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Published: January 21st 2012
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Colonial buildings We arrived in Resistencia after another night on a bus and thought the best course of action was to get straight on into Paraguay, so we waited for a couple of hours and hopped on another bus. With Lisa’s belly feeling better, we enjoyed the scenery passing by, an almost sub-tropical, lush green countryside dotted with palm trees and remote estancias with nothing but fields surrounding them plus lots of wildlife to spot – birds of prey, horses, cows, piggies, ostriches. A few hours later and an easy-peasy border crossing over a bridge and we were in Paraguay – South American country number 7 and pretty unknown territory for us! It wasn’t a cheap experience though crossing the border as it cost 300pesos, but being served by the jolliest immigration staff ever made it more bearable. Another hour of travelling and we were in Asuncion, capital of Paraguay. The ride in took us through some nice looking suburbs with well-maintained houses and well-kept gardens. We then managed to waste some more money on an expensive taxi to our hostel but driven by an extremely friendly guy, which again made splashing the cash less painful.
We got to Black Cat hostel,
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The local radio station housed in a bizarre looking building a lovely looking place with an internal courtyard and friendly staff, but we were sharing a room with 16 other people! To be fair the room was huge but 16 other people can be hard to deal with, especially at night with random snoring, farting and lights going on and off at all times. Oh well, just gonna have to bite the bullet, we thought, as no private rooms were available. We went for a wander and had a tasty and healthy lunch of chicken and salad. It was then an early night in a proper bed. Nice…
...or not. We had a rubbish night’s sleep as not only were the 16 others snoring and turning lights on and off, but there were mozzies buzzing around, it was super hot, there was a drunk French bird singing right outside the room till the wee hours and the plastic cover on Ian’s matress above Lisa rustled loudly everytime he moved. Grrrrrrr! Private rooms from now on please!! Breakfast however was good - toast, yoghurt and fresh fruit juice -and we went in search of a place to do our laundry as the hostel was charging an obscene amount to do
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The old railway station it…or so we thought until we got raped for 1 peso an item at a laundromat. Should’ve got the hostel to do it after all. Doh!
We then had to get on a local bus back to the terminal in order to buy our onward tickets as there was no other way of purchasing them. We obviously had no idea where we were going, in the right direction or not, so just hoped and kept our eyes pealed. We did get to see 2 different sides of Asuncion though – the rich suburbs and the poorer centre – and listen to Paraguayan Spanish, an interesting dialect with an almost Indian sounding twang. We found the terminal and managed to get a discounted ticket for the journey to Concepcion so all good in the end and we hopped on a better bus back into town but got off early to have a wander and grab some lunch. We stumbled across Lido Bar, an old skool-looking diner with fat old waitresses bumping into each other wearing 50’s style uniforms and a central bar that you sat around to eat. It was super popular with the locals and so we waited for
a seat and ordered possibly the best empanandas either one of us had eaten in South America, a sopa de Paraguay and croquetas, all delicious and served with a spicy sauce.
Ian then wanted to watch the footie back at the hostel and found some like-minded souls to watch it with while Lisa went for a walk to the waterfront and saw some of the sights as well as the dodgy area down by the river where there wasn’t much to see except some colonial buildings. Lisa's jaunt around town also revealed how polluted the city is, so much so you can taste the diesel in your mouth, as well as it being a super humid and sweaty place to walk round.
Back at the hostel we got chatting to peeps there and the whole vibe had changed as an older crowd had moved in and so everything was more chilled out, meaning we slept much better! (Oh dear, are we now part of this “older” group??)
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