May 19, 2011
Yesterday we entered Paraguay for one reason; to add one more stamp on our passports. I may seem cynic but this was our intention.
The same night we were confident we did good. Paraguay is a different country than Uruguay and Argentina. It lacks personality and turistic attractions but is worth a visit. Encarnacion was the first town we visited. We had read about the “pearl of the south” that is the most important one after Asuncion.
What we found out is a lazy town, not so pretty, not colonial at all. We had a grilled chicken on the outskirts of the town and then we took the national road No1 to Asuncion. We drove for 300 km. through fertile fields and cool villages with well proportioned houses full of people sitting outside, absorbing the sun.
Life goes slow in Uruguay, at least by day. By night, things go wild. Even in Paraguari, the little town where we camped last night (in a petrol station, where else?), youngsters didn’t go to sleep before 5am.
Some of them were coming to our place, opened the boot of their cars and exhibited the watts of their supe audio systems. It was a hard night for both of us. We woke up tired and drove to Asuncion.
We passed the ugly suburbs of the capital and drove downtown to find a hotel. The city’s center was incredibly isolated today and it is like this every Sunday. After we strolled a bit from the central plazas to the presidential palace we found a parking and then a room for us.
We have a double for 80.000 guarani (15 euros) with a view to plaza Uruguayana. We felt deeply sad staying here on our own, in a town where nobody seems to stand. There was nothing to do downtown so we asked a sleepy taxi driver where everybody has gone and he advised us to go to a shopping mall, on the northwest of the town.
We did it and we realised that this is where Asuncion’s heart beats. We realised that this is a country of huge contrasts as well. This morning, we visited a poor neighborhood next to the presidential palace.
Locals advised us not to proceed inside the “barrio” because we would be stolen. Three kilometers further to the west, there is a totally different Asuncion, of glitzy shops, fancy cars, modern banks and a huge mall, called del sol. This is the place where the upper class of Paraguay spends their time during weekends. We followed them and after a fast dinner we came back to the Miami hostel. Tomorrow we will hit the road to the Iguazu falls._A.Temperidis
Tip of the day: 1euro = 5500 guarani (it used to be 7000). Paraguay is cheap but not as cheap as we expected; We paid 30.000 for half chicken yesterday and 40.000Gs for a fried fish fillet today. Diesel costs less than a USD – 4270-4400 Gs.
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