The rainy season is not a myth

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Over the past couple months, almost everyone I told about my upcoming trip to Paraguay responded with the same brand of look, one of those tilt your head to the side, purse your lips funny and lift your eyebrows looks that hints towards something on a scale between 'Whyyyy?' and 'Are you crazy?' and I took it as more encouragement for this adventure. If there's something so weird about Paraguay, then it must be worth going.

But the part that some people mentioned with a stronger, wrinkle the nose look, was the weather, the HEAT, that is. It's summertime here and just days ago, right before I arrived, it was supposedly 48 degrees Celsius, which calculates to roughly 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Unreal. I always say I love the heat anyway, but of course that kind of heat affects anyone, even if they try to bluff that they're fine. Well, I haven't yet experienced the heat and I am not sure if I will because the rainy season has made itself known. I suppose I have never spent much time in places that have rainy seasons and dry seasons, so I didn't realize how seriously these seasons take their names.

I arrived in Asuncion, Paraguay, yesterday to full-out rain, which has barely stopped up until now. It's definitely not my favorite way to see a new place, and it has made picture-taking a chore and, well, I don't have too many...

I also don't have much time right now, so I am going to put up some photos that I did take--here, today, and in Ciudad del Este, yesterday, and maybe later I'll have more time to talk about them.

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Photos

Ciudad del Este
As you cross the Friendship Bridge from Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, you enter Ciudad del Este, a mess of filth, sweaty bodies, old hunks of metal chugging along carting contraband, and everything for sale that you could ever imagine.

At least it's colorful!
I wasn't interested in buying any melons, sunglasses, brown roots, or ukeleles, so I only spent about 15 minutes in Ciudad del Este, to change some money and catch a bus to the terminal. Maybe that's why the danger I expected didn't hit me, or maybe it's because I successfully projected a look of confidence. The only bothers I encountered were a few taxi offers and a gushing cut on my big toe from a metal thing sticking out from the sidewalk. Let's just chalk that up with the wasp sting (which still has my arm swollen) and see how many battle scars I can earn on this trip.

Viviencias Temporarias...
That's what the city map calls them, in BsAs they're villas, in Rio they're favelas, in Capetown they're shantytowns....Here is Asuncion's version, sprawling out from the city limit almost out to the river.

Irony
So, these villas are present in big cities worldwide. The striking thing in Asuncion is that their closest neighbor is the seat of government. In this picture, the red building is the Congreso, direct next door neighbor to the villas. The COngress's windows look out onto the poverty that they (?) ignore or (?) can't solve...

Palacio Legislativo
Amongst the poverty, beside the struggle of this middle-of-nowhere, sort of delayed country, there is still a palace. The Palacio Legislativo is still in use for something but now a more modern, glass and concrete, building nearby serves more of an official function.

Comments

[Elvira]

worth going?
Natalie, I wish you will be done with the Paraguay part of your trip already. Don't ask me "why?"

[amanda the great]

ok, wait, what?
is this like the trendy thing to do, start a blog? I mean it seems like every little old person I know is doing it! well darlin it is lonely here but my house smells like jazmine -the flower! lovelove