Sand, shovels and adrenaline.
One hour later I reached the fuel station, which was closed, for ever. Ehhhh? Well, Maybe I should take a look at the easy way out? So I looked, and saw nothing but a muddy trail going into the woods. I asked some people and they said the ‘trans Chaco’ would be better. They told me I could get fuel at the estancias. And they told me the easy way out, was not finished yet. Buses and trucks had molested the road and now it was in repair.
OK. So, the Chaco-road it was. And it did not look too bad. The surface here was a bit harder and so the rain had not made it so slippery. Reasonably happy I rode on, only concerned about the fuel.
At the Inciso NP headquarters I stopped for the night, and the first thing they said when I told them I was going to Bolivia was: “That is not possible on the bike". At first I thought they meant some kind of ‘National park regulation’, but then they told me the road was too bad. Hmmm, I tried to learn all there was to learn about this road ahead, and I was not happy. It was all sand. Soft sand. 130 km to the border. Ohhhh, and by the way, there is no fuel at the border. Only diesel. Then they offered me transport by tractor, the normal way. But they warned me it was expensive.
I decided to just go for it. The first bad part would strike me in 40 km, and if I would not like it, I had fuel enough to return.
Hmmm yes, fuel. I had fuel for 200 km (plus some reserve) and the first town in Bolivia would be around this distance. But in the sand I would use more fuel. I had a restless night. The next morning it was dry. Even the tent was dry, no dew. It was cloudy, but when I asked the park-ranger if it would rain, he looked at the sky and said: "No... it will be sunny".