Paraguay
This morning Rog said he thought getting to Encarnacion, Paraguay was going to be easy. It's just across the river. Take Uber to train station & then Uber to hotel. Wrong. Our Uber driver took us to the train station but there was no train to Paraguay. He refused to take us to Paraguay. But because we just lucky, our Uber driver found us a taxi driver who agreed to take us to our hotel in Encarnacion! There we dropped out luggage & the hotel clerk exchanged $50 US for $300,000 Paraguay Guarani (PYG). We're rich! Enchiladas at a local restaurant lured us in. Rog got a sausage hot dog too. We headed to a large park that had a Japanese garden. Always fun to watch kids playing. Went back to our hotel for a swim & rest. Around 4 we found the #2 attraction in Paraguay….the beach. I have NEVER seen so many people enjoying a beach! Thousands! Standing in the center of the beach, you could barely see the ends. Tents, umbrellas, lawn chairs, coolers & solid people. Kids shrieking with happiness & building sand castles, adults sipping mate or beer. The sand was fine & a rusty brown color. The water fairly clean especially considering it was the Parana River bank. We found a shady spot kind of far from the crowd, rented chairs & just soaked it all in. There was continuous activity on the nearby volleyball court. A couple of kinda drunks sat by us & even though we told them several time we couldn't understand them…they kept talking to us. They were having so much fun whistling & eyeing the girls walking by whose butts were in full view. When the sun got lower & less intense, we moved closer to the beach in time to see the sunset. Just at sunset, there was a mass exit from the water. A life guard walked the beach assuring everyone was out. No need for parents to try getting their kids out of the water! For the next hour or so, girls posed for photos. Seriously how many pictures do you need! We went back to our room ready for a shower, swim & bed.
Next morning we went down to breakfast the hotel provided. It looked like quite a spread but besides the scrambled eggs & fruit…it was over 10 types of bread! Guess they like to fill up on bread much like in Argentina. Our hotel called a taxi for us to get us to the bus station where we thought a bus to Trinidad left every 1/2 hour. Wrong. After 2 hours, the guy who'd sold us tickets pointed to a dilapidated mini bus that would take us to the #1 attraction in Paraguay—the UNESCO site of a Jesuit mission. We noticed the Paraguay was had more hills & smaller farm fields and also lots of tractors. Housing and small towns looked about the same as Argentina. The bus dropped us off at a bus stop in the middle of no where. Luckily a young girl got off there too & she knew how to get a taxi…well it did have 4 wheels but wasn't as good as most demolition cars. We rattled down a dirt road then dropped the girl off first where she was greeted by hugs. Soon after…tada…well arrived at Jesus de Tavarangüé. This massive structure took some imagination to visualize what it had been. Actually it was never completed as the Spaniards killed or ran the priests off. The Spaniards didn't like the Jesuits because they were educating & protecting the natives who the Spaniards wanted as slaves. As we walked out, we read on the information board that there was a restaurant just 10 min walk. We found it with an open sign lit & food displayed in the barred window…but no one around. So we walked on and found another one. Same scenario. Walked on & bingo…found one! Since there were only cookies & cakes displayed, we asked if the clerk would make us a sandwich. She happily did & we bought a large, cold bottle of water. Perfect. Then we tried to get an Uber ride. Nope. Few cars around & no taxi cars going by. Now what ? The clerk who'd made us sandwiches, didn't know how to get a taxi. We'd noticed some people sitting in their front yard earlier so we went up to their gate & held up our translator asking if they could call us a taxi. They opened their gate, moved a bench to the shade & invited us in. A young girl left with her phone and so we spent the next 15-20 minutes visiting via translator. They were an older couple who sipped their mate (which they offered to us too) and seemed very pleased to have us there. After a bit, the young girl came back smiling & told us she'd called a taxi. So though we seemed stranded in the middle of nowhere…we actually were getting a free authentic experience with some friendly & helpful Paraguayans! Priceless! A much older car with a taxi sign magnetically stuck on top (which later he took off) picked us up & took us to our hotel in Argentina. Our Paraguay experience reminded us of others we've had where we are reminded to "See the journey" which is as rich as our destination!