Arrival in Paraguay

I had a secret plan to book us into a posh hotel for the next two nights, so I couldn't tell her. I told her I'd ask the receptionist for advice but actually asked her if she knew and would book for us Hotel Tirol, which our guidebook suggested as a place to visit for its bird sanctuary or the swimming pool, also mentioning that this former favourite hangout of the King of Spain is surprisingly reasonable to stay at. It turned out that they could only take us for one night too, although Hotel Germano were able to take us back again for our last night in Paraguay. Joanne was still unhappy about the accommodation situation so I had to spoil my surprise about Hotel Tirol before she continued into an inconsolable despair about how we shouldn't have come to Paraguay; Joanne hadn't wanted to enter Paraguay in the first place and Ciudad del Este had been enough to convince her, whereas I had wanted to spend quite bit longer than the three nights I had compromised on, but Joanne's time was running out and she really wanted to get to Bolivia.

The girl on the desk had recommended an “international restaurant” nearby so, to make life easier, we just followed her advice instead of spending the time to find a more traditional Paraguayan place as I would have preferred. The “international restaurant” turned out to be a Japanese restaurant, where the sushi was very good, and much cheaper than it had been in Japan! Judging by the clientele, it was one of the posher restaurants in Encarnacion, but the prices were extremely reasonable compared to Argentina, and the Paraguayan beer we had was far superior to that horrible, tasteless Quilmes stuff that is ubiquitous in Argentina.

Judging by the short walk we had around town, it was a very religious place: the schools had religious names; the parks had religious names; there were banners up promoting religious festivals; there was even a hairdresser called El Niño Jesus; and when we got back to the room I discovered that the chest of drawer next to the bed contained a copy of The Gideon's Bible in Spanish and English; I don't know how many years it is since I last found one of these in my drawers.

Beef and egg soup

The next morning, in pursuit of something a bit more authentic than Japanese, we went next door to the basic-looking cafe. Feeling brave, I ordered something in the breakfast section that I had no idea what it would be, but turned out to be a very tasty beef and egg soup. As it was late morning and other people were drinking beer, I thought it would be OK to order one myself, and it arrived in one of those very civilised bottle containers for keeping beer cool. We hadn't seen one of them since Thailand and Cambodia, but it was very hot in Paraguay, so it made sense. As we ate, two flies landed in beer, reminding me of the unlikely coincidence in a joke Andre had told in Montevideo (stop me if you know it):

A Scotsman, an Englishman, and an Irishman are all in a pub having a beer. Coincidentally, a fly lands in each of their beers at the same time. The Englishman pushes his pint to the side, saying that he can't possibly drink it now; the Irishman nonchalantly picks the fly out, throws it away, and continues drinking; the Scotsman picks the fly out of his beer, lifts it up to his face, and shouts at the fly “spit it oot!”

Nice cold beer

We had time for another little walk around the town before our bus to Hotel Tirol, but there really didn't seem to be much to see. Compared with everywhere we had been recently it seemed a nice, laid-back place, where people were just going about their business, but it was also extremely ugly compared to anywhere we had been for a while. I think, other than Asunción, Paraguay is not about the towns; what a shame we were only going to be out of town for one day! We left most of our luggage at Hotel Germano and waited at the bus station.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 11, 2009 from Encarnacion, Paraguay
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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