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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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and a strange (and possibly angry) loner. Again, but for the heat, we could have been in Northumbria.

your best mate

Interestingly, also like the English, the Paraguayans love their tea. My God, do they love it; they make us look like part timers when it comes to drinking the stuff. Well, strictly speaking it's not tea, but something called Mate. Basically Mate looks like marijuana or oregano and tastes a little like green tea. You fill a vessel (traditionally a gourd or horn) with the stuff and pour on water. You then sip your mate though a silver straw. The whole ensemble looks a bit like opium smoking equipment This is a sociable drink (though one with no narcotic effect) and it is often passed around, with people pouring more hot water one as they go. There is enough mate in one cup to ensure that the taste stays strong for a session. What is extraordinary, though is the ubiquity of the stuff. People walk down the street drinking mate, they drive motorbikes drinking mate; they sit on the beach drinking mate. Every Paraguayan will own a gourd, a straw and a thermos to carry hot water around in. As the crappy pun goes, in Paraguay you really are never without your mate.

para gone

And then it was time to go. Paraguay para una dia. Of course unless you are talking about a country like Monaco, you get little sense of a country in a day and I felt rather bad, having not done the place any sort of justice. Shame. It really was rather pleasant and I'd missed all the good bits. The endless thorn forest of the Gran Chaco, the wildlife of the Panatal, the river journeys and the faded, tatty 19th Century idealism of the capital, Asuncion. There is also often a rather charming sort of innocence about countries which receive as few tourists as this one. I would like to say that I'll be back. But let's face it, that's not very likely is it?

March 3 , 2003

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