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Published: September 7th 2006
$1USD = 5400 Paraguay Guarani I´ve just had one of the most memorable and touching experiences of my travels ever. I left Buenos Aires this morning for the 2 hr flight to Asuncion, Paraguay. The flight left only 10 minutes late which was pretty good as it only had arrived about 20 minutes earlier. Flying on TAM airlines on an Fokker 100 jet, the outside/inside of the plane was spotless clean. There were several German tourists on the plane; there is still a large population of German descendents living in Paraguay. Immigration was a breeze and as I´d only packed a daypack I didn´t have to wait on luggage. As soon as I exited customs though one of the local touts attached themselves to me, and was hard to shake them off. The ATM didn´t work at first either, which gave me a scare as I only had $3 on me. The Paraguay currency is 5500:1, so getting out a quarter million guaranis I felt rich. 😊
I planned to grab a taxi into town, buy a bus ticket to Encarnacion, then spend the rest of the afternoon/evening wandering around. Asuncion seemed pretty modern on the way into town, with
a shopping mall and the holy trinity of Burger King, Pizza Hut and McDonalds. However the buses looked like chicken buses, old Mercedes 1960´s style. After the $15 cab ride into town, I found out the downtown bus agents were all closed as it was Sunday, requiring another $10 taxi ride out to the bus station! This part of town was more run down, but there were a few market areas along the way I would have loved to have wandered around. The bus station was a modern building with dozens of companies, eateries, and a 24-hr internet (where I am now). There were two buses leaving, one at 5 PM, the other at midnight. As it was already 1:30, I figured I´d take the one at midnight to give me some more time to look around the city. The round trip bus fare to Encarnacion (500 miles) cost less than my taxi fare!
I took another cab ride back to the Palacio del Gobierno and started wandering around. Not so long ago you could be shot for even looking at the Palacio, but those days are behind Paraguay now. It´s still guarded by bored looking soldiers. The interesting
Slug bug
I think this one's been slugged one too many timesdiscrepancy was the shantytowns lining the banks of the river just underneath the palace! I took a photo of a popcorn vendor who wanted $1 for the privilege! I wandered east a few more blocks to the congress building. It was a gorgeous day and a few people were out with their kids playing, most of them appeared to be from the shantytown. I took a few photos of the shacks, and saw a guy playing soccer with his kid, he waved me down and started talking, he´s like here come take a photo over here, etc. I was a little apprehensive at first, not sure if he was trying to lure me off somewhere, but he seemed geniune and friendly. Shantytowns are the same the world over, with open sewers in the streets and garbage everywhere and interesting sights and smells. The shantytown here though seemed a little better organized/cleaner than some others I have seen. I wish my Spanish was better, I´m way out of practice and I couldn´t make out everything he said, but he was showing me his mother´s house down below, and his neighbor, then his wife came out with their three kids and I
became the entertainment for the day. His three children, Jorge (5), Massimo (4) and Paula (2) were the cutest things ever. It´s always great to have a digital camera as you can show kids their photo. I mentioned I wanted to still wander about town, and Reuben offered to show me because there were 'bad people' around. Or that´s what transpired, anyway.
We spent awhile wandering around the empty streets to the few landmarks that are in Asuncion. Of course everything was closed as it was a Sunday. Reuben was waving to practically everyone on the street, it seems he knows everyone. Afterwards he invited me back to see his parents, which involved hopping a fence and climbing down a rickety ladder. His parents place was actually pretty nice, an actual house and they had lived there for 40 years just below the Congress building! His father works at the post office and said things are pretty good now, but everytime the goverment changes things get turned upside down. They had their own chickens, bananas, mangoes, grapes (one of the previous governments had cut them down). It seemed I had lucked out, Reuben and his family were genuinly good
people, very friendly and welcoming. His brother showed up with his girlfriend and the photo albums came out. I saw photos of his 5 siblings and nieces/nephews and his sister´s quinceanera (she speaks English but was away). It transpired that I ended up paying for the family´s dinner (a whole $4) of empanadas, pollo and cola but I certainly didn´t mind at this point. We watched futbol on his parents TV for awhile (they have satellite). It was still several hours until my bus, so we went back to Reuben´s house. It was a shack yes, but it´s a home. They had incense buring, and paintings of Jesus and St. George, and two beds where all 5 of them sleep. We sat watching Jaws and the Godfather and discussed their view of America and differences and similarities. At least thats what I think we did, I still couldn´t understand much 😞
The kids were tired at this point, each one of them washed their feet and put on slippers before hopping into bed (dirt floor, that makes sense). I felt I was overstaying my welcome and wanted to head to the bus station early. Reuben even offered to come
New toy
The kids loved the paper airplane along to the bus station to make sure I´d be safe, his neighbor was a taxi driver and he warned me again about the bad people there. I´d said I was returning to Asuncion the next evening and they had offered their place to stay. I probably won´t take them up on that, I feel like I was imposing too much as it was, but it was such an awesome experience I wouldn´t trade for anything.
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Tim
non-member comment
You met typical Paraguayans
I grew up in Paraguay and your experience with Ruben and his family isn't unusual. The people are warm and friendly and quick to share whatever it is they have.