11:30. Got up about 9:45 feeling knackered and just checked out in time. Taxi to bus terminal for PGN40,000 with a small bit of rounding and got a bus ticket for PGN50,000. Bought some water and soft drink and had a couple of empanadas and a couple of pseudo-Scotch eggs (they have some sort of vaguely potatoish stuff instead of meat) and feel pretty stuffed. Bus is OK if nothing great and at this moment I have a double seat to myself, fingers crossed.
The guy in front of me gave money to the baggage handler so I asked him how much it was when he took my bag and he said 'a dollar'. WTF? That's both way too much and NOT THE LOCAL CURRENCY. I gave him about PGN2000 and asked if it was enough, and to give him credit he said it was. Why can't they just put this kind of thing on the ticket price?
Well, we're off and I still have a double seat. All that can mess things up now is picking people up en route...
I have the lyrics to some song in my head which go 'hacer el amor con otro, no, no, no'. I find myself wondering if 'hacer el amor', literally 'to make love' I think, means 'to have sex' or 'to have romantic feelings for someone'. I suspect the latter, at least in this context, but I don't know.
12:15. It's damn hot. The bus isn't airconditioned, the windows are open and it's just about bearable but pretty unpleasant. I should have gone with the more expensive company who were charging PGN66,000, although I am only assuming their service would be airconditioned.
On the other hand, there is no compulsory film on this bus, which is worth something.
15:45. We have been sat outside some small terminal for what seems like hours and is probably about 10-15 minutes. I have no idea why. I checked my GPS and we are 125km from Posadas, so we are nearly the same distance from Encarnacion.
It is at least a bit cooler now, once we got out of the city and we moving continuously at a fair speed things improved quite a lot.
19:30. We got in about six, i.e. after dark. I luckily stumbled across a tolerable hotel listed in the guide book next to the terminal and am booked in for two nights at PGN60,000/night. I resisted the temptation of a better room whose only specified improvement was a mini-bar for PGN70,000.
The town seems small and a bit dead except round the bus terminal which is lively but slightly intimidating. It looked a lot bigger from Posadas if my recollections are correct. I expect I just don't know where to go. The guide book is not much use, as always.
It appears the bit near the river is semi-deserted as it is due to be flooded so everyone moved away years ago, but they are dithering about actually flooding it. This may be out of date now but I didn't really like to wander over that way after dark. However, I may see if I feel differently after eating. I won't really have time to go during the day as I have to dick around with bloody buses to get out to those ruins 30km away. Turns out there are two sites, the second 12km from the first with an hourly bus you can flag down. To be honest I think the second can just fuck off. Getting to the first sounds like enough effort.
Either no one finds it worth their while to provide a convenient tour or the guide book feels that would not be worth mentioning.
21:20. I've got a right arse on. Walked round trying to find a bar. Hahahahahahaha. It's all hamburger restaurants. Eventually found somewhere calling itself a bar. Two customers plus a fat dimwitted lazy lump I take to be the owner or barman sat somewhere near the door. I asked if they were open. He didn't understand me. I asked if they were closed. He said no. I thanked him and as he made absolutely no effort to rise or ask me what I wanted I sat at a table just outside, admittedly out of his line of sight. I waited five minutes by the clock and nothing happened. I then hesitantly wandered back inside to find he had a phone glued to his ear and didn't even acknowledge my presence with a nod or similar.
I walked off swearing to myself. "What a fucking joke". Some guy heard me and obviously partly understood, but I said 'excuse me' and kept walking. I think he kept calling after me but I ignored him.
Now down some crappy street grill type place with a big bottle of Brahma. I cannot believe what a cheerless dump this place seems to be. FFS, it's *Saturday night*. Santa Fe midweek was lively compared to this. As I said before I am sure I just don't know where to go, but I might have expected to find some signs of life during my wanderings. (FWIW, the guide book omits its usual 'drinking' and 'entertainment' sections for Encarnacion. Which may reflect reality rather than being laziness or lack of space on their part.)
Just before I got to this 'bar' I was walking down what I take to be the main street and a fucking dog in some fenced-off yard barked in my ear. Man I did not need that. How dare I walk down this busy main street next to your property. You'd better install a fucking hound to tell me to keep my distance. That was the worst (and not *that* bad) but there have been a few other 'bark when you walk past' dogs in yards here. It's nowhere as bad as Mexico - the fucking (pseudo-)guard dogs in yards there are about the only thing I really dislike about the country, speaking as a tourist of course - but worse than most places I've been recently.
I did try walking down to the river earlier but it started to get desolate and my nerve cracked. It felt like carrying on would be the equivalent of going into the woods at night to check on that strange noise in a horror film. That sort of 'in hindsight, this will appear to be a really dumb thing to do' quality. It would probably have been OK (the guide book, insofar as I trust it, doesn't say anything about that area being dangerous) but I am generally not too easily shaken about that kind of thing and so I figured I should trust my instinct. I will try and wander down there tomorrow before going through all the shit involved in visiting the ruins.
Oh, I looked round the bus terminal area earlier too. Quite a few people sitting around but not that busy really, much less so than when I arrived.
I may be being a bit harsh on the town. The buildings are fairly attractive and what I take to be the main square quite spacious and elegant. But it does seem a dull sort of place.
The street about a metre behind me seems to be the appointed loitering spot for annoying fuckwits. Who keep STARING at me when I look at them at out of the corner of my eye. I would like to go elsewhere but the whole place is so unpromising that I think I have little choice but to stay. You know, they are fucking me off enough I might leave. Nowhere else on my earlier meanderings did I find a group of FUCKERS loitering like this. One just grunted at me to ask for a cigarette. Fuck off you scrounging idle git.
Oh yes. I just waved at the surly waiter who is loitering by some other corner. He ignored me. I guess I just waved because I wanted to show how friendly I am feeling. Maybe he isn't the waiter. I have no idea, I think he served me but I was so hacked off I failed to pay attention. I will go stand near the counter and see what happens.
22:25. I went to the bar and idle waiter came over. I have come to some pizza place cum bar which is hardly party central but probably has more people than I've seen elsewhere. It is also part of the way back to the hotel. I really do need to try to have an early night and try to be up around 9 so I have time to at least try to wander down to the river and then do the damn trip to the ruins. I absolutely detest these "you have to go by local bus, it's too far for a taxi" kind of places.
I really don't know why I'm in such a foul mood. I guess the bus taking 6.5 hours instead of the 5 I expected didn't help and that brief period of vulnerable uncertainty at the bus terminal trying to find a hotel after dark as a result also sucked, but I can't really account for my mood logically.
There is a modestly sized cockroach scuttling about. No big deal but I mention it for what it's worth.
I guess I am also a bit disappointed my idea that it would be both cool and easy - I mean, surely, anywhere on a river has bars and cafes down by it - to have a beer and look across at Posadas is not easy and maybe not possible. But I don't think that's really it either.
I may have one more beer here and try to get an earlyish night. The hotel has wifi but the guy at reception said it's only in the lobby and I doubt it will work in my third floor room (I haven't tried yet) so I won't be tempted to surf until 1am. He also wrote the complex password (the sort of password that's great practice, but arguably overkill for a hotel wifi network) out in rather unclear handwriting so I am dubious I could connect anyway.
The radio station playing here is Posadas xx.xFM. Which is oddly slightly cool.
23:20. All the music is English language despite being on a local station (they switched to an Encarnacion station a while ago). Some song I don't know just opened with a bit of spoken stuff ending with "Dude, your perspective on life sucks." Made me smile somehow and I am suddenly feeling a bit more cheerful. Mood is a funny thing.
23:35. Ordered another beer, which should be my last. If my projected visit to the riverside tomorrow morning shows no bars I may be strong and not go out tomorrow night, although the fact I will have to go out at least to eat may tempt me. I should get a good night's sleep tomorrow as I suspect the trip on Monday/Tuesday to Montevideo may be a little gruelling. I also need to book a hotel there for Tuesday-Thursday nights, which I should be able to do from the lobby. If it turns out to be convenient or necessary I may overnight in some random place on Monday night and find accomodation when I am there, but I half expect there will be some kind of overnight bus involved.
I guess the main thing is to be damn careful at the borders to avoid a repeat of the Ciudad del Este incident. I will take a taxi to the Paraguayan border post here on Monday morning to be sure of getting my exit stamp, and if it's permitted I may trundle my cases over the bridge on foot to the Argentinian side. My impression so far is that Argentinian border control is stricter so I doubt I will be allowed to accidentally bypass it, but still. And I also need to be careful when crossing from Argentina to Uruguay, although my irrational gut feeling is that I won't be allowed to accidentally bypass either border control post there either.
Oh, when I ate earlier I had a steak with boiled potato. Well, about half a potato. It was a very *nice* half potato with a bit of parsley, I must admit, but still. I do wonder if potatoes are scarce here. Still, it was cheap at PGN30,000 including tip, or about four quid.
(I could have had it 'a caballo' (if memory serves), which is effectively the local name for 'a lo pobre' minus the fried onions, but I've eaten a lot of eggs already today and didn't fancy the risk of over-cooked fried eggs. But I do wonder how many chips I would have got. Maybe just three or four. There was no 'steak and chips' option, hence my going for the boiled potato choice.)
Following on from my remark the other day about struggling with the number of zeros on the notes, I will observe the notes don't use commas (or full stops, whichever would be customary here) to separate the digits into groups of three, which would help.
Although I paid the hotel bill this morning by card (the guy tried to charge me an extra USD10, but I told him I'd already paid that as the 10% hostelworld deposit and he accepted it, though for all I know he stiffed me on the exchange rate to make up for it, probably not though), I will observe I'm still spending the million guaranis I took out in Ciudad del Este. I may need to make an additional withdrawal to pay the hotel bill here but just maybe not. I have about 300,000 left.
00:10. Just paid and about to leave. Will walk back, I hope I won't regret it but it isn't far and I didn't feel particularly at risk earlier except down towards the river. Fingers crossed for no dog incidents...
00:30. Just got back, all serene. To bed...
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