Asuncion, Asuncion!
3rd of April:
As I had gone early to bed the previous day, I for once awoke when I intended to. I wanted to catch the 7.30 bus to Asuncion, and I surely did. It was a 6,5 hour busride, and as per usual I looked out my window at every single stop, just to make sure that my bag stayed on.
I arrived in Asuncion in good time, it was still early in the day; but finding my way to the centre of the city, was nowhere easy. There are no real busstops, only signs which shows that certain lines may stop here… Of course only if they feel like it. The only busline which I knew would take me to my guesthouse (no hostel), was line 8 and according to several people around, that bus only goes once an hour, and it had just left… I had no intention of waiting around for that long, especially not with my big rucksack on, and a sun that sets early. So after a bit of bargaining, I got a taxi driver to take me relatively cheap (2,5 euro). My taxi driver, was a really nice guy, and with him I had my so far most complex Spanish conversation, which was mainly about the presidential election (more about that in a moment), but also about Denmark, which he was very much intrigued about. To him the only languages in existence were, Spanish, Guarani (the native language of Paraguay), German and English, so when I told him that we speak Danish in Denmark, he was very much interested. Also like any other man in South America, upon hearing my nation of origin, he mentioned Michael Laudrup and Peter Schmeichel, but he did it with much more conviction than anyone else, as if he really appreciated those players.
Upon arriving, I was not only told that the guesthouse was full, but that every single guesthouse was full. The presidential election is on the 20th of April, and while I had noticed in Encarnacion that there was something going on… It was nothing like in Asuncion. And apparently the supporters from all over the country, had come to Asuncion in order to support their party. Parades of cars with flags all over and speakers with endless noise, were coming down most streets, buses clad in flags and people walking with big drums, almost blowing out my drums (eardrums). According to my taxidriver, not only did he know a cheap place (more about that later), the party all those people were supporting, was Lista 1, the party which is currently in control, and is corrupt beyond reason (this is after all, the most corrupt country outside Africa).
My taxidriver then took me to another place, which was actually listed in the Lonely Planet, Hotel Plaza. it wasn’t nice compared to the price, but I didn’t have much choice, the Lonely Planet described it as great value (not exactly a tribute to the rest of the options, or indeed the country), and it was only for one night; so I accepted, dumped my bag and set about the city. One thing I always do when I’m in a capital, is follow the walking tour which is outlined in the Lonely Planet. The Buenos Aires tour was fairly disappointing (Anne Dorthe can attest to that), but the Santiago one really had me, and the same goes for the one in Montevideo. And in Asuncion it was somewhere in between; it wasn’t grand and filled with slendour, but then nothinig is in Paraguay. The only building which impressed me was the presidential palaca (a big white house… I wonder where they got that idea from). But Asuncion is different, just like the rest of the country, there is not really any tourism, and so the place isn’t geared towards it.
There are hardly any streetsigns, any of those lightboxes telling you whether or not you can cross a street, you just have to test your luck (I did), but most impressively, I couldn’t find any postcards… I have sent postcards home from every country except Uruguay (at the beginning of my trip) and now Paraguay, there just weren’t any to be found. Nobody speaks English at all; in the busterminal, I tried to get some information about the Trans-Chaco bus to Santa Cruz in Bolivia, and not only was the woman selling the ticket less enthusiastic about her job than Edmund Blackadder going over the top, she didn’t speak a word of English, and when I asked (in Spanish, nobody speaks German in Asuncion either) about the food on the bus (30 hour busride), she launched into a spasm of all her limbs, and jibbered away SO fast even a Chilean would be blown away… I actually never found out.
When I mention the Lonely Planet book as a big reference, it is because it is a good guide, please understand, that it only guides me, it doesn’t show me the way, I do stuff on my own, but in places like this you need some sort of reference, if you don’t want to leave your fate up to the chance of greedy taxidrivers and unknowing employees at the nonexistent (in Paraguay) tourism offices. Now some people had told me this would turn literal (about being shown the way), but so far the maps in the book had never failed me (except for a single museum in Rio Gallegos, but that had been closed, so it hardly counts), but what the fuck (pardon my French) happened here? Not only were museums, restaurants and places (except for those on the walking tour) not where they were supposed to be (a few were), but some of the museums were utterly unknown to the locals, even the ones who worked in the hotel I stayed at.
For dinner I went to the Bar San Roque which was shown as the best place in town, listed in the splurge box, when in fact it was quite on par with the rest of Asuncion. It is a very old place (103 years, quite a lot for Paraguay), filled with nice wooden tables and chairs, and with waiters in tuxedo’s and bowties. I had some horse meat, which was almost divine (though unable to rival La Cabrera in Buenos Aires, but that hardly comes as a surprise), with a sidedish of splendid chips. Afterwards it was getting rather late, and I did fancy a good nights sleep. It was here in my room, on my way to bed that I figured out that I would take the Trans-Chaco bus the following day, instead of taking a trip to Concepcion, 6 hours each way, just for a single night? I am not sure if I have mentioned this, but I have to be in Cuzco on the 11th of April, to allow me at least 2 nights sleep at the high altitude of Cuzco before I head on the Inca Trail on the 13th, that and to pay for the rest of the Inca Trail (I have only paid a $150 deposit so far).
4th of April:
Having gone fairly early to bed, I woke up with plenty of time before my 10 o’clock check out, but went down in good time anyway, to eat my included breakfast and ask whether I could leave my bags there for the day, as my busride wasn’t before 20.30 anyway. I could, and I was told that I had until 12 o’clock to check out in any case. So I took my first ride with what the Lonely Planet (quite accurately) describes as “noisy, one-rattling Kamikaze-like city buses”. And here is why, if you are a foreigner (such as me), the buses don’t stop… They only slow down to around 10-15 km/h, and then it is up to you, to run up alongside it and jump on. If you are a local it slows down to 5 km/h, unless there are a lot of people in which case it stops; it also stops for the elderly. The bus I was on was one of the newer buses (that means early 80′s judging from the current state of it), but what I like most about city buses in Paraguay (this goes for Ciudad Del Este and Encarnacion as well) is that they don’t have a button you press to stop the bus, instead all busdrivers have adopte the same system. It is a doorbell with a piece of string attached to it, running all the way down the us, loosely attached to the roof. You then pull it and the doorbell rings, that way the driver knows that he has to stop. After a lot of bumbling down the roads of Asuncion, we arrived at the terminal, unfortunately for me, I was the only person getting off. And like getting on the bus, the driver only slows down to 10-15 km/h. But when you get on, you are at more or less the same speed (going a it faster to catch up), when you get off, you go from those 10-15 km/h, to a direct stop, and since I had no intention of doing a rolling fall on tarmac, with a huge curb just ahead of me, it looked a lot like the time I crashed my scooter on Easter Island, flying through the air mixed with some running in order not to fall down.
I bought my busticket to Santa Cruz for that same evening (still no idea if they serve food), and had a more leisurely bustrip back to town (after waiting for some 30 minutes), where I further explored the town and had a huge coned 4 scoop ice cream, which did turn out to be quite expensive… And entire euro, for a huge ice cream? Where do they think they are, Buenos Aires? No it was quite alright, I had just become used to everything (except accomodation) being ridiculously cheap, that I was just a big surprised, but was happy to pay. When I get change from the ice cream, it was also my first run-in with the Paraguayan 1000 coin… What a denomination for a coin…. 1000. In fact I had made my souvenir from Paraguay one of their 100.000 notes, which is roughly 14-15 euro, quite a bit for a souvenir down here; but I really love the concept of a 100.000 note, so I didn’t mind
Lunch was quite inextraordinary, but dinner… My dinner was fit for Jehovah (watch Life of Brian), I went back to the Bar San Roque, after I had looked around at some other places without finding something to my taste. Once there I ordered a lasagna bolognese, and oh your god, it was good. When an Italian master chef from Naples thinks of lasagna, what I had is what comes into his mind. Afterwards I went to pick up my bags and the food I had bought at the supermarket, 3 liters of water, 3 packets of crackers, 3 big delicious bread and 2 packets of chocolate biscuits. I had initially hoped to get a lot of apples and bananas, but the two supermarkets I went to, only had rotten fruit, and as I stayed at a hotel, I didn’t have access to a can opener, and neither of the supermarkets would sell me one, which is quite a problem in a country where everything is canned.
I took a bus to the terminal, and luckily there was an old person getting on, since with my huge rucksack, shoulder bag and 3 bags of groceries, I would never have managed to get on at 10-15 km/h. On the other hand, this bus was a joke. If anyone has seen the Harry Potter movie where he takes a bus into London, then you have an idea of what my driver looked like. The bus had an exclusive wooden floor (which was ready to give in), that smelled like a pyre whenever the bus was starting (and it stopped quite a lot), there was no first gear so he had to start the bus in second, which only added to the smell, the roof was so low that I had to walk around hunched over, to fit my rucksack, and to make everything better… My driver started racing with the other drivers.
When I eventually made it to the busterminal, someone asked me at the gate whether I was going to Santa Cruz (I guess, me being foreigner and carrying groceries gave me away), and told me the bus had been canceled but offered me a different company. This sounded an awful lot like what had recently happened to me in Ciudad Del Este, so I at first tried to waft him away, made easier by the fact he didn’t speak English, so I wasn’t sure exactly what he was saying other than my bus was canceled, but he soon showed me what he was saying. He asked for my ticket, which I showed him, and in handwriting (which the lady who sold me the ticket had written) on the ticket was the name of the company he worked for. So reluctantly (with he ticket back in my hand) I followed him. Apparently the bus had been canceled since I was the only person who had bought a ticket, but for free he would transfer me to another company, which belonged to a different company they cooperated with. So from NSA to Yacamota to Rio Paraguay I switched and was taken to a busoffice two blocks from the terminal, where 3 Swedish people were waiting for the bus I had been transferred to. It also soon became obvious that they had forgotten to get an entry stamp into Paraguay, although how that is accomplished remains a mystery to me, did they think they wouldn’t need it? So they had to go and buy one each for 50 USD. In the meantime I was reading aloud from The Odyssey to a Paraguayan child no more than 3-4 years old, who had absolutely no grasp of English, but seemed enthralled by my story.
The 3 Swedes were all from Joenkoppin, although one of them had Chilean parents who had fled Chile under Pinochet’s regime. So despite having traveled for 3 months, the two others had absolutely no grasp of Spanish and understand absolutely nothing (one of them asked what pollo means), as their Chilean/Swedish friend translated absolutely everything, something which was really a shame. Eventually the bus came and we all boarded it. The bus was far from full, so I had two seats to myself, and as this bus is used exclusively for this long distance trip, all the seats could recline very far back, so the light was turned off and I was soon fast asleep.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 01:47. It is filed under Paraguay.
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