Blogs from Paraguay, South America

So it has been fairly eventful recently :-) The other day I broke 2 machetes....... Yes that totalled it to 3 machetes fallen victim to my hands... But in fairness the last 2 only had lost bolts so the were easily repaired...unlike the first one which was outright snapped! So yeah one was without a bolt so me and Inge walked back and then I went back out alone with the other one and after about 10 minutes that one went too. I was so pissed off! I had to walk back again and was not able to go agaaaaaain! But I didn't really have to anyway and it was getting late so it would have been pointless to walk all the way back to come home again in less than an hour... Then we got ... read more

And so we put Brazil in our rear mirror, for now at least. We were genuinely conflicted about leaving such an amazing country. Of course we describe Brazil in such a way but really, as Amy accurately stated a couple of days ago, we feel as though we don’t know Brazil at all. Such is its size; its diversity both geological and cultural provide a place that, much like Indonesia, one could travel for a whole year just in the same country and still have only scratched the surface. There is no doubt in our minds as we cross the border into Paraguay that we will return to this most wonderful country; to experience the diverse culture of Salvador and laze on its beaches; to explore the cobbled streets of Olinda to the north east and ... read more

Stupid technology.... Wrote out this entry already and lost it all so not arsed writing it all again.... In summary: We sorted out the rubbish today, digging new pits and trying to slvage things to re-use... Lead to the quote from Noah whilst crouched down in a pile of half buried rubbish 'I feel like a 5 year old in Bangladesh' Hmm what else? I aksed Conche to turn the music down and he just stared angrily at me while I walked away saying gracias...and then he turned the music up... Doing some butterfly box varnishing.... It's getting damn cold! That was pretty much it.... Nothing too exciting,... The lads are making a punchbag now :-) Oh we played soccer yesterday and Noah and I bet Rich and Nick... Umm yeah not arsed typing anymore.... Sorry!! ... read more

It's raining, it's pouring, today is gonna be boring... We went out to the forest this morning and it started raining with a bit of thunder...but then it got reeeally heavy so we headed back. I was hoping the rain would get worse so we could head back though. I was thinking too much out there. It's frikkin deadly here and I know that, but being left with my brain for too long leads me to think silly things. All this 'what if' business.. It's just a waste of time and makes everything very confusing and annoying and it's all very unnecessary! But I can't help it when I have very little else to think about when I'm chopping away for hours. And its hard to have a chat while machete-ing because ya can't hear the ... read more

Time for another update I think. I'm sitting here on the porh of the volunteer house beside Augusta (who was renamed Disgusta recently for her dirty work digging up rat burrows) and Kelsey is on another chair on the porch. She (Kelsey) arrived just the other day with another girl named Inge. They were travelling seperately beforehand but happened to come at the same time. The lads are playing a game of CUNT (like DONKEY where ya pass the ball around) on the grass in front of the house and now Richard is in his boxers being hit by some sort of fruit by all the others... Now he is being rubbed down by Noah... I reckon he's wiping the juice off but who knows.... Those guys are an odd bunch. But they're all starting to ... read more

Ate too much Chipa Guasu...now I'm Paraguayzed. Or, if you prefer: Now that I've been there, I'm the Para-guy. For some reason, not many people include Paraguay on a South American itinerary. It may be down to its relatively nascent tourist industry, and the fact that there is very little information available online about what to do there and how to get around. Paraguay is on the way up, though, and for me, the lack of detail was an incentive to visit. Officially, Paaguay is the second poorest country in South America, which is the second poorest region in the world after Africa. Unofficially, it is nothing like that in appearance. The distribution of wealth is pretty limited, true, but much of Paraguay is quite up-market and modern. The countryside away from the important routes is ... read more

Hello, Ok so I have been very lazy and not entered a blog post yet even though I have been here a month now. And yes, that means I have forgotten loads and such but oh well.... Ok so first of all I've gotta explain my mix-up with Para La Tierra (PLT). So I emailed Karina (the girl who set it up) the day before I left saying that I was leaving and that I'd see her soon... The she replied saying that I had said I was leaving on April 12th, not March 12th.... I don't know how the hell I managed that!! I was always emailing her in work when I wasn't paying attention so... Aw I'm silly! But yeah I freaked out a bit because I didn't know if they'd have space for ... read more

So, with one horrendous bus ride down in order to get to Argentina as cheap as possible, we were quickly onto the next one. The destination of this bus…..Paraguay. Now, Paraguay was never really on the must do list when we planned out possible routes in South America, and therefore we never really looked much into it. This wasn’t because of any particular reason other than not many people had travelled there, and therefore we didn’t really know much about it. What we did know was that it would be cheaper to get a bus to Asuncion (Paraguay’s capital), and then another from there to BA than it would to fly from Bolivia to BA, and therefore we thought ‘What the heck, Paraguay here we come’ The bus that we got from Bolivia pretty much summed ... read more

Hello all! This time an update from Encarnacion, Paraguay (Now in Buenos Aires, Argentina), where the people are friendly, Guarani is the shared first language with Spanish, Terere is commonly drunk, horse-and-wagons roam the streets in tiny villages, things are generally cheap, and bribes can be necessary when you´re in the country illegally. Please, walk with me as I explain... I finished my last entry in Porto Murtinho, where I planned to take the boat. Locals told me the boat was to leave on saturday sometime between 6 and 7 in the morning, but that it would be good to get there sometime before in case it arrived early. Accordingly, I got up at 4, took the boat to the Paraguayan side of the river, and sat waiting. As dawn approached about an hour later, a ... read more