Blogs from Asunciòn, Paraguay, South America - page 18

Landed at Asuncion airport yesterday around 1:00. Got here in spite of longer than expected drive to New York (almost nine hours), which was not helped by the need to drive around Washington for an hour looking of the Paraguayan Embassy. Traffic in New York was also a nightmare. But my flight was delayed so I was not late. Security check did not (cannot make contractions on Paraguayan computer) take too long. You have to take off your shoes and feed them through the bag scanner. They searched my carry on because the large binoculars that George Fowler gave me looked suspicious. Flight delayed longer after security, but got off the ground around 9:00PM. Flew overnight to Sao Paulo Brazil via Varig Airlines, sardine class. Slept or tried to. Arrived in Brazil around 7:00 AM. Nice ... read more

Justo and I were in Foz do Iguacu for nearly a week, waiting for the puente de Amistad to open so we could cross the bridge and get into Paraguay. During that time we visited the world's largest (unless Japan has completed its bigger and better resevoir) dam, Itaipu, which means something like "rock which sings", I think it's Guarani. It's pretty impressive. Unluckily I didn't have my camera with me, as we went rather spontaneously. It's enorme, and is about 25 years old. Before it was built there were other waterfalls there in Guairi, which were destroyed when they created the lake. Pity, as they were apparently more impressive than Iguazu. My guidebook says that the lake is full of the anopheles mosquito, the dengue one. I didn't see any from our comfortable coach, ha ... read more

We left the tranquility of the beautiful National Park, and made the 3 hour journey to Asuncion. Once again the heat was turned up, baking hot. We arrived at the Asuncion Palace hotel, which is nice and comfortable, and a welcome break from camping for the last week. Dumped all the laundry off, and had a look around the CIty. The City is very different from what I expected. Quieter, and very relaxed during the day. There are nice shops, and typically some Spanish colonial type buildings in the main Plaza. In the evening we gathered for our usual meal together, again a nice change to eating out after camping, and had a few drinks in town, which was fairly quiet. Then home to a nice comfortable bed. Its Valentines day today! Spent the day shopping, ... read more

Day 10, 11 & 12 After bumming around Foz in the 40 degree heat, we left for a whole new country - Paraguay!! We arrived at Asuncion, the capital city in the wee hours of the morning. The next day we went for a wander around the city which was pretty run down and dirty. On the upside, it was ridiculously cheap with lunch costing about 3 quid between us, including a jumbo sized beer. In the evening we went to an awesome spanish restaurant and saw live flamingo dancing. We went for a tour on our final day in Asuncion through the nicer parts where there were some lovely big houses. We went to a couple of museums where we saw how the native tribes people used to live. We bought a wood carving of ... read more