Dodo, Dodo’s roomies (two lovebirds) and finally Nina the dog. Then we were given our choice of shady spots amongst the trees to camp (they also have four cabins of various sizes).

Our camp spot

Dodo has a fascination with belly buttons, here he is inspecting Nestor’s (his favourite one!)

Shortly before lunch Nestor introduced us to Mimi the capybara! Peter told us how one of the neighbouring campesinos had brought Mimi to him (asking for money) when she still fit in the palm of his hand. Normally he turns them away (or he’d have a zoo) but on this occasion he could not resist. Recently, now that Mimi is fully grown, it’s become apparent that Mimi is in fact a male capybara and keen of finding himself a lady capybara. As there are none in the vicinity Mimi decided to try it on with one of the pigs. Unfortunately for Mimi the pig was three times his size and not flattered by his advances.

Mimi positioned to catch any dinner scraps (note the wound on his back).

Next came lunch. For the duration of our stay Andresa cooked us three delicious meals a day. Generally the vast proportion of ingredients were sourced from El Roble, including of course a variety of delicious fresh fish. Meals included such things as Paraguayan soup with corn gnocchi, homemade hamburgers with homemade mustard and fresh garden salad or whole fresh fish.

That afternoon we met Elmer, a Philippino-American Peacecorp volunteer, who had been working on a few different projects nearby and like the succession of other volunteers over the years, had heard that Peter’s was a cool place to hang during time off. Unfortunately, due to some minor political unrest in another area he had been reassigned. Today was his last day in Belen and he convinced Peter to let him cook a huge fish Philippino style, stuffed, seasoned and wrapped in banana leaves on the BBQ. When it was ready, he lay Banana leaves across the table and served the fish with rice, soy sauce and a chilli salsa. He then showed everyone how to eat his delicious meal with their hands and off everyone went. The kids seemed to especially enjoy digging in without cutlery to hinder them. Andresa was fond of the idea of using banana leaves as a table cloth, at the end of the meal the whole thing could be bundled up and fed to the pigs!

Dinner laid out on banana leaves

After dinner Peter had a special treat. He had decided to demolish an old shelter which stood decaying between two of the ponds. During the day he had evicted the birds living in it, and now it was time to burn it. Complete with a homemade Antorcha Olympica and lighting ceremony, I’m not sure whether he or the kids enjoyed the process more!

Some light after dinner entertainment

Further entertainment courtesy of a Paraguayan guest, provided in Spanish, Guarani and English!

Day 29 – Happily ensnared

During our second day at El Roble we were largely left to our own devices, except of course for the three beautiful meals prepared by Andresa which appeared in ‘the Mexican’ throughout the day. Peter has a small but interesting collection of books about Paraguay, including two copies of a historical fiction called ‘News From Paraguay’ about the War of the Triple Alliance, which Erin and I spent the day reading in tandem.

Dodo helping Erin read (in between belly button inspections!)

Other than reading and eating, the day was spent cooling off in the small aquifer-fed pool adjoining one of the dams and inspecting / chasing various wildlife that wandered through the grove. Several small snakes caused significant excitement, the first of which tried to share the pool with the kids, the second of which gave the guys re-roofing one of the cabins quite a fright.

Erin cooling off in the pool.

Throwing the dodgy cigars at the toads.

This huge iguana just wander straight past Erin and I as we were reading

I stalked this pair of hummingbirds mercilessly, but never managed to get a picture of one of them flying, they just move too quick. I also followed a pair of red-headed birds around, but they never let me get close enough to get a good photo.

The snake apprehended in the swimming pool.

Day 30 – Visiting the dentist

We got a lot more reading done, including a book called ‘No Lasting Home’ about the Brotherhood (a Christian group) and their move to Paraguay during the Second World War.

During the morning Peter took us for a trip around the neighbouring village of Belen. The trip included a visit to pick up some borrowed chairs and a well cover as a Christmas present to Andresa (who was paranoid that one of the kids would fall in the well, despite having a 4 year old who swims unsupervised in the dam, a howler monkey as their best friend and a wild capybara that sometimes sleeps in their bed!) We wandered around the cemetery, complete with local legends told by Peter and examples of an interesting practice of reusing the older grave stones and were taken to Peter’s favourite tourist attraction: a visit to the dentist!

Ox parked in the street

One of the streets in Belen, the trees on the left are mango trees, apparently come January thousands of tonnes of mangoes rot in the street! (Peter is presently trying to work out a way to take advantage of this including experimenting with making alcohol and fuel!)

The local dentist, he makes his own dentures etc.

Some of his handiwork

Pretty pleased we didn’t need anything doing!

He was also keen to show off his horse!

Day 31 – Tubing

For a few days we had been hoping to participate in one of Peter’s famous tubing trips (floating down the nearby river in inner tubes), but the trip was too expensive to conduct on our own. To our advantage, four Menonites showed up from the Chaco to fish in Peter’s ponds and two of them were also keen. So in the morning we loaded up the truck and drove up the river.

Loaded up and ready to go

With the boat and tubes in the water we set off downstream, being taken by the current which was quite quick due to the recent rains. Peter occasionally steered the boat by jumping into a tube attached to the bow and paddling for a minute, but mostly we just floated downstream drinking beer, fishing and chatting. Both of the Menonites had lived in Winnipeg for the last few years so they spoke decent English. At lunchtime we dragged everything ashore and Peter cooked us lunch over an open fire while the mosquitoes lunched on us.

Peter ‘steering’

Erin floating downriver

After lunch there were some brief rapids to keep things interesting, then we made a stop at a tree which overhangs the river so that I could do some monkeying around!

In all we only travelled 7km as the crow flies, but as the river meanders we covered more like 30km. Quite a relaxing way to spend a day!

Day 32 – All good things must come to and end

And this good thing came to an end in a big way. Peter dropped us at the bus station in Concepcion and we said our farewells. Our bus trip back to Asuncion was supposed to take between five and six hours. After experiencing the beautiful fleet of buses maintained by Argentine and Uruguayan companies this ride came as a bit of a shock. Because the bus was so crowded we could not sit with one another, Erin instead had the pleasure of sitting next to a large sleeping bloke with no respect for personal space. She was in the back seat (opposite the stinky dunny) and as the bus became more crowded so did the area at the back of the bus, complete with a group of teenage guys, intent on annoying her for the entire trip.

About an hour in the airconditioning broke down and it was clear from the frequent stops to inspect the engine compartment that other significant components were not working too well either. There is no shade in the Chaco and when the bus stopped for these repairs, the breeze stopped flowing through and the bus turned into a sauna (it was high 30s outside). The bus finally broke down for good a couple of kilometres from the depot in Asuncion, the trip took more than 9 hours. I suppose we had better get accustomed to such trips for when we reach Bolivia etc!

Nueva Australia

Day 26 – Three countries in one day

After wandering around the (mostly closed) shops we hopped on the international bus, a local bus that runs to the Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este via the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguazu. As the locals don’t need to stop at Paraguayan immigration we were unceremoniously dumped at the end of the bridge. They were busy dismantling the building as we arrived and we had some reservations about it remaining upright long enough for us to be processed. Ciudad del Este is basically a shopping town where residents of neighbouring Brazil and Argentina go to get cheap (bootlegged or stolen) goods. It being Sunday everything was closed, so we were saved the temptation of doing any shopping.

High rise shopping malls in Ciudad del Este

From Ciudad del Este we headed to Colonel Oviedo from where we hoped to be able to visit Nueva Australia (I’ll explain later). The bus was continuing onto Asuncion and didn’t go via the terminal in Colonel Oviedo so we opted to walk into the centre of town in search of the terminal (Lonely Planet don’t make a guidebook for Paraguay, only about 30 not particularly useful pages in the South America on a Shoestring guide, which we don’t have a copy of). It turned out to be quite a distance, it was stinking hot, and when we found the terminal it turned out that the town has two and we were at the wrong one.

At this point in the day it was too late to go further anyway, so we found ourselves a little hotel for the night. The guy who ran the place seemed a bit strange at first, but when I talked to him further he turned out to be quite friendly, and ultimately quite helpful. In discussion with him and his wife we determined that visiting Nueva Australia by colectivo would be quite time consuming and visiting by taxi would be too expensive. Instead they suggested they knew somebody who might be interested in taking us for an intermediate price. So he pointed us in the direction of dinner and said he’d get back to us.

As everything was closed dinner turned out to be empanadas and beer sitting on the pavement Colonel Oviedo’s main street. Thankfully the empanadas were quite nice and available in a couple of types compatible with Erin’s tastes. Our entertainment was provided by the locals who apparently spend Sunday evenings cruising up and down the main street in their cars, utes, scooters, bicycles, whatever. Each vehicle was packed with the maximum number of occupants and stereos were set to the ‘deafen’ setting. Where there was a couple involved, on a scooter for example, the man would always drive. Some vehicles must have gone past a dozen times in the hour or so we were sitting there, and Erin and I soon had a commentary running relating to various vehicles.

When we got back to the hotel room Love Actually was on the television dubbed into Spanish, as Erin seems to know all the words this made quite a good Spanish lesson!

Day 27 – In search of New Australia

We awoke to the news that the hotel manager had arranged a reasonably priced driver for us for the morning, so where were we going?

In 1893 a ship left Sydney bound for Paraguay holding members of the New Australia Movement whose intent was to form a socialist utopia in rural Paraguay (Paraguay was giving away land in an attempt to solidify its hold over its territory).  By 1900, due to numerous disagreements, they’d split into a number of separate colonies, including nearby New London.  I was curious to see what was left of New Australia, hence the unusual stop in rural Paraguay.  More information about the New Australia Movement  can be found here.

First we headed to Nueva Londres where the municipality is based. At the municipal office we were ushered into a small library (apparently funded by the Australian government) with a big map of Oceania on the wall. One of the ladies found us a short printed history of the settlement and went to make us a copy. Meanwhile we made enquiries about the descendents of the original settlement. We were sent to a house on the outskirts of Nueva Londres where were told a Mr Smith lived, everyone knew him as Pepe. Pepe by all accounts was the only full blooded Australian left in the area, being the son of two of the children born there. Pepe apparently also spoke excellent English. When we arrived at the house we were told by his wife that he was out working at one of the estancias and would not return until evening.

The road leading to town

Instead we were pointed to the general store where we were introduced to the lady proprietor. Of 50% Australian and 50% Paraguayan decent she laughed when I suggested that she was half Australian. She spoke no English and explained to us that the locals know very little of their history. Because the settlement failed at a fairly young age the settlers mingled with the locals quite quickly, setting them apart from Paraguay’s Mennonite community which nearly 100 years since its arrival in Paraguay still speaks German and keeps itself quite separate from mainstream Paraguayan culture.  As Nueva Londres and Nueva Australia are quite poor communities many young people leave at a young age to seek work or education elsewhere in Paraguay, further diluting the original culture. She was sad that she did not know more about her origins, but did seem to enjoy telling us about what life is like for her and her community now.

Nueva Londres’ ‘half’ Australian shopkeeper

As we were preparing to move on another local wandered in, and when he found out what we were doing there he proceeded to give us an abridged history of the settlement. His Spanish was quite difficult to understand, but with some background knowledge he was not impossible to follow. A further distraction was that he was a dead ringer for a friend and colleague back in Australia (except Paraguayan dental hygiene standards unfortunately do not match Australia’s).

Back on the road we headed across to Nueva Australia. Not much remains but we had hoped to visit the school where we were led to believe some historical photos might exist. But of course the school was closed for Christmas and we were left with nothing to do but grab a photo with the town’s sign. So we hadn’t really managed a reunion with our distant relatives (unlikely anyway seen as 75% of Erin and I’s combined heritage arrived in Australia 50 years or more after after the settlers left for Paraguay) but I had satisfied my curiosity and we’d gained an interesting insight into modern Paraguayan life in the Pueblos.

‘Welcome to New Australia’

When the driver dropped us back at the correct bus station it turned out that we had been only across the road from it the previous day when we started our lengthy march through Colonel Oviedo’s baking streets. No matter, we found a combination of buses to take us north to Concepcion.

By the time we arrived it was getting dark and we had intended to make it a further 16km out of town to El Roble, a fish farm slash eco-accommodation venue run by an expatriate German and his Paraguayan wife. The last bus in that direction had left but it looked as though we had found a horse drawn buggy and driver willing to take us for a reasonable price. Alas when the buggy driver discovered how far away it was he lost interest and were forced to take a room in town for the night. When the bad karaoke next door finally pulled the plug some time after midnight we actually managed to get some sleep.

Posadas and the Paraguayan Missions

Day 22 – El Consulado Amable

At about 9am after a rather restless night we pulled into Posadas, a sizable town, capital of Missiones, Argentina’s northernmost province. Having arrived during peak hour we had a rather unpleasant half an hour ride into town, pack still on our back, crammed into a colectivo (local bus). We arrived at the hostel, got a room, but had to head straight back out in search of the Paraguayan Consulate.

We had a couple of forays into Paraguay planned, the first of which was a day trip to visit the ruins of the Jesuit Missions at Trinidad and Jesus. To do so we needed a visa, and as we were unsure how long this process was going to take we made tracks straight for the consulate. Inside the door we were greeted by a friendly man behind a desk who ushered us to sit down and tell him what we needed. In return he issued us with an extensive list of requirements: two photocopies of our passport photo page, Argentinean entrance stamps, credit card and return air tickets, two passport photos, imprints of our right thumb and USD130 in cash (no wonder so many travellers never visit Paraguay). As we don’t have return air tickets a more senior member of staff was summoned so we could explain our circumstances, he relented and we headed out in search of the required items.

When we finally returned the consulate had only an hour left open, so were resigned to the fact that it would be tomorrow at the earliest before we could secure visas. But the kind man who had first greeted us took our extensive pile of paperwork, handed us each a tourist brochure for Paraguay and ushered us to sit on the couch. Half an hour later, substantially poorer and with blue ink on our thumbs we stepped back into the afternoon heat with visas secured.

Thumbs up.

Back at the hostel we collapsed into bed for a siesta and then moved out under the nice wide veranda to wait out the afternoon thunderstorm, in two days we’d moved from temperate Uruguay well into the tropics (as I sit typing this on the bus from Posadas there is a torrential downpour happening outside, the bus has had to slow down to negotiate the sheets of water coming across the road).

Funky fountain in Posadas

Day 23 – Day tripping to Jesus

Having secured breakfast we made tracks for Paraguay via the lengthy bridge across the Rio Uruguay, which is several hundred meters wide at this point, despite being more than a thousand kilometres from the ocean. As soon as our bus pulled off the bridge on the Paraguayan side the changes were noticeable. The houses are far less affluent than on the Argentinean side, many are made of unprocessed wood rather than concrete or brick. Here too the flooding has affected daily living, with many shop keepers having to have improvised bridges of sandbags into their shops. Other shops have had to close entirely until the river recedes, I guess a couple more shops open each day once the water has gone down, they’ve cleaned the place out and salvaged what stock they can.

An intercity bus deposited us at the start of the entrance road to ruin number one, Trinidad, one of many Jesuit settlements in the region. The Jesuits arrived in the 1600s, creating communities (along with the local Guarani people) which operated with relative autonomy under the Iberian empire. In the late 1700s the Spaniards became fearful of the Jesuits increasing wealth and influence and expelled them, leaving dozens of large ruins dotted across the countryside. At Trinidad there remains portions of the lodging and day to day buildings as well as a large part of the impressive church.

Storm rolling in as we arrived

Ruins at Trinidad with the storm approaching

A bird at the ruins, he was doing a dance for a lady bird

Erin in front of the main church

An ornate doorway in the church

Some statues salvaged during restoration work

A view over the complex from the top of the tower

From Trinidad we headed across the road where we and four other foreigners negotiated a rather cramped lift in a beat up old ford. The rain started again and we wandered around the ruins at Jesus de Tavarangűe getting rather wet.

Ruins at Jesus

On the way back toward the border our bus broke down. Five minutes later a replacement was there, we were barely delayed. It would seem that the management of Victoria’s public transport could take some tips from Paraguay!!