Laguna Blanca
Over our last holiday weekend, we took a trip with about twenty other teachers to a camping area we had been wanting to visit for quite a while: Rancho Laguna Blanca. The area is a private reserve that does conservation work and hosts campers. They also offer meals and have a couple of simple cabins. It turned out to be a great place to camp, hike, and swim.
Kristi and Neil and our roommates Elesa and Baranda enjoying the beach.
Our friends Linnea and Brian kayaking and Dave fishing.
San Ber
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Last weekend we decided to take advantage of the fall weather to go on another camping trip. Timing camping trips in Paraguay is tricky. Hot weather makes it difficult to sleep outdoors for much of the year and frequent rain storms followed by flooding can result in camping in calf-deep water. To the left: bridge construction on the road passing through Parque National Yparcari.
For us, driving through the countryside is often the most enjoyable part of our trips around Paraguay. The countryside is beautiful almost every where you go here. The quaint towns and extensive cattle country often give the impression that we have traveled back in time. Bad roads, bad weather, and police checkpoints can make road tripping around an unpredictable adventure. Generally, things work out fine and encountering unexpected stuff is part of the fun. Driving to San Bernadino around the north end of Lago Ypacarai, we found this bird observation area that had an elevated viewing platform, binoculars, and two canoes available.
We found a nice campground right on the lake just a few minutes north of San Bernadino called Brisas Del Mediterraneo. This place is great because it's only about an hour from our house. While we were drinking coffee in the morning this fox appeared in the campground and paused for a photo.
The next day had a lot of rain in the forecast, so we packed up and went into the towns of San Ber (where some folks had brought their monkey for the weekend) and Altos. From Altos we took a particularly beautiful drive through the hills
to an ostrich farm near the town of Nueva Colombia.
Mbuni
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| Mbuni (which means ostrich in Swahili) is a working ostrich farm and has a very nice restaurant, cabanas, and rooms. They also sell ostrich meat, eggs, and all sorts of crafts made from ostrich feathers and leather. Mbuni Page |
They also have a farm pond full of tilapia. I caught a few before heading back to the city and we had a very eclectic diner of grilled ostrich and tilapia.
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| Epiphytic plants: Mbuni |
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| Flowering plant: Mbuni |
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