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Disappearing into the Atacama Desert

Day 1: Picking up Wicked Van, Laguna Chaxa

We arrived at the Wicked offices to pick up our van at 10:30am. There were a few people ahead of us in line finishing up their paperwork, so it took us a little while to get on the road. After signing the documents, verifying the condition of our camper, double checking the checklist, and snagging a few essential free items: sleeping bag, pillow cutting board, extra dishwater, we were off. Our first stop was the grocery store to stock up on food for at least the next day. The second stop was the gas station to fill up the camper and the 20-liter jerrycan we had been given just in case. There is only one gas station in the desert, in San Pedro, so you have to come back to town to get gas, and we definitely did not want to run out. With that, we were off on our adventure heading towards Laguna Chaxa.

Our van for four days – lovingly nicknamed “Milkshake”
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San Pedro de Atacama

We have a week before we need to be in Bolivia for our WWOOFing post, so we decided to go back to Chile to explore the Atacama desert for a few days. There are three bus companies: Pullman Bus, Andesmar, and Gemini, that each run three trips to and from Atacama per week. The bus costs 1600 pesos ($42.11) per person no matter which company you go with. We took a 7am bus on Friday morning with Pullman Bus. The bus ride was uneventful, but our arrival in Chile was marked by some of the now familiar challenges of exploring a new place.

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Five Days in Asunción, Paraguay

Months ago we booked six nights at El Nómada Hostel in Asunción because we needed to show accommodation on our Paraguay visa application.

The first night after our sweaty bus ride, we ran into Jonathan and Danielle in the kitchen, the first Americans we’ve seen since we left Buenos Aires. While we aren’t particularly focused on finding Americans on our trip, it was fun to meet them. We are doing our trips in opposite directions, so they had lots of tips about Colombia, and we could tell them about Encarnación and getting Bolivian visas in Buenos Aires. They had spent three days in Asunción and were leaving the next day. They warned us Asunción is weirdly empty and there isn’t much to do.

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Bus to Asunción

We arrived at the bus terminal in Encarnación at 10:40am, and before we had even made it to the ticket windows a guy asked where we were heading and told us he had a bus right now to Asunción. Before we had agreed, he had written out a ticket for a bus leaving at 11:45. Not exactly “right now” by our definition but we figured it was fine. Louisa showed up 30 minutes later and managed to get on a much nicer bus leaving 15 minutes before us. And that’s when we realized we had made a mistake.

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Itaipu Dam

On Sunday, we decided to visit the Itaipu Dam, which is an impressive bi-national collaboration between Brazil and Paraguay to develop sustainable power generation in the region. Construction on the dam over the river Paraná began in 1975 and was completed in 1984. The hydroelectric power plant at the dam produces approximately 79% of Paraguay’s energy need and 20% of Brazil’s. Paraguay exports most of the excess power back to Brazil making electricity Paraguay’s single largest export. In 2016, the Itaipu hydroelectric power plant produced the most energy of any in the world. The dam is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

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Saltos de Monday

The internet can be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it’s full of useful travel tips, and on the other hand it can scare you away from really cool things. If you read too much, Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, sounds like a terrifying place. So much so that we seriously considered whether it was worth spending any time there or if we should get on the first bus to Encarnación. Luckily, we had also read enough to know that the two main attractions near Ciudad del Este were worth seeing: Saltos de Monday and the Ituaipu dam (more on that in a later post).

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Iguazú Falls

We arrived in Puerto Iguazú around 9:30am and went in search of food and WiFi as we realized neither of us had downloaded the map of Puerto Iguazú for offline use. (If you have never used Google Maps in this way, check it out! It’s invaluable for traveling.) The cafe on the corner had counter service with tables outside and coupons for an hour of WiFi. We shared a potato tortilla and used our hour of WiFi to download the maps and research how to get to Iguazú falls. For once, Eric looked pretty perky after getting off a night bus.

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