Concepción, Paraguay - Two Bus Rides, No Mas

Filadelfia on Sunday is shut down tight, just like Walter had promised. When Michael and I went for a post-breakfast walk over to the bus station to find out our options, we found the streets almost completely deserted. The bus station was closed and we sat down on the bench in front of it,trying to decide what to do. As we sat, a Guarani guy on a bike came over to chat with us.

He commiserated with us over the bus station being closed and then he wanted to know how I did my hair (this is the first time that question has come from a man) so I undid one of the twists to show him how it worked. "Bob Marley!" he said. He told us that a while back there had been a guy from California, extremely dark-skinned, with waist-length dreads. That guy probably attracted crowds.

Back at the hotel we asked the kid at the front desk about busses to Pozo Colorado, where our guidebook claimed we could find other busses going to Concepcion. He was a skinny German kid, very damp and eager, like a puppy. He said that there was a bus, and that it would stop at the Hotel Florida and that if we wanted him to make reservations we should come back at 11:30 when the bus station opens, and he'd call. Great.

At 11:30 I asked him again, but this time I said we wanted to go to Concepción, and that was a mistake, we realized later, because he then looked into direct busses, and direct busses only. The kid called and spoke to someone and reported that there was no bus to Concepcíon until tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. But we'd been told all along that there were busses to Pozo Colorado - would we be able to get a bus to Concepción from there or not?

We were already packed up, so we decided to walk out to the bus station and see what was what. Because in the end, it doesn't matter what's in the book or what anyone anywhere tells us - there is either a bus at the station or there isn't. In this case there was a bus. It would be leaving at noon for Pozo Colorado and the ticket guy promised we'd easily be able to get a bus to Concepcion from there. Great!

Our assigned seats were towards the back,and we could smell the bathroom, but whatever, we had found a bus. After a short wait in the station parking log, we were all told to get off the bus and transfer to another bus, which we did. I hoped the new bus would be less smelly, but I was disappointed in that hope. The new bus smelled even worse, a melange of mature urine and that sweet, sweet, blue bus-toilet liquid. It smelled like Greyhound sometimes smells, when you're not so lucky, and it made me feel a little homesick.

After about an hour and a half, when I was starting to regret not having had lunch, Michael nudged me, whispering, "Food!" The ayudante was making his way down the aisle with a big plastic box of empanadas and sopa. Michael and I took one each. Then we kept trying to pay, which completely messed up the flow of things.

After a long time we realized what we were doing wrong. There is a system. First there is the pass with the food box during which anyone who wants snacks gets them. Then there are one more passes with bottles of red Fanta. The number of these varies because the ayudante can only hold four bottles at a time and who knows how many passengers will be thirsty? He went back for more Fantas three times before he got to us. Then he collects money, and not before, you uncouth gringo, waving your money around when some people haven't even had their Fantas yet.

Broad generalization: Latin Americans are absolutely fantastic at money matters, with the way they're able to keep it in their heads who owes how much and for what for dozens of people. It's truly amazing. (Except for the poor Cusquenos who were not blessed with this gift and consequentely are always accidentally giving back too little change.)

Pozo Colorado didn't look like much of a town, more like a farmland crossroads, but it's hard to say for sure because we didn't didn't stay long. As soon as we got off our bus, we spotted another bus and ran over to see if it was going to Concepción. It was. "Cuanto cuesta?" we asked the driver. "Viente mil guaranies, nada mas," he replied.

I love the "nada mas" thing. It started somewhere in the end of Bolivia. They did it in Santa Cruz definitely, and maybe Cochabamba too and it's been all over what we've seen of Paraguay so far. "Nada mas" means "nothing more" and when it's tacked on to the end of prices it has such a friendly, lilting, reasonable sound, as does its brother, "no mas". Twenty thousand guaranies, nothing more. How long is the bus ride? Two and a half hours, no more.

The bus was a semi-cama, very nice with leg rests and no bathroom smell, but it didn't matter. An hour and a half bus ride is nothing to us now. Even the four hours from Filadelfia was nothing much.

Michael and I got off the bus on a random street in Concepción with no idea where in town we were. The LP does not supply a map, and there are no hints in the text. But we saw a taxi stand and headed over to it. The stand was no more than a roof and its supports, but they'd set up a small television out there and were watching the World Cup.

It was the last five minutes of the game - the game, the final game of the World Cup - clearly no one was going anywhere. We might not have known when to pay for our empanadas on the bus, but we did know enough not to ask Paraguayan cab drivers to tear themselves away from the last five minutes of the final game of the World Cup to take a couple of backpackers to their hotel. So we hung out to watch. Italy and France were tied 1-1 and it was a penalty shootout. Or something. Anyway, France missed one and Italy won.

Being half Italian, I was rooting for Italy. I mean, in a vague way because really I don't care about the World Cup at all, but you have to name a country when someone asks you who you're supporting and the US has been out of it for weeks. But when they cut from shots of the Italians whooping and leaping to shots of the French guys just crouching miserably and staring into space I just felt too bad for the French guys to even feel happy for the Italians. I guess I'm just not much of a sports fan.

Once the game was over, we were able to get a taxi. After Paraguay and the rest of South America had been knocked out, our driver had chosen France to support because he'd worked with a French company for twelve years. He said he'd lost money on the game. He seemed sad, so maybe it was a lot of money.

We had him take us to the Hotel Puerta del Sol, because it was the cheapest in the book, but it didn't even live up to the writer's modest, hedging claim that it was "cleanish," so we left even though we had no idea where we were or where we could go.

Luckily we stumbled upon the Hotel Frances, where we rented an expensive but pretty nice room, breakfast included. Michael asked the guy who showed us the room whether he was happy about the World Cup results and the guy said he didn't much care. So there goes the whole "soccer is always a great conversation starter in Latin America" theory. Michael also asked him if there were many mosquitos in town and the guy said no, which was clearly a lie because there were at least a dozen mosquitos flying around his head at that very moment, but what can you do?

We killed a few (Michael can grab them as they fly by; it's very wax-on wax-off) and there is a ceiling fan which we hope will keep the rest of them away from us in our sleep. We had dinner at a place called El Quincho del Victoria, recommended in the Lonely Planet. It isn't that we'll only eat at places in the LP, but we went walking looking for something and we found that one and figured we'd give it a shot. Hmm. Michael's asado was okay, but my catfish seriously smelled like sewage and since catfish are bottom feeders, and who knows where this one was from... it was just gross.

Concepción is a happening little city and the weather is very balmy and pleasant. We took an after-dinner walk and found the sidewalks crowded and the streets full of teenaged boys cruising in pickup trucks, five or eight of them standing up in the back and swaying in a detached way, too cool to smile.

The teenagers trailed music everywhere - Eminem is popular - from the pickups, the zippy little scooters with one or two or three passengers, the boom box set up on the grass strip in the middle of the main street. Earlier in the day when we'd gotten off the bus, that strip had been occupied solely by a grazing horse, but now it was the Spot to be Spotted and the baggy-jeaned kids and their music could be heard for blocks.

Tomorrow we have to figure out how to get the boat to Asunción. The Lonely Planet says the boats leave on Thursday, but we don't know if that's still true. It would be nice if they left sooner, but not too soon, because we like this city and would like to have a chance to see a bit more of it.

HOURS ON THE BUS: 364.5