Downtown in Asuncion

Hello Again from S.A.:
We left the ¨mountain-top¨as planned first thing yesterday morning and went down the mountain by taxi to the town of Atyra. After dropping our packs in the town office and finding out that they closed at noon, we did a walking tour of the beautiful town. It is really picturesque and it is too bad that there did not seem to be any over-night accomodation, or we would have been tempted to stay over another night or two. The hi-light of our walking tour was Joy´s ride on an ox-cart. The people here are very friendly and when I showed an interest in him hitching up his team (or is a brace?? I am certain that my terminology is offending ox people everywhere), he offered a ride which I let Joy take. She is prettier than I am and looked good in the chap´s hat on the back of his cart!
We then tried to make sense out of the bus system again and sat at the back of the very rustic bus terminal where we were assured the buses always passed. We were comfortable with the idea of catching a bus to Caacupe or to Asuncion and settled in with a cervasa grande (did I say that it was very hot!). We managed to get our packs aboard a bus bound for Asuncion and then found that all roads lead through Caacupe, but this time it was a paved road all the way, unlike the dirt road on our way to Atrya. The 60kms took 2 hours which were filled with watching the sights, sounds, and people of Paraguay. Anyone who comes to one of these countries and misses the rides on the local buses, really is missing out. In her blog, I know that Joy will tell about all the various vendors who get on the buses to sell everything up to underwear to the passengers before getting off at the next opportunity.
Anyway, we got here and using the handy guide which is accurate sometimes we are in a nice hotel in the heart of old Asuncion. On the negative side, we are close to the river and, although we have not seen a mosquito since Sao Paulo, there is a concern with Dengue fever here and we wear ¨Ben´s¨everywhere. Also the area between here and the river is somewhat dangerous and the police turned us back yesterday afternoon when we headed that direction. We were a little nervous last night when we went to pick up our laundry after dark. We even have a metal screen for our window in the hotel, even though it is a second story window!
Today we did the walking tour of downtown and saw many of the historical and cultural sights of the city. There were some beautiful colonial buildings and the legislative building is a spectacular mirrored design which happened to be reflecting a wonderful sky. It has also included what appeared to be a facade of an old building imbedded in part of it. Some of the houses that we were in dated to 1750 and included the house in which Paraguayan independence was arranged. We also saw the train museum and I again took some great pictures for Derm English, like I did last year. Derm is one of those train people and he would have loved this place. There are no more trains in Paraguay except one weekend tourist train that goes a short distance to a lake near the capital. Of course, there are very few trains of any kind operating in South America as roads and buses have taken over. But every little village has a bus coming or going from it and they are heavily used and cheap.
I am sure that Joy will talk about the restaurent that we went to a noon today. Of course, it was highly recommended in the ¨guide¨, but the meal was tasteless and will take it off our list of places to eat. Tonight we will try another, once the temperature starts to drop. It is easy to see why people don´t eat until after 7pm and why businesses tend to close at noon on Friday. In the heat it is hard to do much.
Our future plans are still in the formulation stage. The boat up the Paraguay River to Conception doesn´t go until Wednesday morning, so we are considering heading to Resistancia in Argentina. We are here until Monday at least.
Enough for now.
Jim