On The Road Again (Part 2)

We're back at the police station. It has a second building with a roof that extends out beyond the walls, supported by wooden beams and pillars. A clothes line runs between the pillars. The clothes line is hanging a few towels, then a full side of beef and a second big cut of deboned cow. There are wasps are buzzing all around the beautiful red carcasses.

The policemen are keen to show us what they've done with the fridge that came up with our Aquidaban trip. In another big, near-empty room of the building, the commercial fridge is opened for us. It's full with tens of handsome three and four foot razor-toothed river fish.

Before long, we're on the road in another trusty Toyota Hilux pick-up. Our driver is the younger of the two policemen. As we drive through the rough dirt tracks of the Chaco, into the late afternoon and evening, the views across the flat landscape are impressive. It varies between head height tall grass lining the road in front of thick forest, and expanses of marshlands of low lying grass and sparsely scattered silhouettes of round headed palm trees. Every so often we find a few cows on or around the road. A few motorbikes pass us in the opposite direction. In patches, the road is deeply, waterlogged - no problem for the Hilux, but I wouldn't want to be on a rickety old city motorbike on this dirt trail, in the dark, and in the depths of the Chaco.

Photo: nanduti.com.py

We're making good progress down the battered and grooved dirt road. A little while after the sun has gone, we pull up to a police check point. I'm stretched to imagine the purpose of a manned checkpoint, but we're given news that bridge ahead is out. Not good. We push ahead anyway, and a little farther, get out to examine the bridge. Within moments of having my torch on, it's surrounded by mosquitoes. The dirt bridge crosses a metre or two of a natural drainage path. A central length of the bridge is still intact, but not quite wide enough for us. To the left hand side, the section has caved in leaving a hole of about four feet deep into a unattractive, dark, wet pool. On the right, the hole has only partially fallen away. It's just one foot deep and dry. We're confident that the Hilux's right side can get in and out of this hole. There's a bump as the front right wheel falls into the hole, but it looks okay. The first attempt to get up and out of the other side sees it struggle and roll back down into the steep ditch. The second attempt has the same fate. My confidence in the machine is suddenly in question. The third attempt is worthy of a solid high five.

Farther down the track, Vincent, who the Paraguayan's have nicknamed "Belgo", is given the wheel. We continue along and start spotting seeing bright eyed reflections of our headlights on small fluffy foxes, scurrying ahead of us. One fox in the road ahead spots us and opts to out run us, staying in the road. He soon finds that he can't out pace us. He starts to scurry off to left, then seems to change his mind and go right back across the road. Vincent is slows us right down, but the fox's move to the right looks to have taken him under the Hilux. I don't feel a bump, but it didn't look good.

Photo: faunaparaguay.com

We come to a stop a few hundred metres down. The road is thoroughly blocked by a freshly laid swamp. The swamp is wider than the Hilux and much longer. Watching the examination given by our police officer, I'm not even confident that he's sure that this is the right direction. For one or both reasons, we pull a U-turn. Our backtrack confirms that Vincent´s fox has succumbed to his fate in the Chaco's survival of the fittest.

Photo: faunaparaguay.com, Dumbass

Half an hour later, and we're still making good progress and growing in confidence. This nice stint comes to a halt as we park up in the middle of the road behind an articulated lorry and it's two trailing carriages. We investigate to find the two carriages are loaded with fifteen cows each. 

The heads of the cows quietly bob to peer at me between slats. I climb up the side of the carriage to peer right back into the big eyes of a soon-to-be empanada filling. Beyond the lorry, is another lorry aiming in the other direction. This second lorry is sitting at a twelve degree angle with two wheels deep in a wet roadside ditch. He's tried and failed to pass around the cow lorry, who we discover is also trapped in the muddy centre of the road. Two attempts demonstrate that the Hilux just isn't strong enough to free the crooked lorry. They're trapped and so are we.

It's past Two in the morning, so the four of us reside to defeat and settle in for the night.