Those folks we are playing in our first world cup match

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Paraguay - our tenth and last new country of our trip to South America. Landlocked by Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina and to coin our phrase "very bloody hot" (41 degrees today). Cant go on too much about Paraguay as we were only there for a short time and as you can see from the photos we saw most of it from a super fast bus!

Brazil and Paraguay share an enormous Hydroelectric Power Plant called Itaipu. Its said to be the biggest in the world, bigger than the one they are building in the 3 gorges in China. They run slick tours of the complex by coach and give you all sorts of mind boggling statistics whilst glossing over the resulting environmental damage. None the less the statistics are impressive, the dam alone provides 90% of Paraguay´s power and 25% of Brazil´s - the 5th largest country in the world!

Keeping up our tradition of making border crossings by land (mainly because they are dangerous and we like the thrill of pitting our wits against the con men, dodgy immigration officers and taxi drivers) we crossed into Paraguay from Foz do Iguacu in Brasil.

The crossing here is actually a bridge across the river Parana from Foz to Cuidad del Este in Paraguay. Despite the horror stories its easy to do the crossing. Take any bus marked "Ponte" ask to get off at Brazilian customs, cross the road whilst dodging the streams of motorcycle taxis intent on knocking you down and walk 500m across the bridge and do the same again for Paraguayan customs and then jump on a bus to the terminal - takes about an hour.

Paraguay - famous for being the most bribe hungry country outside of Africa is a haven of cheap electrical and electronic gear and cars which are stolen to order from neighbouring Brazil and Argentina. We hear that you get the car and the "original" paperwork and a note that tells you which country you cant drive it in because the car was actually stolen from there! The electonic gear comes into the Chilean ports and gets trucked accross the Andes through Bolivia and Argentina into Paraguay.

Walking across the bridge on the Brazil side you get to admire the holes cut in the wire fence where Brazilians who buy the super cheap electrical goods in Paraguay throw them off the side of the bridge onto the river bank below, saunter through Brazilian customs unencumbered and then scurry down the river bank to pick up the bootie!

So safely across the border we jumped on a Cruz del Este bus to Asuncion (5hrs), the bus guys were very friendly and even let us pay in Brazilian Reals (17). There was a dodgy moment when the conductor was taking our money and saying something that sounded very like "drogas" (drugs) and we were protesting our innocence - this turned out to be an innocent enquiry in Brazilain Portuguese as to whether we wanted our change in Reals or Guaranis the Paraguayan currency - phew!

So what does Paraguay look like, well the houses have gnomes and heron sculptures in the gardens - very suburban. It has gentle rolling hills which look like England in the summer until you look very closely and see that they are dotted with palm trees and bamboos! It has lots of cows to fuel the national desire for red meat, brick red soil and lots of terminte mounds and those other pests - mobile phone relay stations dotted along the highway.

For the first time in a long while, there were folk who had to stand for hours without seats on the bus (just like in the Andean countries but thankfully without the smells) and bus vendors jumping on and off at every stop.

This was good for us because they were selling really tasty bagel like creations with caraway seeds called chipitis. Unfortunately for the chipiti vendors they have to wear a cheer leader type uniform which includes wearing flesh coloured tights and short skirts - just what you want when its over 100 degrees in the shade!

We stayed at the Hotel Preciado in Ascuncion - the Lying Planet lists it as a "splurge", unfortunately they have missed its location by one block and one street on their map, but if you do manage to track it down dont count too much on getting the modern quiet air conditioner either!

As this was a whistle stop tour we decided to go to the Museo del Barro to get an overview of the country. Nice building, lovely staff, great exhibits but absoulutely no labeling of any use whatsoever in any language! Its a good job we have been on this continent so long we can distinguish moche pottery from Shamanic shakarpas! Unfortunately we came away with no knowledge of the culture of history of Paraguay what so ever.

What was more interesting was the journey to the museum, stuck in traffic for 30 minutes to get there we noticed used BMW X5s on sale on garage forecourts, big Mercedes, a Sheraton hotel and big flash and brash restaurants so someone has lots of money here. There is also a huge Malboro brand shop - not likely to see one of those at home any time soon.

We went to dinner at Bar San Roque and tried their own farm grown Macadamia nuts and star fruits - how exotic (we saw a star fruit tree in Brazil but only by chance because a passing local was hurling his flip flop into it to bring down the fruit!). Then we went to bed as we had 22 hours on bus to Salta to look forward to the next day!

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Photos

still on the bus
note the intentional blurring