a little intro to paraguay!

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i know this blog is really out of date but i{ll do my best to catch up! so, we actually walked into paraguay across the friendship bridge from brazil into paraguay, you{d imagine it was a little rope bridge across a jungle or something (or maybe thats just me being silly¿¿), anyway it wasn{t and the border town, ciudad del este didnt look all that enticing. so we trekked across the bridge with our excessively large backpack in about 40degrees of midday heat and arrived on the other side at the customs office v.v.v.sweaty! i handed over my passport first and the guy looked quite confused (by a british passport¿¿) and had to take the suspicious looking pport to his boss and for a moment i did think i wasnt going to be allowed in!anyway, after a bit of scratching his head and writing my name in his lttle immigrations book they let me in! it was a really run down town and already such a contrast to the other side, really dirty and not the kind of place you{d hang around at night.

i went to a little cambio so i could change my brasilian reais for some paraguayan guaranis, the silliest currency ever!you can be a millionaire so easily, a bottle of water knocks you back about 2000gs which is 20p! the first thing a paraguayan said to me at the cambio, was where are you from¿¿to which i replied, inglaterra and he got a bit overexcited and asked me if i knew "prince charlie"¿¿so i told him he was my best friend-and he actually believed me!then i had to let him down gently (in my best spanish) and he looked really quite disappointed.

we got on a bus to asuncion (the capital) which was about five hrs away, little bread sellers (selling chipa, a knid of cheesy bread they eat out here and sopa another kind of bready cakey thing which is a bit grooce as its got aniseed in it and tastes a bit like sambuca which isnt really what you want first thing in the morning!) and also water sellers kept hopping on and off the bus and i was v.glad to have chosen to come to paraguay for a bit more of an authentic experience!

will update more soon, but all{s well now im at my placement, teaching starts tomorrow (2,3,4&5 yr olds!!teaching them english should be a lot of fun!)

love to all XXX

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