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Paraguay: international rejects, toilet city, more meat, a town called Jesus

Fat chance

Rhymer1
2005-03-26 19:15:38

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be pretty tough being a missionary these days: there just aren't that many savages who haven't heard the word. Equally it must being pretty awful being a heathen: at any given time, there are probably twenty missionaries trying to bore you into Christianity.

Hard by where the bus had dropped us off there was a taxi rank. Well there was a sign that said taxi rank and a single taxi by it. What luck! And the driver was willing to take us the 20km to Jesus for Ł2, as long as we didn't mind sharing the cab with five other people. His car was spectacular: entirely lacking any sort of ignition, it had to be push started each and every time; it had no plates; no apparent suspension; and its petrol tank was a plastic bottle. The car would probably have been very dangerous, had it been able to move any faster than 40km/h. Luckily Paraguayan roads, most of which are made in a fashion the Romans would recognise ensure that most car crashes are soporific affairs that all involved can walk away from.

welcome to Jesus

Jesus itself is no great shakes. But it does show you how underdeveloped Paraguay is. Like everyone lives in a house that would be considered hick in South East Asia. I mean, it's cute and everything, but it looks like a place almost entirely untouched by the 21st century. Or, for that matter, the 20th.

At Jesus (as well as taking plenty of pictures of road signs) we also looked around a ruined mission. Ex Peru, South America doesn't have much in the way of ruins and, I have to say, this wasn't at all bad. Built out of red sandstone, strong and foursquare, it reminded me of the ruined abbeys in the north of England, although the palm trees rather gave the lie to this. After this came another, rather better mission which had five (!) other tourists in it: an American couple who, I suspect, may have been Jesuits themselves, a pair of Swiss girls ...