10#Purmamarca to Paraguay
Buga: 24.04.2018
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Stroll through Purmamarca
On the way: Visit to a pottery
Wool !!!!!
In Humahuaca: Metal art ...something for Ralph
We drive through the 'Quebrada de Humahuaca'
The Rio Grande gorge was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2003. Really extraordinary and very impressive due to its variety of colors. Here are a few impressions:
The cemetery of Maimara, something for mountaineers.
At 'Hasta la Pasta', a really nice place
(5 years is nothing there) with whom we can exchange a lot of experiences in a nice round.
From here we explore the surroundings of Asuncion, for example
the district of San Bernadino on Lake Ypacarai.
There is even a German market here because many immigrants live here.
I'm eating a Thuringian bratwurst...
The monastery and meeting place: MARIANELA
Now we are quickly approaching the end of the journey. In the many conversations with other travelers, we have to realize that our three months are not much more than a weekend trip compared to long-term travelers. A travel journalist takes the prize, who has been on the road for 45 years. In comparison, the three to ten years of the 'normal' long-term vacationers are just average.
In addition to exchanging travel tips, you may also have the luck to meet someone who is also traveling with an Iveco and has almost 250,000km of experience. Toni gives me countless valuable advice on improving the vehicle and doesn't miss the opportunity to personally instruct me on adjusting my rear brake properly. Now I know why the car had such poor braking and why the rear brake pads were still like new. Thanks Toni!
After almost three months, a kind of routine has set in our daily routine. For breakfast, in addition to sometimes questionable bakery products, there is always fried eggs, which can be prepared faster, cleaner, and with fewer ingredients than scrambled eggs. I usually drive because I don't like to sit next to someone, Petra navigates, gets money and shops, and is responsible for emptying our pee tank every day at a carefully chosen location. For lunch, we have leftovers, fruit, and/or yogurt, and in the evening, we always have salad, alternating with meat and pasta. There are only brief arguments when I make cheeky remarks, for example, about the salad dressing being too sour. Nothing earth-shattering, and maybe I can somehow stop doing that. Life can be so simple!
Overall, we have crossed borders twelve times and have visited five countries. One challenge is to keep track of the respective country's currency, three times pesos, reals, and guaranis, 'Are those Chilean pesos or Paraguayan guaranis in that compartment?', 'Do we even have Uruguayan pesos for the tolls?', etc..
The border formalities are also different every time. Sometimes everything is organized and you visit counters 1-4 one after the other, sometimes nothing is obvious at all and the border guards seem to be doing it all for the first time. Sometimes you immediately get the papers for the car, sometimes you have to convince the border guards first. The Brazilian explained that we didn't need anything for the vehicle, only to suddenly want us to fill out a form 'just to be safe'. That took a lot of thinking and took him 45 minutes. The friendliest was a border guard in Paraguay who brooded for about an hour (no exaggeration!) over the form in front of a (life-sized!) cardboard pope and made so many mistakes that his boss refused to sign it. After the boss rewrote the whole thing, we were bid farewell with a handshake.
In the meantime, we have managed the last border crossing (except for on foot to Argentina and then at the airport when leaving) and have a suitable document for transporting the car back.
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