Encarnacion

The problem with having a nice hotel, especially when you generally go to bed as late as we do, is that it is hard to drag yourself out in the morning.  We did at least force ourselves up in time for breakfast on the first day, but then we went back to the room, supposedly just to get ready to go out, and we're there for another few hours.

On my birthday we didn't even get down to breakfast.   And even when we did make it out, we got side tracked by the little black kitten and the parrot that we made friends with at the hotel.  So sadly, we didn't make it to the nearby Jesuit ruins.

But we did get around the town.  Not that there was anything that much to see here, and again, everywhere closes during the day for long siestas. We did see the karumbes, the little yellow horsedrawn carts that used to be the taxis in the city, but now are just a tourist thing.  And we tried out the pizza place on the square named after them.  That was OK, but we preferred the cafe next door, where we whiled away a few hours having quiche, cake, beer and hot drinks, and we're astounded when the bill came to only £10.

While we were there there was something going on with some local schools.  Groups of kids were out stopping traffic and leafleting people.  One group was doing the traditiomal drumming to get peoples' attention, which worked quite well.  We couldn't work out what it was for, but it was interesting to watch. Like a number of the places we have been to, there seems to be a trend for younger people to just drive around the town.  Here though, they seem to do it with very loud music blaring out of their cars and pickups.  Later on we also saw one of the leafleting groups going around in two pickups.  The first was decked out with huge speakers, and they were all in the back of the second, dancing.

Judging by the quality of the cars and the buildings here, Encarnacion is a somewhat better off city than Asuncion, and although we saw some rather more ramshackle homes, we didn't see any evidence of very poor or homeless people.  Of course they may just have been kept out of sight elsewhere.

Sadly it seemed that we may have left Encarnacion a day early for the action, as we noticed as we were on the bus going out that groups seemed to be preparing for some kind of procession or something.  Oh well.

En route to Encarnacion

Our other destination in Paraguay was Encarnacion. The bus journey there gave us an interesting view of the countryside.  The red earth of the area was very evident, and now, so was the sight of animals living side by side with the people, much as we had seen in Bolivia.  This is clearly a poorer country again, but still they make the effort to keep their towns nice.  Most places we passed had a little plaza area that was nicely paved out and planted up.
Towards the end of the journey, we passed through a small place called Coronel Bogado, which is renowned in Paraguay as having the best chipa, which is a cheesy bread that is prevalent throughout the country.  We figured we had to try it, so we bought some from one of the vendors.  They were quite nice, and yes, probably the best ones we tasted.

They have an efficient process for selling food and drink to bus passengers in South America.  You don't get off the bus, they come to you.  Whenever you stop in a town, the vendors will get in and walk through the bus with their goods.  If the stop is only very brief, they stay on to the next stop, get off there and get another bus back again.

We had a nice hotel booked in Encarnacion as it was my birthday over these few days, and that is our agreed treat for birthdays.  The room even had a hair dryer, so I broke out the hairspray and some make up for a change.

Asuncion, a tower of beer and a broken bed

On our first evening, we decided to try out a bar close to our hostel, which we had read brewed its own beer.  It is called the Britannia Pub and was clearly very popular.  We found a seat and as they strangely didn't have their own beer(?) we decided we couldn't resist trying their Torres de Cerveza, or tower of beer. This was three litres of beer in a cylindrical container with a tap so that you poured your own beers at the table.  With the bargain of half price food, we only spent £8 in total.

We didn't actually get to bed that night until about 3am, so we were looking forward to a good sleep and a nice lie in the next day.  We were slightly concerned when we spotted that the bed on Nic's side had a rather dodgy looking nailed in bit of wood supporting the base board.  It was looking quite precarious, but there was nothing we could do tonight, so we went to bed, taking care to move only very slowly and gently.  It seemed to be OK so we relaxed and went to sleep.

Until around 7am that is, when the bit of wood obviously gave way and Nic's side of the bed went crashing to the floor.  We extricated ourselves from the wreckage, established that there were no broken bones, and then had a bit of a laugh.  However it did mean that we weren't going back to sleep, so we got up and waited for the owners to appear at breakfast. We told them what had happened and they were excellent.

They initially said they would fix it, but the jolt had affected my back again, so I was loathe to get back in a bed that wasn't definitely secure.  They understood this and replaced the bed entirely for us within just a few hours.  They also didn't charge us for that night. We were very impressed with how quickly and apologetically they dealt with it.  It also meant that we could catch up on some sleep before we went back into town and tried out the nice restaurant that we had seen.

Asuncion, and finally doing some sightseeing again

Having dragged ourselves kicking and screaming from the lovely hotel in Asuncion, we arrived at our hostel and settled in there. It was actually quite a nice hostel, with a lovely courtyard garden and the odd hummingbird visitor.

This time though we did make it out into the city, and with my back feeling quite a lot better, we wandered around the main squares, albeit in search of football again.

Nic wanted to watch the Liverpool -v- Chelsea league match, but the only place that we could find it on was a taxi rank in the street, and we couldn't stand there for the whole match so he had to do without.

Plaza Uruguay is a huge square with the old railway station in it.  Paraguay was the first place in South America to get trains, so the railways here were quite a big deal, but now there are very few in use.

We were a little disappointed that we weren't able to get the tourist train, which apparently is something out of the fifties, with actors doing sketches along the way.


We had read that in Asuncion we would find people keeping their animals in the streets.  We didn't see any evidence of that, and in fact it took us a while to realise it, but there weren't even any stray dogs around, which is a first for South America. But there is certainly a poorer side to Asuncion.  We spotted this before we even reached the square when we saw an obviously homeless woman squat down with her toilet paper at the side of the road.

Plaza Uruguay itself is somewhat down at heel, with some of the poor of the city living on one side of the square.  They do seem to be making some efforts to work on the square itself, but I have no idea whether they will do anything to house the people living there.

But we did spot one really quite simple thing that they could do in Asuncion to make the city seem more cared for and look better - learn to paint within the lines.  As we walked around, we saw the kerbs were painted white, which can look quite nice if done neatly.  But this looked like they had just walked along sloshing the paint out of the tin.  It was a complete mess, with paint splatters across the path, and made the place look slapdash.

A rather more impressive square was the Plaza Los Heroes, with it's very fancy bank building, and mausoleum for some of Paraguay's bigwigs.  The latter is an impressive building, and at night the dome is lit up in changing colours.  Nearby were the many market stalks selling the various souvenirs including the ñanduti, which is their intricate lacework.

I also like the buses, which like some other cities are old style and brightly coloured.