Filadelfia, Paraguay - Our First Surly Paraguayans

We were up for breakfast again. Hotel Mora's breakfast was much more elaborate than Hotel Safari's, but still in the German style, with lots of cold meats and cheeses. The English guy, David, was staying at the same hotel and we compared guidebook information with him while eating. His book was an older edition than ours, but he'd supplemented it with the Paraguay section torn out of some hostel's guidebook. "No one goes to Paraguay," he said in justification.

David wanted to get to Parque Nactional Defensores, which is tough to do, and Michael and I wanted to go back to Filadelfia in order to go to Concepcion, so we all walked that long dusty walk together to catch the 11:00 a.m. bus. We arrived drenched with sweat (was it really just a couple of weeks ago that I was complaining about the cold?) and purchased tickets from the only surly person we had thus far encountered in Paraguay.

The bus was excellent and smelled clean and new. It was not even a quarter full, so it seemed odd when we saw an older white couple frownily insisting that a young Guarani woman move out of her seat so that they could have it. Someone pointed out to them that there were equally desirable empty seats right across the aisle, but no, those seats would not do. They seemed very angry, and finally the girl flounced over to another seat.

With the vast quantity of seats available, the only reasonable motivation I could imagine for the angry folks was that they were sticklers for seat assignment. But when I examined my own ticket and Michael's, I didn't see seat numbers. So I don't know what to make of what we saw and it isn't fair to draw conclusions. But I'm writing about it anyway, just becuase it gave me such a creepy feeling and because up til that moment, okay and also the one surly bus-ticket-seller-lady, all the Paraguayans we've met and observed have been incredibly friendly.

Back in Filadelfia, we checked into the Hotel Florida, to one of their cheaper rooms. There's no point in paying more for cable that brings in a total of four non-English channels.

I stayed in the room to write while Michael and David went to the zoo and then to have a drink and watch a World Cup game. Really, the World Cup seems like it's going on forever. How many semi-finals can there possibly be? They ended up playing pool with some Guaranis, one local and David against another local and Michael. Michael's team won the prize of a bottle of beer, but the losing team shared it equally, so it was all a big pleasant time.

Except that before the afternoon was over, someone helped himself to Michael's hat. He'd definitely had it in the restaurant, in his back pocket, and then he didn't. It's just a hat, blah, blah, blah, but we both feel bad that someone he'd been hanging out with as buddies had just taken it. It kind of taints the memory of an afternoon spent drinking with a bunch of locals. Not that I'm assuming they took it... it could just as easily have been the English dude. ("No one wears hats.") It's still tainted.

Michael and I ate at another churrasqueria for dinner. We'd eaten at that restaurant before, but tonight we were clued in to the meat deal and we experienced the restaurant properly. Excellent food. And the waiter, who remembered us from the other night, was very friendly. When he heard we planned to visit Asuncion, he was full of warnings.

He'd been to Asuncion, he told us, and he'd been robbed. Also his sister had been robbed there. And someone else he knew had also been robbed. Probably it would be ok, but we should be very, very careful with our valuables, about walking around at night, and about walking around in general, because it's muy peligroso.

We secretly wondered if our young waiter friend was just a little bit of a scaredy-cat. He clearly preferred the slow, easy pace of Filadelfia to the bustle of the capital city. But scaredy-cat or not, everyone he knows seems to have been robbed in Asuncion, and we can't ignore that. So of course we'll be careful, but then, we always are.

So now we're trying to figure out what to do next. Should we stay one more day in Filadelfia? It's so different and interesting and when we move on to Concepcion, we'll be leaving Mennonite country behind without having seen very much of it. But we don't even know if there will be anything to see tomorrow. Back in Loma Plata, Walter had warned us that absolutely nothing would be open on Sunday except for the supermercado, and that only in the morning. Well, we have up til checkout time to decide.

HOURS ON THE BUS: 358