Asuncion, Paraguay, Mile 40

Greetings from Asuncion, once again.  South America in general, but Paraguay in particular on a Sunday is interesting.  NOTHING is open in Asuncion, with the exception of this internet place, a few gas stations and, later, restuarants.  If you needed groceries, or something from a shopping mall today, too bad.

There being no steam train for me to take a ride on today, I would have left on the first stage of my trip today, except for the fact that I want to visit the MOPC (Ministry of Public Works---the people in charge of building highways) on Monday to find out about the progress of the paving of Paraguay Route 8 north of Coronel Bogado.  Whether it is passable or not to a bicycle will determine the route of my trip.  That will be my first order of business in the morning, then I will be on my way, in all likelyhood heading east out of Asuncion on Route 2 towards the crossroads town of Coronel Oviedo; I may or may not make it that far tomorrow, depending on headwinds.

Today, I did about 24 miles around Asuncion, and plotted it on my interactive map.  URL is here:

http://www.odysseyatlas.com/trip/8j2

You will probably have to zoom in a bit to see where I was.  I sweated a lot, the temperature on my speedometer got up to 107 Degrees, and I was done the ride before Noon.

Asuncion is interesting.  Much more than any other Latin American city I have visited, every other street is named after either a battle or a war hero.  Paraguay is almost unique in the region in that it has actually produced a large number of genuine war heros, and they are all named on some Asuncion street or other.  Fighting two monstrous wars in the space of 80 years will do that.  I went over this in depth two years ago, but the war against the Triple Alliance of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay in 1865-1870 almost resulted in the extermination of the Paraguayan race; there were fewer than 1,000 adult males left in the country after the Brazilians finally wiped out the last Paraguayan army.  70 years later, the Chaco War against Bolivia over ownership of the Chaco region of northern Paraguay resulted in a Paraguayan "victory" that left almost 5% of the population dead, which is on a level with what happened to Germany or Japan in WWII.  These two disasters seem to have cured Paraguay of any great desire to attack any one; there have been no wars since, but the participants are all remembered and revered.  There is still an office of pensions for Chaco War veterans doling out small sums of money to the few surviving veterans.

Moving around on the bike today, in the heat, made me thirsty, and I stopped at a little stand set up to take advantage of the weekend closing of the coast boulevard for a Coke.  The family running it sold me one, for 5,000 Guaranies, and then suggested (in Spanish) that I sit in the shade of their little tent, which I did, and they then resumed their conversation, ignoring me.  I understood not a word.  Spanish is not the first language for the vast majority of Paraguayans, Guarani is.  In Asuncion, the two have fused into a dialect called "Joropa" which is about 90% Guarani and 10% Spanish, and I understand nothing of it.  I suppose if I lived here for a few months I would pick it up, but almost everyone also speaks Spanish (which is not necessarily true in the countryside), so I am able to communicate.

Tonight I will probably return to the interesting restuarant I ate in yesterday, it is a "Churrasqueria",  serving meat and more meat.  You go to the grill, pick out what you want, they slice away onto your plate until told to stop, and you then choose another cut, and so on.  From there, you can add rice or whatever, and then the plate is weighed.  Cost is 6,990 Guaranies for 100 Grams, which works out to about 68 Cents an ounce.  Yesterday I ate my way through $19 Dollars, including Cokes and tip...

Tomorrow, I will send another report from someplace other than Asuncion.  Hopefully it will include photos, I took many today, but cannot upload them on to the ancient computer I am using.