What time is it?!

I woke up this morning absolutely clueless as to the time. Every flight I have got on has seen the clocks edging further backwards, and by the time I arrived in Paraguay my mobile had run out of battery. I decided, not sure on what criteria, last night that Paraguay was 3 hrs behind GMT+1 which is what the phone is on now and set it accordingly. However, the phone charger didn´t work overnight - dunno why - so the phone was completely dead this morning. Aha, thinks I, I´ll look on the TV. It was summat o´clock and the TV has 80 odd channels so news programmes weren´t hard to fall over. But of course this is South America and everyone except the Brasilians speaks Spanish. Which country is channel N1 for? Or CNN in Español? Or any of the other myriad of news programmes? All show a little clock and my choices range from 6am to 8am. Decided to go for the middle one - it´s 7am, I´ll get up. Quick text session with Brian didn´t reveal any clues, and I phoned every number on the switchboard to ask but no answer.

Spend an hour or so finishing the presentation and then go into flat panic thinking "What if I´ve guessed wrong? The bus goes at 10", pack everything, and dash out into the corridor to find a chambermaid, who tells me it´s about 8!! Giggle at my stupidity, vow to buy a world clock, set the phone to Paraguay time, which probably isn´t Bolivia time, and I may find myself arriving in Bolivia about the time I set off which may or may not be in time for the event that I have been flown out here for! As you can imagine, Liang was pretty pissed off yesterday when I phoned to see they had cancelled the flight. With any luck, the new plane they were bringing in from Buenos Aires has arrived overnight and I won´t have yet another day here.

So, back to Paraguay. The houses are quite grand, colonial style I would say as a complete unarchitect, and it´s so hot that it´s no wonder they have huge porches with columns on - should let a little of the non-existent air through. Outside of town, everyone seems to live in ranches, and there is an overbearing sense of red. Red roofs (or is it rooves?), soil, walls etc. Asuncion doesn´t seem very big and from upstairs I can see the Chaco stretching for miles into the distance. Did I see Paraguay seems waterlogged in my last posts or was that wiped? Well, it is exactly how I imagined it to be in the flat bit of LatAm with broad, meandering rivers filling the landscape.

There is poverty here. Every street corner and bus shelter has its resident salesperson. From weird looking fritter things I don´t think I´m vaccinated to eat, through shades, tapes, hats, crisps, fruit that I reckon could be pomegranates but really bumpy, and all sorts of other tat that you can´t quite imagine a casual passerby needing. The airport had a tribe of well-presented urchins in blue tshirts saying lustrabotas, who lugged overlarge shoe cleaning kits around and hassled everyone, even if wearing sandals! There were also some Indian women with woven bags, bracelets, necklaces made from local stones etc, so I grabbed a handful of goodies for the girls to dish out in school. At 5 dollars, I hardly felt ripped off but they obviously felt I was a mug!

UK could also learn something from the number of coppers on the street. They are everywhere, loitering with their shades on and fingering their truncheons. They are also symbolic of every Hispanic man in uniform (massive generalisation!)- not to be trifled with. Full of their own sense of self-importance, and of course, always right. Especially if you have dollars to be parted from. However, the people on the whole seem very friendly, honest and laid back. It wqas a bit concerning to be told not to wander far from the hotel, even in daylight, so I haven´t really been out much. It´s also too damned hot to leave the aircon comfort of the hotel. 35 degrees first thing in the monring and due to get hotter. I presume this is the end of summer, so god knows what it´s like at Christmas!!

Anyway, time to go and find a last cup of tea, nick all the Simba from the fridge (even if it is made by the Coca Cola company) because it is a delicious guarana drink that wipes out exhaustion. However, I expect to be having to drink coca tea over the weekend as we head into the Andes to check out these projects, so I´ll feel better ethically about that!!

Next stop Bolivia??? One can only hope!

Sproglet on PC next to me has just logged on to Neopets- it´s like being at home!! But she doesn´t speak English, so that must be desperately frustrating that there isn´t a Spanish version.