WEATHER: BLOODY HOT AND 38C
HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: The surprising city of Asuncion
BUMMER OF THE DAY: It’s bloody HOT
WORD OF THE DAY: It’s bloody HOT
It’s good to be back on the truck, not only does it bring me a day closer to Zeme arrival, we also save money. We really burned through some cash in Buenos Aires, so beside some snacks at the road stops we don’t spend any money on truck days. When we left Trinidad at 7.50am this morning the temperature was already 32C!!! At 7.50 in the morning!!!! This is going to be a HOT day today – be prepared for some body sweat today!! Ewwwwwwwwww
It is just another drive day today, nothing really to report. I had a headache this morning and I think it is just from lack of drinking water and trying to keep my fluids up during the day now that the weather has changed. The dilemma is if you drink and drink and drink on the truck, the inevitable is toilet stops and you just never know when the next one will be, in saying that we are pretty consistent in stopping every 2-3 hours, but there is nothing worse than a full bladder. So I rend to err on the side of caution and limited my water during the day and drink like a fish at night which probably defeats the purpose and hence the headache this morning.
Mark has mentioned an upgrade for the Amazon River cruise for the five nights that I am seriously thinking of doing. Currently Tucan have us booked on deck in hammocks. Firstly I am not a hammock person and secondly will there be one that will hold my weight? You can’t really sleep on the floor in deck as they squeeze as many people as they can on decks, so you have to have the hammock that doesn’t have the rod at the top for starters and then if you are on the floor you could get trod on, so the cabin is the only other option. After taking off the credit for the hammocks it works out to be approx... 500AUD for the cabin for 5 nights, for the aircon I think that would be worth it. Lock it in Eddie!!!! Speaking of hammocks, we had a stop at a roadside hammock stall for the guys going on after Rio to buy one for the cruise. I’m going to wait till Z gets here before making any hammock purchases which we probably aren’t going to need anyway.
We Arrived into Asuncion at 3.15pm and I was surprised at how beautiful the buildings are here. I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t that. They are in such good condition and well maintained. It was their 200 year anniversary last year, so I wonder if that had anything to do with the facelift look? It is a Sunday and like Buenos Aires it looked like a ghost town as we drove through to the hotel. All the shops closed no people on the streets and hardly any traffic. They obviously take Sundays as a day of rest quite seriously.
It was still bloody hot but after getting to our rooms and having 30 minutes to kick on the aircon to our rooms it was lovely to sit in some air-conditioned comfort after 2 days of sweating it out on the sauna on wheels. The hotel is awesome, we have a balcony that overlooks the road, free Wi-Fi and it looks like the rooms have recently been refurbished. A great way to spend our last hotel stay as we will be back in tents for the next 9 nights before getting into Rio. We went for our orientation tour and there is just basically 2 main streets of Asuncion that run paralleled to each other, with a few squares, Customs House and a Palace and just all the amazing architecture. Today was a good day to get photos as there was no one on the streets, I am sure it will be a different story when the start of a week kicks off and another Monday comes around for the ‘workers’.
I know I keep saying it, but man it was HOT. We all had red faces from just walking around and after an hour, as in all major cities we passed a McDonalds which was open, but we stopped at Burger King and we all ordered a GRANDE drink with lots of heilo (ice) and I have to say I think it was the best damn drink I have ever had in my life, and in the aircon of BK it was the best 2AUD I have spent in a long while! As everything was closed there was not much we could do anyway, but it was too hot as well, so we all headed back to enjoy the cool air of our rooms and watch some TV. I loaded some photos to Facebook and checked my emails to see if Z had any news on his visa. There was nothing, so I see it as no news is good news. Just as well as there are only 11 days till he gets here and I can’t wait to see him.
Dinner was at one of the very few restaurants that were open, a Spanish restaurant and I had paella and a drink and the cost was 60,000 Guarani’s!! Sounds a lot doesn’t it but in reality it is only 12AUD and it was a nice restaurant. A main meal and drink in a fancy restaurant for 12 bucks! I’m liking Paraguay already. Anything would seem cheaper to the cash we burned in BA anyways.
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