More Jesuit Ruins - Blogabond

In total contrast with the staff at Hotel Tirol, the taxi driver who picked us up there, was very keen to talk to us, was able to speak more slowly and slowly when he realised how useless I am at Spanish, and tolerated my many mistakes and apparently understood everything I said; he was even able to rephrase things so that I would understand when I didn't know a word. Why is it so hard with some people and so much easier with others? Even with the easier to communicate with people, though, I have had to take a linguistic step quite alien to me, just so that I have anything to say at all: I've started not worrying very much about grammar and just pressed on regardless. In South America, I started out trying to remember the gender of every noun and make sure I had the correct verb ending, but I wasn't getting anywhere at all, though I'm sure the very few sentences I produced were perfect. After a few high-pressure situations where I had to respond quickly, I have now taken to guessing where I am not sure, and most of the time people do seem to understand, although I like to have my dictionary in my hand as a prop at all times of communication, to excuse the massacre of the language I assume I am inflicting. By the end of this drive, I really felt like I could actually speak Spanish, so I gave the driver quite a generous tip “for understanding my horrible Spanish”, I meant to say. He smiled and accepted the money then, as I was walking away, I realised I had said “for I understand my horrible Spanish”. That's the kind of thing I'm sure is slipping out all the time, without me even realising, especially when people are trying to engage me in a proper conversation with no time to prepare each sentence.

The ruins were much less developed than the ones in Argentina: no museum, no rebuilding going on, no buttons to press for a description in your language. Joanne thought it was even less impressive than the Argentinian ruins and, to be fair, they were very similar, though this one was a bit smaller. However, it was in a nice hilltop location, whereas the Argentinian one had felt rather claustrophobic, and I preferred the untouched, falling-apart-on-its-own appearance. Parts of it seemed to be in better condition without the construction and it just seemed like a lovely place to hang about. Hanging about wasn't in our itinerary, though, and we needed to get back to Encarnacion, unsure of the bus timetable as we were. Having seen what I understand are two of the best examples, I wouldn't have bothered with Jesuit ruins. They're just not that interesting. But I didn't know, and at least I do now.