January 21, 2009

Like Cameleons, we dash
from one patch of shade to the next.
The air is noticably cooler,
The intense colours muted.
We weave from the shade of giant trees,
to the full shadow of awnings,
to the tiny strip that edges store fronts
when the sun is overhead.
Jim sings:
Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun.
And it´s true.
The streets are empty,
Gone are the scooters, the cars and the walkers.
It´s siesta time.
Even the supermarcado is cerrado!

Yesterday in Asuncion, Paraguay, Jim and I went out to our favourite bar for breakfast and on the way discovered that the door to the museum of culture was not locked, not exactly open but not locked. In we went and found a worker upstairs who showed us to the third floor and put on lights for us. One gallery was all Paraguayan and the other European, none of it memorable. Then we headed to the bus station. One of the hazards of our kind of travel is that it´s hard to plan ahead.Getting to a bus station even once in large unfamiliar cities and speaking almost no Spanish is a challenge and so usually we just get to the bus station and then wait until there´s a bus headed where we want to go to. Sometimes it decides where we want to go to! Yesterday we arrived at the station at 10 and booked a ticket on a bus for Residencia, Argentina that left at 3. Last night at 11 we arrived. Our Lonely Planet , South America on a Shoe String is somewhat out of date.
The first hotel we asked the taxi to take us to had been closed for three years.
The second one cost twice as much as was in the book but thankfully had a room.
Some of our worst meals have also come from places in our guide. (La Vica Verde)
but to be fair, we´ve also had some of our best meals at places in the guide: Bar San Roque, with its spiffy black suited and crisp white shirted waiters (food to match) and the Lido Bar with it´s curving bar and behind it´s plump middle aged waitresses, in kneelength straight orange skirts, striped shirts and tiny orange pill box hats held on with two enormous bobby pins. Perhaps the orange theme is relevant since the jugo de naranja is the best orange juice in the world. Definitely two of my highlights of Paraguay are the fabulous orange juice and coffee con leche just the way I like it.

This morning we woke up in Resistencia, Argentina. and set off to explore before the heat limited our ramblings. In the big square on opposite sides there were two large demonstations brewing. Horse drawn carts were clipping by and being parked. Their drivers marching to protest for the workers party. While on the other side of the square, protestors for ???????? had spent the night in tents and were gathering up bedrolls and children. Resistencia seems a perfect name for this town.

Now I haven´t been in a good protest since 1982, when Danica (a new born) and I made the front page of the Truro Daily News with our placard against uranium mining at the Bob McCleave inquiry. I am good at making placards. So when we next have a demonstration or a protest in Portaupique, I volunteer to do the signs, Jim says he´ll rouse the rabble. Now we just need a drummer, some protestors and a cause.