My time in the PY countryside

This year, instead of staying in Asuncion for Christmas and New Year's, I decided to travel up north to the countryside to spend the holidays with my friend Eli and her family. It was super sweet of her to invite me. Either way it was going to be hard to be without my family for the holidays, so it was nice to get to spend it with her family.

The first place we went to is a city called Pedro Juan Cabellero. It was about a 6hr bus ride north and lies on the border of PY and Brazil. We left at 10:30 Friday night (Dec 23) and actually thought we would get in around 6am, but ended up arriving at 4:30am. Unfortunately, her cousin's cell phone was turned off, so we just had to sit and wait until 6 when they came and got us! not super fun, but what are you going to do?

It reminded me though of the ONE time my mom took us three kids on a bus from Colorado to Texas to visit the grandparents. We got to the bus terminal early as well and my poor mom then had to entertain 3 young kids for a couple of hours at like 5am!(I was probably like 9 or so, my brother 6 and my sister 3). Yea, that couldn't have been much fun for her!! It's a fun memory now though!

So, here is a sign welcoming me to the great city! It has the 2 flags - PY and Brazil since we are on the border of the 2 countries.

Now, look closely at the pic below - What's funny is that the on the right side of this picture is the building with the flags that is located in PY. But if you look across the street, you see a white building and that building is in Brazil. That's it, that's all you have to do to get to Brazil, just cross the street. How crazy is that? We can't even imagine that happening in the US! What's also interesting is that because it is right on the border, the people here speak this mix of Portuguese and Guarani (indigenous language). Most people actually don't speak Spanish here, or at least don't like to. The only reason Eli and her brothers and sisters speak Spanish is because her mom spoke Spanish to them growing up, before she died.Her family did speak Spanish to me, but given the choice they would quickly go back to Guarani to speak to each other.



Pedro Juan is a small city, but it is actually pretty nice. It has supermarkets and a huge outdoor market for buying whatever you need. There seemed to be something like a mall, but we didn't go inside so not sure. Plus there are all the stores on the Brazil side, so definitely tons of shopping there. The main streets are paved, but the ones in the neighborhoods like this one just have the rocky streets.



The house was pretty nice. This is a pic of the front of the house. Eli's cousin Lali, her husband and two kids live in the front. Then they have a big yard and another small house in the back where we stayed. Lali's sister, husband and kids also live in the mini-house out back. We apparently slept where the kids normally sleep. There was no hot water in the showers, and no fans on the ceilings but other than that they had everything. The nice part about the city was that during the day it was decently warm (maybe 80s, low 90s) but at night it was nice and cool! It was soooooo refreshing - especially after the week we had in Asuncion with 110 degree temps!



(House in the back where we stayed)



Here is a pic of the whole family. They were all so super sweet and loving. It was really nice spending time with them!

So, I have decided that Christmas in Paraguay is a combination of Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve.
How is it like Thanksgiving? Well Eli's cousin Lali is married and we spent the evening with her husband's family - random I know. But there were a TON of people there...friends, family everyone was invited it seemed! And they were making a HUGE feast with ALL the fixin's, as you can see in the pic below. The coolers at the end of the table are filled with chopped up beef and pork that they grilled - SOO yummy!

How is it like New Year's? Well despite all the food being on the table, we couldn't eat it until midnight. At about 11:45, someone turned on the radio in the car and we counted down until Christmas..literally 10,9,8... Then everyone went around wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and then it was time to eat (we were starving by then of course!)

It was fun though. We stayed until about 1:30am and then walked home and crashed.



Here is a pic of typical xmas decor in PY. There aren't a ton of xmas lights, but everyone puts up manger scenes...everyone = families in their houses, the mall, government buildings..everyone! =)

I am sure I have mentioned in a previous post about a drink here called terere. As a quick reminder, they put basically tea leaves/herbs in a cup and then pour ice cold water over it and drink it. I have never ever been a tea drinker (just ask my fam), so have never really gotten into drinking terere here. But here is the problem, Paaraguayans love their terere and the custom is that a group of people sit and hang and drink terere together. One person pours the water and then passes the cup to one person. That person drinks, hands the cup back to the server, the server pours water in the cup again, passes it to the next person and it goes around in a circle like that, just drinking, sharing the one cup....
Now all of my friends here accept the fact that I don't drink terere. But I also had a friend tell me once that sharing terere with someone is a sign of trust, of friendship... it is more than just a drink. So basically, so as not to offend Elí's family, I drank more terere in that week, than in my entire 2+ years in PY!! LOL In the end, I decided that if it wasn't too strong or too bitter, then it wasn't too hard to drink it. Not sure I am ready to go out and buy it for myself, but at least I made a good impression with the family! So here is a pic of me, proudly drinking terere! HA



Next is a picture of the CRAZY caterpillar that attacked me the morning of Christmas Eve. Ok maybe "attack" is a little strong, but.... I saw this cool guy on a tree and of course being the sciency person that I am had to take some pics (it was probably 2 inches long and it's hair was probably about an inch long as well). Honestly, not really sure what happened after that. I went back to my room to put my camera away, sat down outside, got up to do something else and some how in there, the caterpillar fell on the back of my shirt on my right shoulder. I remember trying to figure out what was making my back itch, I thought my clothes or something were just bugging me. I ended up reaching around with my left hand, almost grabbing the thing before realizing what I had just done. Oh boy did that guy get me! I screamed, Eli screamed and grabbed my shirt, her cousin came and got it off with a broom and killed it (I am sure it actually would've been pretty funny to watch from the outside).
And that is when the intense pain begin. My fingers burned and swelled up, my back burned and the pain spread through my arms and chest. Now I admit I was probably being a BIT dramatic in my thinking, but I definitely thought "God, I really don't want to die in PY from a stupid caterpillar!" But with the pain spreading, and me crying from it, we decided it was a good idea to head to a doctor. So I hopped on a motorcycle with Eli's cousin (only way to really get around in Pedro Juan) and headed to a doctor at the local pharmacist. He gave me an antihistamine shot and I think something for the pain and I went back and slept for a couple of hours. When I woke up, the pain in my chest and arms was gone and was just left with the intense burning in my fingers and my back - definite progress I thought. Fortunately the pain lessened as the day went on and I woke up Christmas morning feeling a TON better.

What's funny is that the story then had to be told the rest of the day to anyone who came by to visit. I was then reminded of the time when I was 7 years old, and was visiting my grandparents in Texas at their farm. I went in the chicken coop to collect eggs and the turkey they also had in there attacked me (do we see a pattern here?). Literally every time I went to visit my grandparents after that, they had to tell the story of me being attacked by the turkey (we are talking like 25 years later even!). SO I am sure that if I were ever to go back and visit Eli's family in Pedro Juan, I would once again hear the story of the crazy caterpillar that attacked me! LOL I am glad that I can laugh about it now ;)



COME ON! It TOTALLY looks dangerous right??? LOL


Monday morning (Dec 26th), we got up at 5am, and Eli's cousin's husband drove us from Pedro Juan to Tacuati where most of the rest of Eli's family lives. Eli's dad and step-mom live here. She has 4 brothers and one sister. Her sister also lives in Tacuati, she has one brother in Asuncion, and 3 brothers in Buenos Aires. Only one of the BA brothers came to Tacuati to visit, the others just stayed in Asuncion and Argentina. But her grandparents and a TON of aunts, uncles and cousins also live here. Apparently every other person I met was somehow related! LOL

We woke up to fog that morning, something I definitely hadn't seen in awhile. It reminded me of Tucson actually, we used to always get fog early in the mornings. It was about a 3 and a half hour ride over there, and we were just glad we didn't have to pay for the bus!






The last 25 miles or so (about 40 km) is on this red dirt road. Apparently the president signed off to give the area money to pave the road, since it is a mess when it rains. But given the wide-scale corruption in the PY government, the money was quickly pocketed by the politicians and so the road remains the way it is, it really is a shame actually.




Tacuati is a MUCH smaller town. All the roads are dirt roads, there are no major supermarkets or malls. Just small stores on the corners. But it is a very peaceful place. Eli's dad was constantly off visiting people and people were constantly coming to the house to come visit us. It just had that nice small town feel - Everyone was just so super nice and friendly!

We stayed at her father's house - these 2 pics show the back yard.The bathroom was outside, but had a way to heat the water for the shower. The house also had a ceiling fan, which was definitely needed because it got hot during the day. But there were also a lot of trees, so we usually just sat under the shade of the trees and chilled.

The real draw to the city is the huge river that flows through the area, called the Ypané river. The river is so pretty and clean. The people in Tacuati really take pride in their river! I would love to just float down it for awhile - the water moves quickly, but isn't that deep, which was nice.

Here is a pic of Eli and her sister Zulma, her brother Jhonny and her 2 nephews - the older one is Kevin and the younger one is Kaiki (Brazilian name). We went to the river just about every day and it was awesome! I think most know that I LOVE the water and definitely miss being by the ocean. So this was a FUN treat for me! =)

I brought the UNO cards and a regular deck of cards with me. Walter (Eli's son) and her 2 nephews just loved playing cards every day! =)

As I said, we were constantly visiting with people. The guy in the red shirt is Eli's uncle, next is Eli's dad, then a cousin and then her son Walter. We were all outside drinking terere together until it was time to have lunch together.

So obviously with us being in the country side, most people just kill something and eat it - LOL. FYI - I did NOT actually kill this chicken, but everyone wanted to take a pic of me pretending to kill the chicken!! I left the actual killing to Eli's dad. I posted this pic on FB and it got a ton of comments, which is hilarious! =) Afterwards, Eli put the dead chicken in hot water, which makes it easier to clean off the feathers and then she cooked us up a nice lunch with pasta and chicken- yum!






New Year's quickly came and so it was time to kill a pig and stick it over a fire for it to slowly cook for like 7 hours. ;) We of course didn't eat until midnight, so the pig had all afternoon/evening to cook. You can see the before and after photos here. Man was that one delicious pig! There was TONS of other food to eat, but I pretty much just focused on the delicious pork! haha






"WHAT? Is there anything left??"

" soo yummy, let's eat more!"



So we rang in the new year eating a delicious meal and then it was time to get dressed and head out for the town's party. The tradition here is to wear white on New Year's - guess Eli forgot that tradition! LOL The party was ok, can't say the music was all that great. We just hung out with all of her cousins and sister and brother. We got home and went to bed around 5:30am. I think the rest of the town headed to the river afterwards and spent the whole day there partying it up, grilling, dancing, swimming.... We slept, ate lunch and made our way over to the river around 4pm that afternoon.It was crazy the amount of people that were at the river when we got there, but everyone was definitely having fun!




Here is a pic of the family - Jhonny, Kevin, Zulma and Nico (Zulma's husband), Kaiki, Walter and Eli.

They were all soooo super sweet and loving towards me. Despite the fact that most of her cousins didn't want to talk to me because of their lack of Spanish, I still felt the love from everyone.LOL But it was just nice to get away from the city and enjoy the simple life. Now, don't get me wrong, I have no desire to actually live in the country (haha), but to go and visit - definitely. It was so much better that I had hoped and expected and would definitely be willing to go back and visit them all again! =)

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday filled with much love and joy!

Hugs!