Greetings from Encarnación, Paraguay!!

After riding some 6,950 kilometers from the tip of South America we have finally made it back to good old Paraguay!!! It is hard to believe that we are already here. It seemed like it would take forever at times when we were pedaling uphill against the wind, but now it feels like it was just yesterday that we got on a plane to leave Asunción to begin this journey. Anyhow....it's not yet time to reminisce for we have more cycling to do before we call this done. First we have a little housekeeping to take care of and we need to let y'all know what happened between here and Buenos Aires.

GREAT NEWS!!! The computers that our American counterpart InterConnection has donated have finally arrived in Paraguay!!!!! CECTEC (our Paraguayan partner organization) will be picking them up from the port in Asunción soon and will be taking them out to the schools to begin the implemetation of our project. This couldn't have happened at a better time as we will be visiting the schools this week and hope to see the computers up and running.

We want to let all of you know that we are still collecting donations to fund our project. If you are interested in making a donation, you can do so from our website, www.bikingtobuildschools.com. Please remember that all donations made to our project are 100% tax-deductible and that we have a safe, secure, and reliable way to make donations through our website. This is our final call for donations as we will not be accepting any more when our trip is finished. The final day to make donations to the Biking to Build Schools project is July 25th 2009. We have already raised over $5,000 USD with your help and hope to raise more before our journey ends. Any size donation is greatly appreciated and we assure you that your money will be put to good use. All of the donation money goes directly to CECTEC and the schools involved in our project.

Thank you all so very much for your support and generosity!!! We can't thank you enough!!!

Ah yes, and now there is the subject of the Mystery Picture.... We must admit that we messed up. Yes we did. We forgot to let you all know what the mystery picture was from our Mendoza blog entery. Well we had some interesting guesses, but no one nailed it. The photo is of a cardboard sculpture of the brain and spinal chord. It was a bit tough, but if you go back and look at it you'll get it. Also, we didn't receive one single guess at the last picture, although it was a very random and difficult one to guess. It is a photo of an abstract interpretation of the planet Jupiter looking over the Ruta 7. This blog's picture is tough too, but not quite so challenging. Give it a look and send us some guesses!!

How about some tales from the carretera? We left off in the Argentinean Capital of Buenos Aires after a long stay with a lot of dental work, bike work, and work filling our bellies! It felt great to get back on the bikes and head out of town. Though, it really wasn't that long of a ride to get out of town because all we had to do was head to the port at Puerto Madero and jump on the ferry across the Rio de la Plata for Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. We figured that since we were so close to it we might as well ride though Uruguay for a while. So after an hour on a really nice ferry we were in Uruguay. Ten minutes later we had checked into a nice little hostel and we were set. 

Colonia del Sacramento.

Colonia del Sacramento is a beautiful, quaint, albeit a bit touristy little town located on the shores of the Rio de la Plata some miles upstream from the Atlantic ocean. The town is emblematic of Uruguayan history as it was conquered by Portuguese, then Spanish, then Portuguese, then Spanish again before Uruguay finally won it's independence following a three way struggle between Argentina, Spain, and Brazil in the year 1828. The old town of the city is a UNESCO world heritage site for its wonderful architecture from the 17th and 18th centuries. We spent a day wandering the streets of this area drinking mate and taking in the history. The most amazing part of our stay was the sunset that we were lucky enough to see over the Rio de la Plata one evening. The river gets its name from the color that it often reflects from the sky- a steely gray silver color, but that evening we saw the river change more colors than there are words to describe as it reflected one of the most beautiful sunsets that either of us have ever seen. We drank mate and watched the sun dip behind the horizion as we reflected on our two years and some months working in Paraguay as well as the last six months of "Biking to Build Schools" through South America. 

Karen watching the sunset over the Rio de la Plata with a little mate near by.

When we woke we were ready to set off through Uruguay and give our legs a good stretch as it had been too long since we'd been on a nice bike ride through the country. To our supprise it was a soupy, nasty, wet, and foggy morning...the foggiest we've seen yet. We were excited none the less and headed out to the north. Uruguay is an extremely hilly country. It was quite a contrast to the previous 1,200 kilometers of flatness that is called Ruta 7 in Argentina. Though we couldn't see where one hill started or ended our legs let us know that we were rolling again. We worked our way up through Uruguay along the Rio Uruguay stopping at little towns along the way.

When the fog cleared we saw more of what we had seen before....kilometer after kilometer of non-descript, post harvest agricultural land. It was frankly some pretty bleak riding. Uruguay is not a very populated country as less than 3.4 million people live in the entire country (over half of whom live in the capital of Montevideo) and thus the campo is sparsley populated. However, the lack of scenery along the route in Uruguay was made up by the kindness of its people. Uruguayans are very warm and open people (plus they always have mate on hand and drink it like crazy) and made us feel right at home there. We talked with countless people along our way north and were surprised at many random acts of kindness that befell us.

For example, one afternoon we had arrived at the spot on the map called Tres Bocas or "three mouths". The "town" (actually just a gas station, a store, and a police station) lies at the intersection of two highways in the middle of nowhere. It was getting late when we arrived at the Bocas and we needed a place to call it a night. We went to the police to ask if there was any place we could camp. They invited us to camp at the station and cleared out a nice little spot in the garage for us to set up our tent. If that weren't enough, they gave us about two dozen delicious oranges to eat and take with us and they insisted that we eat dinner with them. So, we hung out and chatted with the police of Tres Bocas and ate a delicious stew dinner. The next morning we drank some mate with Fabian (the coolest guy in Uruguay) and then hit the road again.

 
Dinner with the police at Tres Bocas in Uruguay.

We rode north over hill after hill and against a good headwind for the next couple of days. It was pretty uneventfull riding. We got very excited when we saw a road sign with a phrase in Guaraní on it. It read, "Food and a little bit of everything!" You may think that the phrase is a bit banal but it really was a sight for sore eyes! The Guaraní meant just one thing to us; we were getting close to Paraguay! One great thing about the landscape in this region of Uruguay though is the presence of thermal springs. We luckily came upon such a place just when we were ready to call it quits one day. So, we rolled in, set up camp, and soaked in the warm baths until we were all wrinkeled like little pink prunes! The next day we cycled into the town of Salto, Uruguay and made it just before a nasty rain washed all the streets clean. We took a day to rest, do laundry, and check out the sights before crossing the Rio Uruguay back into Argentina.

Uruguay was an island for us. We took a ferry to get into the country and had to take a ferry to get out of the country. We wanted to ride across a small dam to the north of Salto, but the authorities wouldn't let us because the road is not intended for pedestrian use. So, we hopped aboard a ship for a short ride after going through the quickest customs check we have ever been through. Passport? Yep. Stamp. Done. So there we were back in Argentina, Concordia to be exact, and we spent a day checking out the town before beginning the last leg back to Paraguay.

The ruta 14 that goes northeast from Concordia along the Rio Uruguay is heavily travelled by Argentinean, Brazilean, and Paraguayan truckers. The road, like our good friend ruta 7, was lacking a shoulder and so it was more of the ole ride and then bail off the road into the dirt and grass to avoid oncoming trucks barrelling down the road at frightening speeds. Luckily for us though, there was major road construction being done to amplify the route and make two new lanes of traffic. So, we found ourselves riding on this new section of no-traffic road for quite a few kilometers. While cruising along, we headed onto a section that had tar sprayed over packed dirt. Joel hit the section first. When he looked down, he realized that the tar was not entirely dry. He called out to Karen to tell her not to follow, but it was too late and she was already riding on it. She turned to get off of it but the tar was slippery like ice....PLOP! She was down and there was soupy, black tar all over her bike, gloves, clothes and panniers. It was a mess and very difficult to clean up. We did the best we could though and set out again. The gloves were a lost cause but the clothes and the panniers were salvaged.

The first part of the ride up the ruta 14 was difficult since the wind was in our faces and pretty strong. We would arrive in sleepy river towns exhausted, look for a place to camp or stay for the night, and collapse. One evening we rode into the small town of Bonpland, population 1000. After being the center of some extreme staring and after some conversations with the police, the mayor's son, and random people on the street, someone unlocked a pavilion type building and let us camp inside. It poured and poured during the night and we were very thankful for the roof over our heads! The rain brought a shift in winds and temperature. The next day was chilly and we sped along to the historical town of Yapeyú with a favorable wind and the threat of rain overhead. Right as we checked into a little hotel, there was an intense downpour. We hadn't seen rain like that or heard thunder since Paraguay. This, in addition to seeing town names in Guaraní and the increasingly Paraguayan-looking landscape told us that we were getting closer to our final destination!! Yapeyú, which is Guaraní for "ripe fruit", was our favorite of the little river towns we passed through; it had a very tranquilo feeling, the people were nice, and it's historical background was very interesting. It was founded in the 1600s by the Jesuit missionaries and was also the birthplace of the very important and famous Argentine general, José de San Martín.

Bored gaurds in front of the ruins of General (the "Liberator of America") San Martin's house found in the sleepy riverside town of Yapeyu, Argentina.

We continued up the ruta 14, along with the rain and cold temperatures. We took a rest day in Alvear, Argentina and let the weather system pass by while we slept and recouperated. Finally, we awoke to clear skies and rode on towards Paraguay. The area we passed through was marsh-like and we saw several amazing bird species, including a huuuge stork, a red-brownish throated heron, eagles, hawks, and different kinds of ducks. We also rode by a huge road-kill caiman lizard... it was very large. The famous Esteros del Ibera is a proctected marshland area about 100km away from where we were riding. We also rode by big yerba and tea plantations as we got closer to the provice of Misiones. As we were riding by one of these big tea plantations, Karen's front shifter stopped working and she realized that the outer casing of the cable had worn through after 5 months of rubbing on her handle-bar bag (same thing that happened to Joel's) and her cable was shot. We pulled over, checked it out, replaced the cable and the outer casing and had it working again in no time. This set us back a little bit however so we were late to arrive in the small town of San José that evening (after 120 kms of riding). Plus, the hills came back and slowed us down a bit too. We rode into San José only to be told that there was no where we could stay there and that we had to go back down the road a few km where there was a hospedaje. The "hospedaje" ended up being a completely bare room that a family usually rented out per month, but that they would let us stay in for the night for $10. The price was steep considering what the digs were, but we had no choice since it was already dark and we were at a shady cross-section of highways. We slept poorly but got up ready to ride to Paraguay....

It was more hills and more people during our morning ride into the border town of Posadas, Argentina. The traffic got more hectic as did the riding... cars, trucks, dogs, people, noise, whistles, potholes, looking in front, behind, down, and so on. We made our way through the mess until we got onto a less busy rode in Posadas and headed towards the international bridge. The big question was, would they let bikers cross the bridge? We got to migrations, got our passports stamped and only after that did they tell us that we could't cross it on bikes. We pleaded with different guards and told them how far we had come just to return to Paraguay.... but they didn't budge. And on top of that, they had stamped our passports so if we wanted to leave the bridge and take a ferry across, we would have to get our passports stamped again to "enter Argentina". After about an hour of waiting for guards to help us get a truck to take us and our bikes across, we realized that they weren't doing anything at all... so we flagged down a truck ourselves and spoke a little Guaraní with the Paraguayans who were driving it. They were happy to help us across and we were happy to cross over into Paraguay. At last!!!

We got off of the truck in Paraguay at the migrations building and were immeditately overwhelmed with Paraguay.... dudes talking to us in Guaraní, an Argentinean lady telling us that Paraguay was very unsafe and we should be careful, a policeman with a machine gun saying we should leave our bikes by him, people staring, a lot of green trees, and a lot of orange tiled roofs. We got our entry stamps and mounted our bikes to head into the city of Encarnación, Paraguay. The poverty was immediately visible and we were reminded once again of how much poorer Paraguay is than its neighbors Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. We feel an incredible mix of emotions at being back. We are of course ecstatic about being here, but also sad to know that this adventure will soon be coming to an end. There are also so many memories that we have here... of our Peace Corps communities, of Asuncion, and of Paraguay itself. Last night we found ourselves sitting in our hotel room drinking mate, playing a Paraguayan card game, and listening to Paraguayan polka music. Today for lunch we had some kure chyryry (pork bbq), mandioca, and sopa Paraguaya (PY cornbread) and it was so amazingly good. We love Paraguay and we will take part of the culture and our memories with us wherever we go.

Our first Paraguayan sunrise since we have been back. A great way to start off our last days in Paraguay.

Tomorrow we will ride northeast-ish to visit CECTEC's (our Paraguayan counterpart organization) agricultural school and then head up to Tava'i (the area where the donations will be used to build and improve schools). We can't wait to see what's going on there and talk with CECTEC. From there, we will ride west to stop by our old sites where we lived and worked as Peace Corps volunteers to visit our host families and friends and to say jajatopata ("we will find each other again").  From there, on to Asuncion and OPAMA ("FINISHED" in Guaraní).

Once agian, thank you for all of your support. We are almost there!!