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.