Paraguay

After leaving Puerto Iguazu (Argentina) we headed into Paraguay via Brazil - we are so worldly!

We had to get our passports stamped to exit Argentina (we all piled off the bus and back on again). Andrew got rugby tackled by some old ladies who wanted to get off the bus before him. The trick appears to be to get back on the bus before the foreigners, in order to nick their seats. We had to get entry stamps into Paraguay at Ciudad del este. This is a frantic place which the whole of Argentina & Brazil visit to buy duty free on a Monday morning (or so it seems).

The following photo`s were taken on Argentinian soil, where Paraguay is to the left, Brazil to the right, and Argentina in the foreground.

Before heading to the capital Asuncion, we decided to sample a small town first, and made our way to Villarrica. We loved the bus journeys in Paraguay. The buses make several stops and people come on to the bus (as well as surrounding the bus with their wares) in order to sell you anything from meat kebabs to plastic blow up cows - evidently an essential item for any bus trip. However, everybody waits in anticipation for the lady to come on board with a basket full of chipa`s (cheesy bread) on her shoulder to sell; we thought it would be rude not to sample a few (very good they were too!) Villarrica was a very small place and we suspect the locals do not see a pasty white foreigner (Lisa) from one year to the next (judging by the number of stares she attracted off the locals). Villarrica has a lovely little brick church on the outskirts of town and a cafe bar that delighted us with Shakin`Stevens (miss) hits at very high volume. After staying in what resembled a stable, and because nobody visited in the night to bestow us with myr, we bussed it to Asuncion the following morning.

Asuncion has a small city feel, despite it being the capital of Paraguay. We witnessed a number of street protests during our stay, which appeared peaceful (although the demonstations were always accompanied by a large police presence and the protesting men carried large sticks which made them look menacing).

Palacio de Gobierno

Strossener (ex dictator) statue that was dismantled and encased in concrete after his downfall

Typical local bus in Paraguay

Panteon Nacional de los Heroes

Each day the soldiers guard the Panteon during the time it is open to the public. At around 5pm each day (though they were never very fussy regarding time keeping), they hold a ceremony to bring down the flags at the Panteon; this is accompanied by a bugle playing soldier. It reminded us of Menin Gate in Ieper, Belgium, although there were no crowds of onlookers, just a few interested tourists looking on from cafe Lido (a fabulous cafe that is regarded as an Asuncion institution). The "Panteon Nacional de los Heroes" was built to house the national war heroes and to honour the thousands of soldiers who have died for Paraguay. It contains (amongst others) the tombs of Carlos Antonio Lopez and his son (Lopez II) who thought himself the Napoleon of S. America, apparently. It also contains the tomb of an unknown child soldier to honour the child soldiers who died in the battle of Acosta Nu in the Triple Alliance War (1869). The boys would only have been in their early teens when they lost their lives. The Triple Alliance War killed around 180,000 Paraguayans (they only had a population of around 400,000 to begin with) and left the country with around 28,000 males, with most being either very young, or very old men.

In keeping with the bus journeys, the Paraguayan`s on the streets also love to sell their goodies. Whilst sipping Cerveza (at cafe Lido) Andyb was offered a fetching pair of sunglasses, which he politely refused to buy. The next moment, Andyb had a flick knife thrust about an inch away from his face. The man wasn`t trying to steal his wallet, but attempting to tempt him into a different purchase! Again Andyb (somewhat shaken) politely refused the weapon, and the man then played his trump card - showing Andyb the knife`s pieste de la resistance - a torch at the opposite end to the blade - why Andyb still declined to buy the useful gadget remains a mystery.