Escape From Paraguay

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As we crossed the Rio Paraguay, we became paranoid that our bus would not stop at Paraguayan customs for us to obtain an exit stamp, as we never had a clue if anybody in Paraguay actually listened to anything we said.

Then after a bunch of stops, and many questions of how much more time it would take to arrive until we actually arrived at the joint customs area for both countries. Obtaining our exit stamp was fairly quick in simple, but obtaining our entry stamp was a bit more annoying, as we needed to hand over our passports to the Argentine border guard, who would then hand back our passports to our bus driver. Despite the annoyance of waiting outside of the bus and having to lug our backpacks in and out of the detection area, everybody eventually hopped on the bus with passports in hand, and headed down the highway to Argentina.

We arrived in Formosa, which the Lonely Planet describes as "Paraguayan" due to its abundance of fresh juices, at midnight and had a cabbie show us to a hotel. Formosa is quite spread out and there are no accommodation right by the bus station. For the purpose of justifying his 25 peso fee, the cabbie took us around town. The return trip to the bus station was a third of the price.


While we wanted to head down to Rosario, we could only arrive there in the very wee hours of the morning, so we opted for a bus to Resistencia, where we thought we would have more options. As we had about 45 minutes before our bus was scheduled to leave, we decided to get some food at a bus station restaurant. And we waited and asked about when our food would be ready and could not get a straight answer. After waiting and asking some more, we finally gave up on getting cooked food at 12:40. The kitchen was apparently busy. We happened to order "huevos revueltos" and we learned later on that Argentines refuse to scramble eggs, but will gladly serve you an overcooked omelette (or more precisely, what they call a tortilla).

But after we arrived in Resistencia. In Resistencia, we had more options (such as buses that would arrive at normal hours in the morning), but opted to stay in town for the night and take a bus the next day to Rosario.

We asked our cab driver to take us to a clean hotel with air conditioned rooms and a private washroom. And we got one for U$S 20. As we had only eaten chips that day, we needed food, but neither of the restaurants that the receptionist recommended were open. Working Argentines take their mid-day break, which includes lunch, from noon to 4, but the restaurants take their siesta from 4-8. But thankfully, we found a "resto-bar," which served us the sustenance we needed.

Resistencia is well known for both its situation across the Parana River from the more touristed Corrientes, and it is also well known for its over 300 statues. View one of the more entertaining statues once we actually have pictures up on here.

During a stop on our bus ride, we learned for the first time that Argentine short order cooks interpret an order of "My wife is Vegetarian. She would like a sandwich with only lettuce, tomato, cheese, and mayonnaise. She does not eat ham, chicken, beef, or fish" as "She would like a ham sandwich."

Argentine Logic: If she does not eat beef, then she must eat ham. People who do not eat meat products do not exist.

As we did not check the sandwich before our bus left the sandwich stop, we were stuck with a very tasty and large lomito (sirloin steak sandwich) for me, a ham sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and gobs of mayonnaise, and a cranky Sarah, who had nothing but wheat crackers that I had bought as an emergency snack a couple of weeks back.

We arrived in Rosario and Sarah was much too hungry. We had our cab driver take us to a couple of places recommended by the Lonely Planet, but one did not have anybody working at the front desk and another showed us to a dirty room with only a small fan to keep us cool in the 40 degree Celsius heat. But yet another cab driver came to the rescue and delivered us to a decent place with AC.

Our hotel then directed us to a restaurant where we enjoyed a fantastic $4 bottle of wine and some typical Argentine food (i.e. way-too-dry chicken and tasty beef for me and home-made pasta for Sarah).

The next day, we understood why Argentines take siestas - it's too hot between noon and 6 or so to actually do anything. Though we used the time to reserve a semi-affordable hotel room in a central area of Buenos Aires, and the rest to take a siesta. It was a shame when Sarah desired some food for delivery to our hotel room, and no place was open that could do such a thing. But the friendly owners of the hotel directed me to a local resto-bar, which made us a pizza with onions, oregano, and whole green olives (a very common pizza in Argentina, but I can't remember the name) in about 8 minutes.

At around 7:30, we emerged from our hotel room to visit the one thing that we came to Rosario to see, the birthplace of Che Guevara. And we stood, and took a picture, and I asked Sarah why she like Che so much, which evolved into a conversation on socialism as we walked to a park located along a bank of the inescapable Rio Parana. We then encountered several handicraft stalls and purchased a knitted hanging plant holder from one of them.

A few minutes later, the sun set and we watched fireworks and their reflections with at least 100,000 other people. Naturally, we found it difficult to find a place to eat near the riverfront, so we walked to the location of a vegetarian restaurant listed in the Lonely Planet on a whim, knowing that it would probably be closed, and it was indeed closed.

So, we just decided to head back in the direction of our hotel, when we came across a festive-looking resto-bar. We sat down and a few minutes later, we were treated to fantastic vocal performances from area singers backed by some cheesy recorded instrumentals. Most singers seemed to be somewhere between the ages of 50 and 70s and all sang from the diaphragm. How operatic!

While most hotels in Argentina require that you check out of your room before 10AM, this hotel very nicely lets you check out at 3PM on Sunday. However, we decided to leave around 12:30 and purchased our ticket for a 2PM bus to Buenos Aires.

As we were hungry, we walked across the street to Pizza Piazza, where we ate easily the most disgusting pizza of the trip - the crust was soggy and the cheese was overabundant, over-melted, and just plain gross. Oh well - our ride down to Buenos Aires went smoothly.

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