The Chaco takes up about 60% of Paraguay and has less than 3% of the population. It is desolate and beyond what we think of as backward or "civilized." It is in this vast and remote region-- no towns, no roads, people don't even speak Spanish here-- that Bush is rumored to have bought his gigantic estate. When rumors first started surfacing about it people assumed he would be using it as a backup in case he had to escape the war crimes charges that could well come after he is out of office. In Latin America the suspicion is that he was making a play for the area's huge acquifer which is said to be more valuable than an oil field, at least for those who think in terms of generations when doing their financial planning. That the two Bush daughters have been down here a few times has added fuel to the fire. I reported the rumors at Down With Tyranny but I wasn't certain it was actually true, even after reading quotes from the governor of the province and other Paraguayan public officials.

Since I got to Paraguay I've been trying to track down the ranch-- with no luck. Some people swear it is true--as did the Paraguayan consul in the U.S. I had spoken to-- and some say it is just a fake rumor. In any case, everyone agrees it would be virtually impossible to find out for sure because the region is so vast and remote. The desk clerk at the Sheraton suggested I hire a private plane to find it since there aren't even roads, let alone buses.

Yesterday I called the U.S. Embassy and had a long, friendly chat with a diplomat. He doesn't seem too enamoured of Paraguay, although he reckons it's better than Pakistan. He complained that Asuncion is remote and cut off from the rest of the world. He also said that they checked and that there is no Bush ranch and no secret U.S. military base. Of course if it were secret, he would hardly be advertising its existence. He suggested I read a State Department statement about both. The official U.S. line is that the Bush ranch is some Cuban disinformation propogated by Prensa Latina.

People tend not to believe anything diplomats say that serve the national interests they represent. Under Bush the credibility of the U.S. State Department has fallen to new lows. Their claims are utterly worthless. That doesn't prove that there is a Bush ranch, however. Is it possible that the daughters were here because one of them works for UNICEF? I doubt it. And even the diplomat admitted to me that she was up in the Chaco visiting backward Menonite communities. It doesn't add up.

I spoke to the wife of a Brazilian general who told me that the base is real and that the ranch has been "100% confirmed" by the Brazilian military intelligence. Is she a good source? She has less reason to lie than the U.S. State Department.

I don't think there's much more I can find out about this whole thing from here. I keep reminding myself I'm on vacation and that I need to get to Tierra del Fuego. I'm going to take a bus to Encarnacion on the Argentine border, cross over to Posadas, the capital of Missiones Province and sniff out the possibilities of going down to Esterios de Iberrà in Corrientes. This is supposed to be the Western Hemisphere's version of the Serengeti. It is a vast, sparcely populated swamp. I don't know what's wrong with me.

A few days ago I was marvelling at the squalor and backwardness of the road from Iguazu/Ciudad del Este to Asunción. It reminded me of India-- a jumble of shanties up against an ill-maintained highway with sorry looking people and their animals wandering around randomly and with garbage and filth everywhere. That was Ruta 2. There's another way into Paraguay: Ruta 1, from Posadas, Argentina, another port of the mighty Paraná River. I took a bus from Asunción to Encarnacion, the Paraguayan city across from Posadas. Once the bus had left behind the slums that ring Asunción-- I was just reading that even in the U.S. there are more people living in poverty in the suburbs than in the cities and the slums of Paris and most European cities are well away from the centers and this seems to be the case in this part of Latin America too-- Paraguay took on a decidedly different look. The communities seem well looked-after, even prosperous. The tropical savannah mixed with jungle gave way to rich grasslands and the hodgepodge habitations along Ruta 2 were replaced by well-planned little towns along Ruta 1.


The people looked better. And so did their animals! It smelled better too and I didn't see any garbage strewn along the road in the whole 5 hour trip. It was like night and day. And Encarnacion also has the air of a propserous and decent little port/border town, rather than the threatening bandit refuge Ciudad Del Este appeared to be. (It's also filled with Arabs, more so than any other town in the area, and I hear the FBI has been there in force looking into "terrorist" connections.)

I took a city bus from Encarnacion to Posadas. I paid 2 pesos (.65) and the short trip included a stop at Paraguayan customs on one side of the Paraná bridge and at Argentine customs on the other side. It was smooth and relaxed and no one asked for an exit fee, although I guess that's just at the airports. Nor did the Argentines make me fill out all the pesky paperwork you have to fill in when you enter by air.

Posadas is the capital of Missiones Province. I think there are a 250-300,000 people in the city. After Paraguay, it feels like I'm back in the 21st Century. It's 100 degrees though. And humid. I'm not a huge fan of this kind of weather but there's something I like even less-- freezing airconditioning which always strikes me as supremely unhealthy. The buses in tropical places are bonechillingly cold and dry-- and filled with sick people sneezing and coughing. No one ever told anyone to cover their mouths. (This especially bothers me at buffets.)

I'm staying in Posadas' only 4-star hotel, Julio Cèsar. It costs $35/night-- no corporate discount-- and the gap between 5 stars and 4 stars is considerably greater than the gap between 4 stars and 3 stars. But the sheets are crisp and clean and there is a ceiling fan (as well as the airconditioning I would never use). It's a decent enough place and, in fact, the swimming pool looks a lot better than the one of the roof of the Sheraton in Asunción (which was so filthy that it was unimaginable that anyone would ever use it). Breakfast buffet is always included in the hotels and the one today was more modest than the ones in the 5 stars, but there was fruit, which is all I eat anyway. I was a little put off when some slovenly young woman with her 7 or 8 year old on her hip walked up to the buffet, the child coughing deeply and the woman sneezing heartily right into the basket of bread.

Last night I made a deal with Roberto, a Swiss-born Argentine, to get me to Iberá in a 4 wheel drive and pick me up in a few days and drive me back. Roberto is a personable dude who speaks great colloquial English-- "American films," he told me-- and has a travel agency catering to tourists who want to make the circuit of ancient Jesuit monasteries in this area and who want to get to Iberá (to which there are no paved roads or public transportation). I expect to be away from computer access for a few days but I'll write about Iberá when I get back to Posadas next week.

In case you ever wind up in Posadas, il Diletto is the best restaurant in town. The mixed salad was totally killer and HUGE (and only $3) and I also had some baked river fish (surubí) with potatoes and a whole lot of melted cheese. I'm looking forward to another one of those salads when I get back here next week.

When I made my big VW van trip to India in 1969-71 I remember this bizarre sensation I got sometimes, especially in Afghanistan and Nepal, that I wasn't merely traveling in space but also in time-- backwards in time. Like that first day in Herat, especially after smoking hash stronger than acid with some tribal elders, I started thinking I was back in Biblical times. Nothing to do with anything about the Bible, just it was a long time ago.

Well, it's almost 2007 and... today I was feeling like I was in pre-call center India circa 1970. Ever since I left Buenos Aires I've been feeling more and more like Joseph Conrad... descending... or a Paul Bowles character. Here are some notes I jotted down on the bus today after I had somehow managed to get out of Brazil and into a more-chaotic-than-normal Paraguay:

Ciudad del Este is one of Paraguay's two portals to the modern world, a border town on the bank of the Parana River across from Foz Iguassu in Brazil. You'd think it would be more... um... cosmopolitan than the rest of the country. If it is, I'll be pre-Biblical in no time at all. This is a foresaken hellhole with garbage-strewn streets and the air of decay, really seedy decay. All the strides Brazil and Argentina have made to become thoroughly integral parts of the 21st Century global economy... well, I'm not even seeing a baby step over on this side of the Parana.

This morning I woke up in the Tropical Hotel Cataratas inside the ecological Iguazu Falls National Park that spans chunks or Brazil and Argentina and which I plan to write about at great length when I get home and can show you my wonderful photos. But now I'm on the other side of the Friendship Bridge, after great exertions. It feels like I put enough time and energy in to have gone hundreds of miles instead of a dozen. But in many ways it feels not like a dozen or like hundreds but like thousands of miles. It sure ain't Kansas... nor even the most extreme and distant corners of Brazil or Argentina. And no one has ever mentioned "ecological" to the folks hereabouts, believe me. The sky darkened ominously as we crossed the border and it started to rain-- the first rain I've seen since arriving in South America.

Early this morning CNN informed me that there is rioting in Asuncion, the capital. It wasn't anti-American or even anti-Bush and I figured it didn't look threatening enough on tv for me to change my plans. When I eventually got to the bus station in Foz I was soaked in sweat and disgruntled. It was then that the bus company agent informed me that the Brazilian buses were refusing to cross the border because of strikes and demonstrations in Paraguay. (A little aside: I could have saved myself a lot of hassles. First off I should have taken a plane. It costs $45 from Ciudad del Este to Asuncion on TAM. I had called TAM, a Brazilian airline, and asked if I could fly from Foz to Asuncion. They said they had no direct flights but I could fly from Foz to Sao Paulo to Asuncion for $900. They neglected to mention they fly direct from the airport 10 miles from Foz, just over the Brazil-Paraguay border. Second, I should have taken a taxi from the hotel to the bus terminal instead of 3 buses, but the taxis-- and all other services--have special prices for foreigners. A Brazilian would pay around $15. For a foreigner it's $75. I'll get more into this when I write about Iguazu after I'm back in the U.S.)

Anyway, before I interupted myself, I was saying how the bus agent explained there would be no bus to Asuncion. However, he offered to take me in a couple of private cars to Ciudad del Este where there is a bus going to Asuncion. Okey-dokey. He didn't even charge me and I wound up in some kind of a parking lot in this filthy squalid dump on the border and then on a small, uncomfortable, freezing bus with a boisterous Brazilian couple. It only went in second gear. Eventually he stopped at an actual bus terminal and the bus filled up with people going to their capital city. Maybe the extra weight allowed him to get into the higher gears. It was a 5 hour trip.

I felt like I was back in India: scrawny chickens, scrawny cattle, scrawny dogs, scrawny children all over the roads. Verdent green everywhere, tropical vegetation, smoke from fires permeating everything... hovels lining the 2 lane highway (Paraguay's best road). This is the developed part of the country. Up north, where Bush's ranch is, it's supposed to be backward, really backward. Anyway, down here in developed Paraguay there were virtually no cars, just trucks and buses. India has come a long way; Paraguay hasn't.

Asuncion is quite a step up from what I just described-- but hardly a modern city; hadly a city at all, in fact. There are open sewers where sidewalks should be. I'm in the tropics. It could be Africa. It sure couldn't be Buenos Aires or Montevideo.

I did manage to find a haute cuisine restaurant and it was completely delicious-- Mburicaò. I had a grilled local river fish on a bed of lightly curried vegetables and it was fantastic and there was lots of it. It was like $12. No one spoke English and there was no menu in English. No one speaks English anywhere in Paraguay so far. Oh, the guys at the desk of the hotel speak English-- a bit. I have a feeling that's the only qualification needed to get the job-- a little English. I mean it is a Sheraton.


UPDATE: ASUNCION LOOKS BETTER IN THE LIGHT OF DAY

It's still very much a third world city, but the nice bright sunshine helps highlight some charms. And this Sheraton I'm at isn't really in the center (where the open sewers have been paved over). I can see that my hopes to actually visit the Bush ranch are unrealistic. There are no roads and the few people in the lightly inhabited area don't speak Spanish, just Guarani. There are no buses or anything like that that get anywhere near the region and I was told that the only way to get close to it is to rent a private plane-- or hike... for a couple of weeks. Every single person who I discussed it with have told me I would be killed if I tried to go there. I think I'll try the downtown siteseeing instead.


UPDATE: AH... THERE'S A REASON SO FEW TOURISTS COME TO PARAGUAY

India is more interesting. I did manage to see all the mains sights in Asuncion. I probably inhaled enough toxic fumes to have taken 5 years of eating raw food and taking 30 supplements a day off my lifespan. The heat and humidity are staggering. The traffic congestion is beyond anything conceivable in L.A.


There is apparently no such thing as zoning in Asuncion. It's kind of interesting; it's the most mixed used place I've ever been to. Everywhere you look you see a meticulously kept colonial mansion--and that's not a style; it's a house built when Asuncion was the capital of the southern part of the Spanish Empire-- delicately painted sky blue or rose pink, sitting next to a greasy car repair shop/junk yard with rusting hulks of trucks in front of it. And next to that an optomitrist, a clinic, a mall and 20 kiosks. Speaking of optomitry, it is apparently the primary profession hereabouts. Remember how I mentioned that Buenos Aires has more hairdressers per square inch than any other place on earth? Asuncion has more optomitrists than any other place on earth. I will insert a photo here when I get home. I took it from the Plaza de Heroes and it shows 8 optomitrists' shops in a row. And every block seems to have one or two. If I had time I would investigate.

I took a city bus downtown. It costs 2,100 guaranis. There are 5,360 guaranis to the dollar. The buses, belching heavy black exhaust, crawl along and never bother closing their doors. People jump on and off at will-- including vendors selling food and drink and whatever else you can imagine. Everyone seems to agree I couldn't get within 100 miles of the Bush estate and that if I did I would never be heard from again. Apparently there's a "low level" rebellion going on in the region and the U.S. has a base up there "training" Paraguayans to exterminate the locals fight the terrorists. Maybe we can ask Jane Harman to look into that.

I am leaning toward heading off to Iberà, a swamp near (relatively near) Posadas in Agentina. It's supposed to be the Serengeti of South America with more species of animals than anywhere else in the hemisphere. The drawback is that there's no easy way to get there-- from anywhere. Next week I'm going to Tierra del Fuego. I met some Brits in Iguazu who had just come from there and they said it was zero degrees. I'm not sure if that is centigrade or fahrenheit-- but does it matter?

It's 5:17 AM and my plane takes off just after noon for Buenos Aires (via Dallas). I decided to go to the end of the world (Tierra del Fuego, that island off the tip of South America). I'm half packed and pretty much ready to go. I'll be writing about Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil-- well, about the Iguazu Falls part of Brazil I'll be visiting for a couple days-- and in I figure out how to get into Chilean Patagonia, there too. But I figured I'd get some preliminaries over with even before leaving.

I'm flying on American. Needless to say, even with my 100% flexible schedule, there was no possibility of trading advantage miles for a ticket (single person/first class). So I bought a ticket and upgraded. You probably know the way that works: the less expensive tickets are not upgradable so you have to buy a pretty expensive ticket and then you have to spend another $500 for the honor of using your miles. I had never heard of that before but the AA operator assured me it had been standard practice "for years." And there were other little charges. Still, after checking everywhere and wasting lots of time talking to other airlines, it still looked like the best deal.

Did you know there isn't a single English language tourist guide to Paraguay? [UPDATE: I found one after all!] There used to be one that covered Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay but it's out of print. But what really shocked me is that several guide books on South America don't even mention Paraguay. They have chapters on every other country, even Ecuador and Guyana, but no Paraguay. When I finally located one that did include Paraguay-- in a travel bookstore-- I also found out that I needed a visa in advance. But then luck broke my way. There's a Paraguayan consulate in L.A. and, it turned out, the visa process was as non-onerous as could be. You just fill out some simple papers, hand over 2 photos and some money and off you go. The consul also told me Brazil requires a visa for Americans, who they don't like, and it takes 2 weeks. Panic.

I drove right to the Brazilian consulate. Onerous was the keyword and he was right about them being decidedly anti-American (or at least anti-American tourist). I arrived at 1:15. They stop answering questions at 1. No exceptions. Come back tomorrow. It didn't matter that I was leaving in a week and that they would be closed for Thanksgiving and that I live an hour away. And that I was there. No exceptions. There are only two hotels inside the Iguazu parks, one in Argentina (sold out) and one, a much better one from what I've read, in Brazil. I'm booked in the Brazilian one. What to do, what to do.

I decided to try my luck getting the visa in Buenos Aires. I rented an apartment for my first week in Buenos Aires in the Recoleta district and it's a block from the Brazilian consulate. If I can't get the visa in a week, I'll just cancel Brazil I guess. I mean it's hardly Brazil anyway. It's just the Brazilian side of the Iguazu Falls.

OK, I'm off to finish packing and to eat breakfast and to go for a dawn swim before heading off to the airport, Dallas and Buenos Aires (where I should arrive at 9AM tomorrow morning).


UPDATE: PITSTOP IN TEXAS

I always marvel at the ability of my friend Jane to blog and chew gum at the same time-- and to do it so elegantly. She travels everywhere all the time and blogs up a storm and runs firedoglake, one of the most admired and smoothly-functioning community blogs in the entire world. She keeps trying to get me to do learn to blog on the go. She did teach me html so I guess she could teach me bloggin' on the road too. I suspect I'll screw it up. I mean it's hard to even conceive of blogging without my ergonomic chair and wrist-rest and all my physical backup and research apparatus. And my Macs.

But here I am, in the Admiral's Club in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport. It was a nicely uneventful flight, short and uncrowded. And here in the lounge: free computer usage. Ah... at least they give you something for stealing the $500 just to use "your" miles! They just called the flight. I just blogged on the road. Jane will be proud.