Peek at Paraguay#6 To Conclude

 

I am trying to think of questions to ask myself about Paraguay to see how I can wrap it all up in a closing statement, paragraph or feeling. Or at least some way I finish the final details to this 6 part scratch at the surface.

I think about is how Paraguay is water, so much water, in the river that wraps itself around her borders or the many waterfalls stitched into her sides. Even the air, humid and never a worry about whats coming out of the taps. One man told me that the water in Paraguay is so clean and full of minerals that there is enough there to sustain us all for another 30,000 years.

Paraguay, massive commerce. The surrounding countries pass through to take advantage of the exchange rate because it is just so cheap by comparison to neighbouring Brasil and Argentina. We hitchhiked with a wonderful Argentinian couple of Arabic heritage, who lived close enough to the border that they were going for a day trip to buy new smart phones for their children.

The busses, big and boxy in style, painted fantastic colours and battered on the inside, some even had wooden floors and the stuffing from the chairs long sat flat and hard. Each one I saw brought me joy and painted a dream of one becoming my tour bus one day.

The capital Asuncion, so small, so manageable, not a high rise in sight, one small street of nightlife and everything closed on Sundays. Respectful, religious, conservative. Pavements cracked and old crumbling Colonial buildings, low slung wires tethering moss covered pillars, majestic replaced with spooky and white walls grubbed from the exhaust fumes. The grand looking governmental houses lit up all purple on white, and the slum, corrugated iron roofs thatched over chicken wire and loud televisions that crouched behind them.

And us, the the wandering few that descended on this small country for the national circus convention, how we looped in around each other from neighbouring countries. Bumping into each other from our separate ways, swapping stories of where we had been, giving tips on where to go, sharing meals, circus knowledge and spots to work, united by our balls, our hoops, our clubs and unicycles.