Megan Lyles :: Concepción, Paraguay - Brazil, We Hardly Knew You

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Michael and I left Brazil for the last time today without ever having had a problem with our illegal status. But first we had a big buffet lunch. Good stuff, much better than what we'd had at the hotel the first night. Black beans galore, which are by far my favorite beans, and all kinds of grilled meats. We paid in guaranies because we had exactly one rei left, which is so beautiful that we're going to take it home and put it the Bowl of Coins From Other Countries.

I'm sad that we didn't get to actually travel in Brazil, but I realize now more than ever that it's for the best. That Portugese threw me off so much. I'll have to get some language tapes before we go back, if only to get used to the rhythms of the speech. We can't really say we've been to Brazil in the true sense. But we have at least had some black beans and fulfilled the minimum requirements for country-counting bragging rights.

We had to wait an hour at the bus station for a bus going to Concepción, but we used the time well. We made a schedule. Us. A schedule. Of when we need to be where and how long we would stay there. It was bizarre. We didn't even know how to go about doing it, those schedules with a day here and two days there. How do we know whether we'll want to stay somewhere until we get there? But now that our time is truly dwindling, we had no other choice.

The only thing to do was work backwards. We know for a fact that we want to spend a minimum of seven days in Buenos Aires, our departure point. So I blocked out nine days and then we pored over the guidebook looking at maps and bus times and trying to figure out what we'll have time to see and still get there on that chosen day.

The worst part is we don't want to go home anymore. Ever since we hit Paraguay we've been renewed. We want to stay here. And we want to see Uruguay, but now we're going to have to speed through it, with just a token visit to Montevideo. And we're going to have to miss Chile entirely, and all of Argentina that lies below Buenos Aires. We keep trying to tell ourselves that what we have left is more than the average American's yearly vacation, but it doesn't matter. We want to see more.

The bus finally came and it was the world's most local bus. It took us forty-five minutes just to get out of town, and trust me, Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay is not a particularly large town. The bus was crowded and later boarders leaned and sat all over me in the aisle seat. I nodded off to the staccato sounds of Guarani being shouted back and forth and it got dark. I got hungry. Thank goodness for people who get on the bus and sell cold, half-stale empanadas.

We both had to go to the bathroom when we got off the bus. I held it in, but Michael just went ahead and found a nice spot there in the street. And why not? Every other guy was doing it. Sometimes when busses unload it's hard to find a place to rest your eyes without looking like you're trying to watch some guy pee.

So tomorrow (if all goes well) is our boat trip! Rachel of the Peace Corps had warned us that the food on the Cacique II is like dog food. So on the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a market and stocked up on supplies.

The Hotel Frances had our bags for us, complete with a very detailed note stapled to the handle, and they gave us the same room we'd had, which was nice. Like coming home. Which is ironic, because we like the feeling of coming home, but don't want to go back to our actual home.

Our guaranies are really dwindling and we can't get any more because the bank is closed. Michael paid for the room with his credit card, but we paid for dinner with cash. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea when we're almost out of money and we don't even know how much the boat is going to cost.

HOURS ON THE BUS: 374.75

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