My trip to Encarnacion

A couple of weeks ago my friend Karina invited me to travel to Encarnacion with her to visit her family. Encarnacion is a 6 hour bus ride away and is on the southeastern part of the country. It was a city I had been wanting to see, so of course I said yes! Just about all of her extended family lives in Buenos Aires., so over the weekend, her family was basically having a big reunion and I got to be a part of it. Many people from Paraguay end up moving to Buenos Aires because the job opportunities are better than Asuncion.
Here is a pic of me and the fam.




Here are pics of her house.



OK side note here: One thing I realize that haven’t talked about is the “national” drink here – mate or terrere. Whether it is winter or summer, they put herbs into a cup called a “guampa.” You can buy a bag of the herbs in the store, but the true traditionalists use fresh herbs and have their own special recipe! Then if it is winter time, they pour hot water over it (mate) and drink it. In the summer it is ice cold water (terrere). Everyone here loves it and everyone here loves to sit around drinking it. In fact there is usually one person who pours the water and passes the cup to person A. Person A then drinks all the water in the guampa and hands it back. The person then pours in more water and hands the cup to person B and so on and so forth. Personally I don’t like it at all, but then again I have never been a big tea drinker in general. They hate it when you say no, although most are fairly understanding about it. Most people will also tell you that in the summer, they feel it quenches their thirst better than just plain water – guess I have to trust them on that!
Here is a photo of a thermos used in the summer. This is of course an expensive version – many just use plain thermoses (yes it is a regular thermos covered in leather). The thermoses in the winter are the tall, skinny, metal kinds that you usually see people have when they drink coffee.


Here is a photo of a VERY simple guampa – there are definitely MUCH fancier ones (hmm will try and get a photo of some of those later). The straw-thing next to it is called the “bombillo” and is what you drink the water with. You can see the holes at the bottom that will keep the herbs separate from the water when you drink it.


Cultural note:
Argentina – ONLY drink mate, and usually add sugar to it to sweeten it up. They also don’t carry it around with them. They prefer to sit in their houses and drink it/share it.
Uruguay – Again, ONLY drinks mate, but EVERYONE takes their thermos EVERYWHERE. I mean on the bus, to work, to school, to the mall, to the beach (don’t get that one personally). You always see people carrying it with them.
Paraguay – Only country to drink it hot and cold (mainly because of the extreme heat here) and they too carry it everywhere.
They don't drink this is Chile (at least not that I saw), and am not quite sure about Brazil. I have heard they use fruit juice instead of water, but not sure if it is the whole country or just specific places.


Anyway, Saturday was a big dinner at a neighborhood club. We probably all went to sleep around 4am! So Sunday ended up being a lazy day. We sat around outside, chatted and chilled and they drank terrere (actually have no idea how to spell that word). If you look close enough, the uncle on the right is drinking and there is a pitcher of water on the table.


Later after lunch on Sunday, Karina took me on a tour of her city. Here are a couple of photos.



Encarnacion actually has 2 parts to it - a lower part and an upper part. The photos above are the upper part. The photos below are the lower part. Apparently the lower part actually lies below sea level, so it is extremely easy for water to accumulate there, as you can tell from the photos below. I guess this area used to be a big area of commerce, but everyone has had to move and now they are trying to build up the land so people can use it again.





I took a midnight bus back to Asuncion on Sunday night so I could have Monday (a national holiday) to get ready to start work that Tuesday. It was a short trip, and I know there was more to see. Maybe I will get a chance to go back and explore some more. But I know that Karina was just happy to introduce me to her family and show me a bit of her city!

FYI: I am currently teaching 3rd graders at an elementary school. I teach Mon-Thu 12:30-3:30pm. I am also teaching an English class on Sat morning for 12 year olds from 9am-12pm. So I am definitely staying busy right now! No time for traveling now! haha =)