Boat of destiny...

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So the cargo boat left Asuncion at 7am on Wednesday...apparently. We boarded at 6.15 (so we could get a good spot amongst the chickens. Around us we watched 11892 eggs (I counted), 1600 tomatoes, 3 beds, a moped and a sofa. Amongst the odds and ends arriving on board, 2 scraggly travellers joined us. Unheard of! People actually travelling through Paraguay. So we got chatting. Played some cards. They were Jimmy and Kev - an Irish and Englishman, who had just met a few days prior to the boat. Come lunchtime, we realised that the boat still hadn't departed. We were chuffing boiling. Hot hot hot. Come 4pm we were told it was going at 5. Come 5pm they said the next day. We weren't entirely sure why we wern't going. Then the TV crews arrived. After watching the report with our new found friend Rosa, commenting on this major national incident, we managed to piece together that fishermen were blocking the river further upstream. Now this is a major river, a good kilometer across, so the idea of a few hundred fisherpeople lining their boats up across it was quite funny.

We didn't have anywhere comfy to sleep though - just the floor of the boat amongst the flour sacks and satsumas. The boys went off to find food and we ummmed and ahhed about whether to lug our stuff back from the dock to a hotel, to just return the next day. We decided to stay and played with the kids on board who coloured in my book I'd briefly thought about learning Spanish from. Then a man brought out a guitar and the dancing started. Wahey...Party on the boat!

10 pm. A ship hand ran over and grabbed us. Why we did not know. We were leaving! Wahey!

The boys were still not back from getting their food and everyone on the boat thought that we were all together. We tried to explain that we didn't know them, or their phone numbers, or where they were. We did however, have their bags. The people on the boat were getting crabby.

With thoughts of us having to disembark and wait for them with their bags in the port a man went off to search the streets for them. Nada. Patience is a virtue that Paraguyans who have waited 15 hours for a boat to leave, don't have. Just as I thought they'd be offski and leaving us behind, the boys came round the corner. Whoops of delight and shouting, together with Angela frantically running over to them to mush them along made them think that a terrible accident had occurred and they'd been robbed. No...They just had to face a lot of stick from the rest of the crew on board. They'd been in the pub. Tee hee!

So that night the boys were exhiled to the roof of the boat, whilst a local shared a make-shift bed with me. How sweet! Still uncomfy though and we were awoken by 6. T'was all right - just had a day of sunbathing and trying the ships cooking out. We arrived at our destination at 3 am the next morning...Grumpy times! We'd slept on the roof that night too and had witnessed the most remarkable sunset, followed by a meteor shower and a fire fly display. It had however, proven cold as we raced up river and we'd had to sleep under a tarpoline. Plasticy, concretey goodness.

Stayed up after the 3am arrival and dug into a fantastic breakfast come 6.30. Spent a day living in luxury before heading to the border of Paraguay and Brazil. We'd gone out the night before, and Jimmy had decided to stay out because the bus left at 6am. Taxi booked at 5.30 and still no Jimmy. 5.35 and he staggers in accussing the taxi driver of stealing our bags as he put them in the taxi. Classic. The easy 'walk across a road to cross the border' that we'd been promised turned out to be hellish. Border points were 6km apart, and yes the fronteir was the middle of the road where on one side you speak the Spanish, the other Portugese, but then the bus stations either side were another 6 km from the border. After exiting Paraguay and walking for about 5 years to Brazil, Brazil appeared to be shut for another 2 whole days...Noooooo! Drastic action was required. Angela was sent in to bribe/woo/scare a police man to give us an entry stamp. It worked.

Brazil here we come!

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