Popping Into Paraguay

Off I set early on Monday morning from Posadas, on my way to Country Number Seventeen - PARAGUAY! The bus stop for the Posadas - Encarnación bus was really close to my hotel, so I didn't have far to walk with all my luggage! Luckily enough, when the bus arrived, it wasn't very full and there was no difficult turnstile, like in Brazil, to negociate! Soon though, the bus became full and when we reached the border to get our Argentinian exit stamps, I have never seen such a chaotic disembarking before! Everybody zoomed of the bus, pushing each other out of the way so that they could be stamped out and then re-board the same bus! Bedlam! I found it really amusing until we all tried to re-embark: it just so happened that I was stood right next to the bus door when it pulled up along side us, but everyone pushed me out of the way, even though it was clearly difficult for me to manoeuvre with all my belongings! I got on in the end, but was stunned that the people simply didn't let me board and thus be out of their way!

The same thing occurred at Paraguayian immigration, but I decided to let the hoards pass, I had gained hour by crossing the border, so there was no rush! I had to queue for a while to see an official, who then made me wait longer after looking at my passport. I was calm, as border crossings are now second nature to me, but I did have a tiny feeling of apprehension - I was 99.9% sure that I didn't require a visa as a British citizen, but I was relieved when a different offical took my passport, typed something into her computer then returned it to me, complete with a new stamp! Woohoo! As it happened, the next bus arrived just moments later and there was no mad rush to reboard! Once in the centre of Encarnación, I found a hotel, changed my remaining Brazilian money into Guaraníes and headed off in search of a Paraguayan flag patch for my collection.

Yikes, I thought this would be a difficult task, and I wasn't wrong! I tried a few different stores to no avail, and and then thought that maybe a sports shop could help. There, I met Daniel, a local who spoke some English and so could translate to the store owner for me. No luck again, but Daniel then very kindly offered to help my with my search! Off we went in his pick-up truck to haberdashers and many other shops, but no one could help. He took me back to my hotel, where, as it happened, he was friends with the guy on reception and then he tried to help make suggestions about where I could find a patch! By that point, I needed to rest, so I arranged to meet Daniel again later that evening, so he could show my some more of the town. However, me being me, I couldn't settle so I set off again on foot to trawl the market on my quest!

Once again, not a single soul could help - luckily, by now, my Spanish is just about good enough to get my point across and then politely decline when I am offered a huge flag or a metre of ribbon in the Paraguayan colours! No, it isn't good enough mçfor me to cut it to size, it's ribbon, not a patch! I then ended up walking a really long way past my hotel, but my excellent sense of direction enabled me to eventually make it back there! I met Daniel again and we had a look around the town. I was interested in buying another memory card or flash drive as electronics are cheap here, plus I don't have enough space for the remaining few weeks of the trip! I could buy a 4Gb pern drive for 70,000 guaranís, about £9. Hmmm, I would need to think about it and get out some more cash anyway. I planned to visit the nearby Jesuit ruins at Trindad and Jesús the next day, and Daniel seemed to want to accompany me. However, I had no idea what time I would be setting off in the morning, so I didn't want to commit to a time. He bid me goodnight and wished me well.

Yesterday morning, as usual, I was awake early, so I showered and headed off towards the bus terminal. However, Daniel was waiting outside for me! I would have been wuite happy to go by myself, but he was quite keen to come too! Oh well, at least it would be easier to go by car! However, I soon realised that he was going to take the bus as well! I said that it would be better by car and that I thought that was what he wanted to do anyway. So, the rest of the day progressed as follows:

- Collected his truck from outside his friend's store.
- Stopped by his mother's shop.
- Find out that he can't drive the truck outside of the city as it is not registered in his name.
- Re-park truck outside his friend's store!
- Walk back to terminal and board next bus to Trinidad.
- Have found the world's slowest bus EVER and wonder how many hours it will take to cover 30km!
- Make it to the ruins at Trinidad, take photos and wait for bus to Jesús.
- Take bus to next ruins, take photos and catch return to Trindad within an hour.
- Arrive in Trindad and immediately re-board bus to Encarnación.

By the time I arrived back at my hostel at 3.30pm, I was shattered, but I still needed to decide what to do about the memory card/flas drive situation. So, I found a shop nearby that sold a 4Gb SD card 75,000. Not bad. OK, I had 10,000 guaranís left which was enough for food and internet, but I would need an ATM to get money for my hotel and the SD card. So...

- Walked to supermarket, got bread and cheese.
- Found ATM but it wanted to charge me 25,000 in fees (over £3!) NO CHANCE!
- Found another ATM but it wanted to charge me 25,000 in fees. SERIOUSLY, NO WAY!
- Returned to hotel to raid emergency stash of US dollars.
- Found a different shop where a 4Gb pen drive was only 50,000 guaranís! Bonus!
- Changed USD $25 and just 5 Argentinian pesos so O had the exact money for the hotel and pen drive.
- Bought pen drive, made sandwiches.
- Tested pen drive in an internet café, but it didn´t work (of course, because I had bought it from a cheapy-cheapy shop!)
- Ran back to shop to get a refund, but shop closed!
- Stressed about what to do as had to check out by 10am the next morning, get a refund and hang around until the evening for my bus to Buenos Aires, with nothing to do in Encarnación!

I tell you, it is a good job that I will home in 22 days (YIKES!) so that I can stop running around foreign towns like a headless chicken on my stupid schemes! After barely getting a wink of sleep last night, compounded by a dripping cistern, I decided to get up early and somehow contact Daniel in order to ask him to help me sort out the refund! The usual guy on reception wasn't there, so he couldn't call him for me. I didn't have enough money left for the internet to send him a message either, so I set off on auto-pilot hoping that I would somehow find his mother's shop again! By some miracle, even though I had a rough idea where it was, i found it, managed to ask her to call Daniel and he came along a few minutes later! Phew!

So, this morning, I have, with Daniel's help:

- Taken the dodgy pen drive back to the dodgy store run by dodgy Moroccans
- Insisted on a full refund, which was granted, albeit begrudgingly.
- Changed $5 more at the casa de cambio (they must think I am an idiot!)
- Bought genuine Panasonic CD memory card and it works!
- Bought a bus ticket to Buenos Aires direct from Encarnacíon, which works out £12 cheaper than if I crossed the border myself and caught it in Posadas!
- Checked out of the hotel and dropped off my bags at Daniel's house.
- Got just enough money left to exactly pay for the time it has taken me to write this blog entry!

So, for the rest of the afternoon I am going to hang out with Daniel until I am due at the terminal at 5.30pm. It is supposed to be a 12 hour journey to BA from Posadas once border formalities are completed, so I hope to arrive some time before nightfall on Thursday!!! I decided to go directly to BA now, as I thought it would be easier to organise a football ticket there, plus Anh, Laura, Claire and Fiona (who I started travelling with) will all be there this week! That will give me exactly 3 weeks to see the match, explore BA and pop into Uruguay as well. Well, 18 is a much nicer number than 17!!!