Asuncion

Jumping on an westbound red-eye Nuestra Señora bus from CdE para recoger a Tiffany was a whole bunch of things, but it also seemed like the only thing to do. I had been comforted that Tiffany's first trip into Paraguay would be with a good friend (la Nina) who had been living in South America for the past year. But, as things go, the Andean pass a Mendoza had a snow storm, forcing the aforementioned sitch. Up until the last minute we weighed the pros of me staying in Ciudad del Este to continue whatever it was I was doing... 

(probably drinking tereré )

to the pros of seeing each other as soon as possible and, you know, the national capital and all. The latter one won out, por supuesto.

Asunción's "tourist train," revived after much consternation, is apparently again defunct.

Paraguay has many quirks, but this route between its two biggest cities is largely free of them. I arrived in a somnolent, Sunday Asunción; agreed bleary-eyed to the first offer of a taxi, but felt potent in my Spanish and bus-setter status as I was ferried across the suburbs to the airport. When I arrived, the previous day's arrivals were still on the screen, so I took advantage of the cellular companies much-touted free wi-fi, the airport's one bank of padded seats, and a little bit of tereré and settled in to wait for Tiffany while the airport woke up. 

We tested out the camera Tiffany had brought when we got to our hotel

We soon were walking though the ghostlike Sunday streets in search of food. Although Tiffany had her doubts, my choice was clear, the regular reunion point for author John Gimlette during his time in Asunción: Lido Bar. He mused historical one day while sitting under the sidewalk umbrellas in his book At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig,

It had occurred to me, whilst we were sitting in The Lido, that there was another figure on the Paraguayan landscape. He was everywhere. He was clustered at every crossroads. He was at the airport and on the bridge that led to Brazil. He nuzzled into his clones, making his bubble-gum pink rubber body squeak obscenely: the inflatable pig. He'd come from overseas and the citizens had received him, joylessly and yet, it seemed with fervour. 

Tiffany was freshly reading the book and exclaimed excitedly that the tomb of Francisco Solano Lopez (and several other significant leaders) was right across the street. We took out our chanchito (the only thing I had bought so far in the sprawling mall of CdE) and celebrated with a fotosesh. 

Nuestra chancita enfrente de la tomba de los "heroes"

Chanchito y Lopez Jr.

We're obviously not a fan of this asshat. Lopez Jr. was probably the worst thing to ever happen to Paraguay. But it felt like we had come full circle being able to view his tomb, as At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig (given to me by the aforementioned Nina, por casualidad). The catastrophic destruction and loss of life Paraguay suffered under his reign can still be felt palpably today. More on that later.

"Ahora podemos decir que hemos comido y aprechado de Lido Bar."

Touchdown Miami

Ok, so this post is just the rambling story, old school style, of my layover in Miami. However, I wanted to get something up here and this is what I got at the moment...

I was awakened by an excited squeak from one of the junior stewards:

“Flight attendants, prepare for landing!”

It seemed improbable that we could be so close so soon after I had curled up into my odd, unattached bulkhead seat at the front of economy class. However, I have come to blindly trust the announcements of the flight crew. Do they ever joke? It must be interesting to have such a serious job while buzzing through the skies and doing improbable things like pushing archaic, narrow metal carts through carpeted, light-rimmed channels only millimeters less narrow or pushing bags bursting at their seams into bins that permit absolutely no bursting. It all seems rather comical to me, but perhaps I am alone in that sentiment.

The airport was rather uneventful, but quite pleasant. Another crew announcement reminded me of the Admiral’s Club, its appropriateness for the fifteen hour layover I was about to enjoy, and that although I no longer had the fancy platinum status that permits entry, I had somehow ‘earned’ a voucher for a day pass from a social network I did nothing for except give up vast amounts of personal data. I slept for a few hours, took advantage of their complimentary beverages and headed out to town.

Just waiting for the bus seemed very Miami. There was a skylight in the bus stand so you could see shining blue sky and soft fluffy clouds even while tolerating the throes of American public transportation.

I hopped off the bus at the first signs of South Beach. Everything was bright: bright white art deco hotels, bright green gently swaying palm trees, bright bikinis, bright tiny shirts and shorts covering up bright bikinis, that bright shining blue sky with its soft fluffy companions.

 

Within a block I saw a big sign atop one of the bright white art deco hotels: Maxine. It just begged for that sunshine to go away so it could show off its neon brightness. It looked abandoned to me, but I suppose that is just what neon looks like during the day because when I got closer I discovered this was an open-air diner of sorts. Having consumed approximately five glasses of ice tea and one cliff bar, with the hour approaching 2pm, I decided this was the place for me.

To my surprise the waitress was not surprised I was alone. I got a perfect seat on a large cabana with a trio of young (but not too young to be loud) men to my right and a couple surprisingly hands-on for being engaged in talk of their parents’ career paths to my left.

“Oh man, that looks good!” I cooed when the youngish men’s abundant meal of eggs in various croissant and benedict vessels arrived. “I didn’t even see the breakfast menu.”

“Yeah, this is the stuff right here.” They all nodded, proudly, as if I had offered that ultimate confirmation every restaurant orderer dreams of. They were polite enough to say mine looked good too, once it arrived. But it didn’t. It was a double cheeseburger with no bun and anyone who has seen any form of burger without a bun and not otherwise shielded by lettuce, knows it is like mistakenly seeing an aging aunt in the nude. Burgers are NOT meant to be nude.

To my dismay the youngish men asked the server for instructions on using the bus. All that work was in vain – they would not be able to take me out on their boat or show me the secret beach of spectacular beauty. They were only tourists. Oh well, at least now my belly will stick out painfully and help make me feel at home on the not secret beach of normal people.

As I walked I became increasingly aware of my inappropriate dress. Not only was I wearing muted blue, ivory and heather grey (no neon or gold to be seen), but I had multiple layers on both top and bottom (which kept my entire body fully insulated against the breeze in the 95 degree heat / 85% humidity) and, probably most offensively, except for my arms, all my skin was covered. Given that I was actually wearing a slip under my long dress, I managed to be probably the only female, of any age, within a hundred miles, whose upper thighs (or at least their outline) were not on display. Little did the public know, I was actually saving them from viewing my exceptionally pale skin, which, in large quantities, has a blinding quality. Although come to think of it, I would have blended into the art deco buildings perfectly.

 

I wandered through shops of stringy neon clothing and throngs of people wearing them towards the beach for what seemed like forever.

“Excuse me, miss, would you like a sample of face cream?” An eastern European girl with blonde dreads tied onto the top of her head shoved a small diamond-shaped packet into my hand.)

“Um…sure. Which way is the beach?”

She almost undiscernibly pointed back the way I came. “What do you use for your sunspots?”

Slightly offended, “I don’t know. Are you sure its that way?”

“Come inside, I want to show you something.” She started walking to the door of her shop, the Crystal Cream shop or something similarly Miami/bizarre.

“Oh, no, I need to get to the beach. Are you sure it’s that way?”

Now it was her turn to be offended. Her eyes said, no wonder you have so many sunspots and her mouth said, “Of course  I’m sure.” Both valid answers. Both not what I wanted to hear.

“Thanks.”

When I finally found it (within eyesight of my first, wrong, turn off the main drag), it was far more beautiful than I had imagined. Most definitely the most beautiful beach I had been to in the US (I have not been to Hawaii). I found a little spot nestled next to a group of beautiful Brazilian teenagers, an extremely tan aging couple and a trio of pale Spaniards. I had a few minutes of quiet before I was startled, “You getting a tan there?”

Before I could see who was speaking I was already laughing. “Obviously not. I don’t really get tans.” It was the old, possibly homeless man who I left out of my earlier beach surrounds description. He had a pink plastic cup from a nearby hotel. It was filled with slices of an unidentifiable citrus fruit, a watery brown liquid and about a half inch of that silky fine Miami beach sand. He slurped at it occasionally, trudging back to his crumpled, yellowing yellow towel to refill it when our conversation lulled.

“Where are you from?”

“California.”

“When did you get here?”

“6 O’clock this morning.”

“Oh, so you came straight here?”

“More or less, yes.” I was grinning.

“When do you leave?”

“At 11 o’clock tonight.”

“Well, that’s a short trip.” He almost slurred when he spoke, but it was tempered by the accent of someone long speaking a language, but never really caring much how it sounded.

“What’s your name?”

“Tiffany.”

“Oh, like New York.”

“I was born there.” He nodded knowingly. “What’s yours?”

“Eugene.”

“That’s my grandfather’s name.” He nodded approvingly.

I’m not sure why, but I really liked making him laugh. It was a roaring hoot that recruited his whole body to join in; he almost spilled his cup of orange (or lemon) sandbeer every time.  So we kept talking.

I told him what I did and he said I should talk to Steve Jobs about saving Africa. He told me what he did and I finally understood why his hands were covered in flat, dark blisters and most fingers were losing their covers in sheets. He was a chemical engineer who seemed to have an eventful career, each of his stories was prefaced by, “I had gotten into the (fill in the blank) industry…” This was his intro for living in Simi Valley for a year, when the filler was nuclear, spending time in Texas, when the filler was oil, and landing in the Oakland airport once, when the filler was perfume. Now he had settled into cosmetics and explained that because I was good looking, I could start using anti-aging cream now and it would make sure I was beautiful for the rest of my life. This is as opposed to if I already had wrinkles, the creams can’t make those go away. “It’s all about prevention,” we agreed.

As we got into politics, his Southerness became achingly apparent. I had always thought it was just my family in Georgia who thought Obama was anti-American, but Eugene felt the same way. He said Dick Nixon was a good president, and Reagan. I asked about the Bushes. “Well they thought they could go into Iraq and do what they did in Afghanistan, but they messed it all up. They spent a lot of money on that, it wasn’t good for the country either.” We both laughed when he said ‘a lot of money’.

“Good presidents are hard to find,” we agreed.

After a while I began to fatigue. Actually I just really needed to use the bathroom and didn’t want to leave my things alone or even with Eugene. While he was kind and smart and up-to-date, he was also quite drunk, which nullifies any other abilities a potentially homeless stuff-minder candidate might have.  We shook hands, blisters and all, and he disappeared. I guessed into the ocean, as he left his stuff behind, no stuff-minder needed.

I meandered back to the airport, showered in the lounge and somehow managed to almost miss my flight talking to Matthew and trying to set up this blog to accept comments (which I still haven’t succeeded in doing). I heard them paging me from what seemed like miles down a huge, concrete passageway. Airports are so weird. I ran up and onto the flight – noting missionaries, Mennonites and ‘business’ men filling up the seats.