JP Myers 1973 Journal Trans-chaco road, km 455 - 540 NW of Villa Hayes, Dept. Boqueron Paraguay Sept 2 Spent part of the early morning walking along road w/Lois near camp. The one patch of water (10' x 15', 4" deep, surrounded by mud and fairly obscured by trees) showed no sign of shorebirds. There was a swallow-tailed hummingbird. We followed a small, old jeep trail north from the road for about 1 km. Vegetation was much more open than I expected, with several patches of grass (largest 100' diameter) along the way. Otherwise it was thorn scrub, ground cover often wild pineapple. Shade height < 10', but occasional large trees (palo borracho, palo santo) thrown in. Walked until we came across a cultivated field, then returned. Saw very little in the way of birds, but I was concentrating on camera. We left camp around 10am and started west again, with the intent of reaching teniente Ochoa. Just east of Mariscal Estigarribia the terrain started having perceptible topographic variation, gently rolling w/ a few sharp breaks. Cactus becomes much more evident, perhaps because of the effect of heavy usage or more useful trees/plants. Absolutely no water by road until less than 5 km east of Mariscal, when all of a sudden there were a number of pools by the road, + in Mariscal a good sized one. No shorebirds. West of Mariscal it starts to dry up again, although judging from the effort that has gone into building bridge on the road, and from very evident washes, it must be wet sometime. Vegetation changing, becoming more open, looks as if the thorn scrub may begin to open up