Down the Rio Paraguay

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I made it, after only a slight palava, safe and sound to Asunction, the capital city of Paraguay. Although I am minus a Brazillian exit stamp for Brazil and an entry stamp for Paraguay, so I am ilegal but Ill cross that border when i come to it, literally!

I arrived at the dodgy port on the Paraguan side of the Rio Paraguay an hour before the boat was due only to be told that the boat wasnt coming until 5am!! The tiny town (about 3 houses, one bar and one hostel) was super dodgy and I didnt fancy waiting on the dockside for 6 hours so I invested in a room at the only and very delapitated hostel. there was no baño, bedsheets that hadnt been changed for about 5 years and i could watch the tv of the family on the floor below through the cracks in the floorboards. but it was only 5 reals (about 1.20gbp) and i had a huge padlock on the door and a balcony where could sit and watch the locals in the bar next to the hostel drinking and fighting! The music from the bar was so loud it made the walls vibrate and I didnt feel safe enough to sleep (aunty carols doorstop once again came in handy) so I studied my boat vocabulary for a while. I went out to the dockside at 430am but the boat didnt arrive until 730am!! It was packed with people and cargo of all different sorts. I would have loved to have taken photos, there were loads of National Geographic opportunities but I was the only tourist and attracted too much attention already. I chose a hammock on the second floor with a good view of the riverside. For the first couple of hours we were sailing through the Pantanal but I was so tired I fell asleep almost immediately. It was really warm and my hammock was so comfortable. There was an indiginous family travelling to Asuncion to go to the hospital because their little boy needed treatment for cancer and there were no doctors where they lived. They were really friendly and I was introduced to all of their 5 children, grandma, grandpa, aunty Maria and Mum and dad. They were keen to tell me how poor they were and asked how many dollars i had!! I told them I was also poor and didnt have any dollars, another reason I didnt want to take photos!

The boat was such a great experience. The guy who worked on the boat, Juan, was also really friendly and liked the film Braveheart so asked lots of questions about Scotland. We sat on the deck and sipped ice cold Mate while the sun set over the river. It was absolutely gorgeous and it was fun watching all the passengers chatting and children playing. The assortment of cargo was also quite amusing. There was a goat tied to the hold, a mororbike propped up against sacks of cement and piles of fruit and grain. I wish i could have taken photos! I think i may have been involved in some sort of game with the kids. It was something like "see who can get closest to the gringo" Little kids would creep up and sit on the deck close by and then scoot up closer and closer until they were right next to me and then they would sit and smile at me then turn away shyly when I pulled faces at them. Unfortunately after spending so much time in Brazil I´d forgotten loads of spanish so couldnt chat that much but they were delighted when I asked their names and then pronounced them wrong. Everyone also called me Eva, Emma was just beyond them. Once I started sharing out my sweets hoards of kids would take turns at their game. I had a root through my bag to see if there was anything else i could give them but then felt a bit patronising so never actually got round to giving them any more than sweets, juice and crisps.

We stopped at hundreds of tiny ports in the middle of nowhere. The boat was packed and there were people sleeping in hammocks, on benches, on the floor and the deck. Whole families would sleep on one blanket laid out on the floor with babies wrapped up in blankets huddled between their parents and siblings. At night it was quite cold so i was grateful for my sleeping bag. One old woman was really impressed with the way it exploded out of its stuff sack! At one point during the night while i was dozing in my hammock Laura, (pronounced louwra) the mum of the indiginous family, beckoned me to the front of the ship overlooking the hold. There was a disturbance outside and Juan was wrestling with a sopping wet man. Im not sure what happened but Laura said he had been hanging onto the side of the boat and had a bag full of drugs. "El es muy peligrosso" she said, (he is very dangerous, a word ive heard alot while travelling in South America, unfortunately!) The deck emptied as all the passengers ran into the inside of the ship. Everyone seemed really frightened and the man was taken in handcuffs to the office at the front of the ship! I wasn´t too worried as Juan seemed to have everything under control so I hopped back into my hammock but Laura seemed really concered for my saftey, pleading with me huddle with them in the corner, ranting about how dangerous he was! how exciting!

The boat only went to Conception, the main city in the centre of Paraguay and lonely planet said there wasnt another ship to Asunction until thursday! Luckily Juan told me another boat would be along in an hours time and I could take it as far as Asunction. It was about 4am and I made a feeble attempt to find an immigration office but not wanting to miss the boat i soon gave up and decided to wait on the dockside. sure enough another boat arrived and this time there was the usual assort of random cargo (although no goats this time) and passengers including one other tourist. a really nice guy from sweden, Mikel. So mikel and i chatted and played cards and this time i felt a bit safer taking photos. The guy who ran this boat wasnt half as friendly as Juan and often told me off for swinging in my hammock!! what else are hammocks for?! The views on the riverbanks were once again gorgeous and i got loads if geeky geograhy photos of textbook examples deposition and erosion. The sunset was the best ive seen. the moon was a really bizarre orange colour and it turned the water silver and lilac. absolutely stunning. I was too tired during the day to do mush else than sleep and once again my hammock was fabulously comfortable. Our hammocks were hung up across the hold and Mikel had to move at almost every port so the guy could get at the cargo!

We arrived into Asucion 4 hours ahead of time and found a cheap hostel before exploring the city. Asuncion is a bit like a run down Milan. It feels safe and is a managable size and everything is cheap like in Bolivia so im loving it. Tomorrow were heading into the countryside to visit a national park so that should be fun but I have to find an immigration office first!!

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Comments

[Mum]

Hammock sounds good
hope you can sleep on a bed after your comfy hammock. Nice of lady to be concerned about the mad gringo! You sound like you had no trouble with sea sickness anyway. Love you Mum xx

[Jerry Sponagle]

adventure sounds great !
I read a bit of your adventure. I am very envious of your trip to such a place. I wish I was there. Have a great trip and good luck from a Canadian Dreamer . ;-)

[a. gustav wind]

boats from asuncion
is it possible to catch northbound boats from asuncion, paraguay, along the rio paraguay? it sounds as if you were coming south.