Para para Paraguay. Most people who travel South Americ don't ever bother with Paraguay apparently. People always seem to say that there's nothing really there and there's nothing really to do. Well they are right. Kind of...


We decided to see a bit of Paraguay simply because we were so close and it seemed almost pointless to not visit it. That and the fact that as it often gets overlooked and missed, it kind of makes it more appealing. It is actually a really interesting country with nice locals who make the effort to maintain the only still official indigenous language in South America - Guarani. Not that we would bother with learning that, Spanish is enough for us thank you.

It is the first country we have ever walked into across a bridge to pass the border. The bridge connecting the countries is known as the Friendship bridge which sounded nice until we got to other side and read some advice that it was one of the most dangerous places to walk and under no circumstances should people try it. Saying that, we were fine and it was quite interesting to have the modern city of Foz behind us and the grey concrete mess of Ciudad Del Este in front as we crossed the huge river border. On getting into Ciudad Del Este, our first encounter was with a nice man who crossed the road to simply tell us to leave this city as soon as possible as it is not safe for tourists and we would likely get robbed. He finished the conversation in a very movie type of way with a stark warning - "Don't trust anyone!"

Well, with that, we caught the next bus to the station and then the next bus (which incidentally was a horrendously hot non air conditioned bus that was horrendous!) out of the city to a nicer place called Encarncion.

Encarncion and the Jesuit ruins.

Encarncion sits on the border of Argentina in the south. It's a pretty city that isn't very big but has a beautiful beach. If you know where Paraguay is in the world you may wonder how a landlocked country can have a beautiful beach. Well they've built one on the river! It's great - Golden sand, beach bars, no waves and no salt water makes it great for swimming and instead of looking out at the boring horizon all day you get to look at Argentina! And when the sun goes down, the sunset is fantastic .

Whilst we stayed there we visited the main attraction - the famous Jesuit ruins. That's right, we actively chose to travel 1 hour on a hot sticky bus in the hottest country in the world (will speak of the heat in a bit) to look at some ruins. Ruins of a small church and some houses to be specific. We paid for this 'pleasure'! It would be nice now if we could say how interesting they were, if we could say that we now have a new vested interest into the history of Christian missions, specifically those that were so successful in the late 1700s. Unfortunately we cannot say these things. It was both very boring and very hot. It didn't take long for us to leave and head back to the lovely beach!

San Rafael Park.

About 3 hours away from Encarnacion is San Rafael Parque Nacional. We made our way here, again via a horrendous bus journey that made Indian buses seem luxurious, with the intent of stopping 3 nights in a tent! The area is a forest that is being conserved by a Swiss couple who fell in love with it in the 70s. Unfortunately, now most of this forest has been chopped down over the years but they have managed to keep a section alive and thriving. On our first day there we explored one of the several trails through the forest and saw some trees. Just trees, lots of trees. And flies. Lots of flies. We didnt like it too much to be honest and its hard to see why on earth a family would relocate from the other side of the world to save some trees and flies, but each to their own. The family were lovely and fed us some delicious food so we thought we would stick it out for a few days more to see if we could also grow some love for the trees.

Unfortunatley we only made it that one night there as during the first day we got first hand experience of the Paraguay rainy season. The whole place was devestated by wind and rain. Our tent didnt survive! We were told by the couple that if we stayed the buses wouldnt be running for at least a week but that they could take us back to the town in the land rover that day. We quickly weighed up staying in a broken tent with more wind and rain on the way for a week or getting back to civilisation. 5 minutes later we were sat in the land rover on our way out of there!

Asuncion

The capital of Paraguay. Another place in this great country with nothing really ineresting to see but what turned out to be one of the best weeks of our trip! We came for 3 days and stopped for 10, and this was nothing to do with our love for Asuncion of which there was only a little, this was down to the hostel we found and the people we met! We also decided that enough was enough of our very poor Spanglish and to invest in some Spanish lessons and as Paraguay is one of the cheapest places in the world to learn Spanish we made this our base for a while.

The Spanish Lessons.

Claire bought a new exercise book for first day at school. David got a hair cut and brought with him a shiny apple to give to the teacher. We wanted to make a good impression and appear to be keen students. We were in lessons with one other girl from Germany. The teachers method was to not speak any English at all. Well, she literally couldn't speak any English at all. This made the process challanging at first but we soon got used to it and it wasn´t long before we were asking how much a beer cost in the super market and what the menu of the day was with the best of them. We were soon masters of the language! Not really, it turns out that learning a language, even if you are living in the country is really bloody difficult! But we will perservere and by the time we come home we´ll be as fluent and bilingual as Manuel from Fawlty Towers

The Heat

We are sure that there is some factual evidence that a place somewhere in the world is hottest place on earth. We dare say that they may claim that it is somewhere other than Paraguay. They are wrong. Paraguay is without doubt the actual hottest place in the world. In Paraguay the heat burns through the shade, it is impossible to leave your room without being drenched in sweat in 30 seconds. Honestly, its rediculous!

The Hostel

We stopped at a place called El Nomada, and as we have stopped in lots of hostels so far we can safely say that this place simply got it right! And not just the hostel itself but also the other people who were staying there. On our first night we got invited out by a group of French guys who kindly convinced us at about 10pm to just come out for one drink. One drink, where´s the harm in that? We thought. Well one drink inevitably turned into several drinks and when it got to 2am and Claire decided it would be a good idea to get some shots of Tequila for everyone we realised we were in to deep. After the tequila the night is a total blur. Both of us remember that a very nice Chilean man who sported a very nice bushy beard walked us back to the hostel (where it was, we had no idea) at 7 in the morning. The next day we didnt surface at all. Hangovers in Paraguay are brutal!

During the course of the week the French contingent left the hostel but then a new set of people arrived who again we got on with brilliantly. Nights out, barbeques, drinks in the pool all made for a fantastic few days! Our last night was one of the best we´ve had all year as we all again went out together for a final goodbye drink(s). There are so many of those little funny stories that wouldn´t translate well on here. But we will say that trying to explain the origin of Del Boy`s ´Mange tout Rodney´ to a French person is a difficult task that one day may actually bring Dave fame as co writer of a fabulous song about the subject.


Oh yeah, we met Jesus too.




Paraguay stats
Planes used - 11
Buses/coaches used - 74 (+15)
Trains used - 25
Metros/subways used - 41
Cars used - 11 (+2)
Minivans - 10
Russian Campervans used -1
Horses used - 1
Camels used - 1
Taxis used - 19 (+2)
Cable cars used - 1
Bicycles used- 2
Tuk tuks/autorickshaw used - 31
Scooters used - 6
Elephants used - 0
Ferrys used - 5 (+1)
CycleRickshaw - 1
Bamboo HouseBoat - 1
Tour Boat - 1
Combi Van - 2
Huge 4x4 Truck Thingys- 2

Things we have learned

1 Banana and dolce de leche makes an awesome toastie

2 Hangovers are worse in Paraguay. We dont know why, but they are.

3 Paraguay Rocks!