Gran Chaco part 1: the endangered frontier

We made it to Paraguay! The bus from Bolivia was an adventure, one of those experiences where the mutual hardship brings you closer to your fellow passengers and bus crew, and by the end you get off the bus as a better (but filthy and exhausted) person. Almost 24 hot hours including two long stops for tire repairs, coated with a thin layer of dust from bumpy dirt roads with open windows, rationing water just in case. Got dropped off at the road junction to our destination (Mennonite colony at Filadelfia, more on that in part 2) and got a lift the rest of the way in to town.

The western half of Paraguay is sparsely populated, and for good reason. The Gran Chaco is a dry forest: it can go 6 months without rain. Fresh water is scarce, and the aquifer is actually salt water (from when this used to be ocean). The vegetation is thick, but everything is covered in spikes. Mosquitoes patrol in squadrons, and ant colonies can reach 10 meters wide. It's so hot that it has the nickname "the green inferno".

As hostile as it is for people, the Chaco is home to an amazingly diverse range of wildlife. Hundreds species of birds, and dozens of mammals: tapirs, peccaries, deer, rabbits, armadillos, raccoons, pumas, jaguars, and ocelots. Before we arrived it didn't seem like there were any budget options for actually getting in to the Chaco, but we were wrong! Through the Filadelfia tourist info office we were able to get a guide for both a night tour and a day tour to the Proyecto Tagua.

The night tour was mostly driving on small farm roads in a 4x4 with a huge spotlight. We saw everything listed above except for tapirs and the big cats (did see a small wildcat similar to an ocelot), plus many many insects.

The real highlight was Proyecto Tagua (www.cccipy.org). The Proyecto is a peccary reserve, with the goal to release animals back into the wild. There are all three local species of peccary at the reserve (101 animals) including the endangered Taguá, thought extinct until it was rediscovered in 1975. Peccaries are related to pigs, live in large groups, have a strong odor from their scent glands, will eat almost anything, and can be highly aggressive, but for all that are still pretty cute:

Get here while you can. The Chaco is disappearing quickly, experiencing some of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world: estimated at more than 2000 acres PER DAY. Ranchers slash and burn to clear land for cattle grazing, and the area is too remote to enforce land use regulations. At the Proyecto Tagua we met representatives from international conservation groups. If the Chaco can be better promoted as a destination for ecotourism, it stands a better chance of surviving.

-Peter