I am well aware that in the grand scheme of things, especially for a retiree with nothing but time on his hands and no appointments, a day or two more of standing still is nothing. But all this waiting is burning me up. Not that I show it. Publicly I accept my fate with good grace, but here in my diary page where one day I shall look back and remember, it is a slow grind to get through the day and not scream with frustration. I take my lead from my dog (my wife’s as bad as I am in this respect).
The 3000 watt Inverter which is paid for, is in Caacupé but the parcel delivery service is still sorting out the packages in the latest delivery to town and should be available for pick up Monday afternoon at two. That could mean we will spend Monday night somewhere other than here as we make a tourist journey at slow but constant speed toward Ciudad del Este on the Brazilian border.
We want to see a bit more of Paraguay by driving the southern edge along the mighty Paraná River, smaller than the Amazon of course but much the largest body of water touching four countries in the southern half of the continent.
While Paraguay has no coastline it has traditionally controlled steamships’ access to the interior of this region. Nowadays trucks and roads do the heavy lifting but a hundred and fifty years ago the river was the best way to move freight from the interior to the coast and Paraguay controlled the river. I want to see it. I know it’s just a river but it represents history.
In 1864 about the time the US was wrapping up its rebellion Brazil and Argentina supported by a token 800 Uruguayan troops attacked Paraguay. It was a long involved story of politics gone wrong and a mad desire to fight in what is called the War of the Triple Alliance or the War of Paraguay. The weird thing was Paraguay went into it thinking they could win as they had a huge army and a navy that controlled the river and it was only after six years that they ended up getting soundly beaten and the country lost 350,000 people out of a population of 500,000. You read that right. After the war Paraguay was much smaller having lost territory everywhere and only 150,000 people remained alive, with women outnumbering men 4 to 1. Just mind boggling. It’s worth reading about to get an idea of how mad people can become over territorial boundaries.
Paraguay is an enigma. I won’t pile on all at once because it’s too much but the story of Jesuit missions and their subsequent expulsions is another extraordinary story. It just goes on and on in this little no account country. Look underneath the stereotype and it’s full of magical realism. Anyway time for lunch.
We went back to El Mundo the Swiss eatery and took mark from the campground. We spent $30 on a full service lunch, Layne had alcohol and I had dessert and we each had a plate of pork stroganoff with rosti (Swiss hash browns).
The rosti was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. It was the best rosti I’ve had, a food I frequently describe as Swiss hash browns. 
Mark joined me in having dessert, a tiramisu. 
This is weird isn’t, eating Swiss food in a small village no one’s ever heard of in the middle of Paraguay. There’s stuff going on in the world that defies explanation. 
Rusty enjoyed the cool tiled floor at the restaurant and I can’t wait to get him out of this heat. I think he’s ready to travel as he’s walking normally now.
Back at the campground we saw a new arrival, a motorcycle and tent which had arrived while we were gone. Turns out of course it was just another German youth let loose on South America. Alex it turns out speaks fluent English, worked for a multinational American company and then quit to ride around the world.
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