A final post from Paraguay

With only one (very busy) day left here in this spartanly beautiful country now comes the time to write my final post from Paraguay.



The weekend trip to Encarnacion was all it promised to be; the ruins very similar to Roman Ruins that can be seen in good ol´Blighty, and the weather a dance like worse! Despite the Paraguayan tourist experience being as expected we actually had a very enjoyable time. Employing the use of the trusty Lonely Planet we managed to find a coffee shops with the most decidant cakes imaginable, proper coffee for my first time since Monte, and heating!! Sat around with Sue, Noemi (our volunteer supervisor) and new recruit Samantha it was hard not to giggle as we wondered why we had braved the overnight bus to get to the friendly but dank ´city´. We explored the tiny border town (really all it was), and had a quick play on the see-saws (most of these people have never encountered the English before... and it´s SO important to make a good first impression). Later enjoying cafe stops for the best food we´d tasted in weeks and before retiring to our tiny, filthy hotel room with a litre of ´Bull's Blood´- a potent combination of red wine and Calpol apparently. Sans heating, light or working toilet the hotel was another example of what is fast becoming the standard quality of such accomodation on this trip!! I would always always book a hostel now in preference to a cheap hotel, infinately better and more fun... however, Encarnation doesn´t have a single hostel, giving a good indication of the size and popularity of Paraguay´s premire tourist spot!
Tomorrow we head to San Bernadino for the day- the local Paraguayan 'beach'. Except for the lake it boarders is toxic, so to swim would equal death. But apprently it´s pretty, and I´m looking forward to an enjoyable last day in a sleepy Py backwater....



And so, for the final part of my final post from Paraguay I would like to take a second to summarise some key life lessons learned here:

• You will get bitten in the two seconds between getting out the shower and reapplying your mosquito repellant.
• Upon first arrival you will be able to smell the slums from several miles away, after a month here you won´t notice the smell while you´re walking round them.
• Doing washing in a bucket has limited novelty value, and limited purpose.
• Paraguayan people who´ve never met a foreigner before will simply repeat the same sentence in Spanish louder and louder in the hopes you will develop fluency through deafness.
• A flushing toilet is not nescessary for survival, but boy is it nice.
• Being tall and blonde is a bad idea in Paraguay.
• You can sleep anywhere, and through anything, if you are tired enough.
• An eight year old Paraguayan child can apply enough glitter to your scalp in 5 seconds to last a week and a half.
• Never try to learn a language by repeating what the children say.
• All the children here know more swearwords than I do.
• Just because it looks like food, doesn´t mean that it´ll taste like food

And so, a tiny bit wiser and older, on to Buenos Aries...