The White House and Other Pictures

I finally got to see Downtown Asuncion today!  It’s meant to be the Royal Mile of Asuncion, the Manhattan of the city.  Danny had provided me with a touristy city map a few days ago filled with 5 small pictures of the must see parts of the city (all of which seemed to be clustered around the unfortunately-named Avenue Colon near the Rio Paraguay).  As the ACA’s old film has a few seconds of Downtown as a view of the city, I thought it wise to have a couple also.

I was going to take the bus, but was encouraged not to as there is no direct bus, just one that takes forever to cover half the streets in the city regions on the way, so I got a ride with Pedro.  Pedro speaks as much English as I speak Spanish, so we had a good time acting like very small children pointing at things like ‘car,’ ‘tree,’ and ‘strong wind,’ and acting out scenarios such as ‘daylight robbery’ and ‘police officer shooting person with pump-action shot gun’ (complete with sound effects) and comparing the weather, the robbers and the traffic with Britain (Britain, I explained, has less “fire from the sky” -sun-, has less daylight robberies, and fewer people carry bang bangs).

As we were heading off, the strong wind we talked about with hand gestures, pointed fingers and sound effects, picked up as a storm was blowing in.  Typical, it had until then been a week and a half of sunshine with the occasional puny cloud obscuring the sun’s glare.

On the way we passed the remnants of the city’s train system (just a few locos and carriages parked by the road with no tracks to provide them with an escape)... 

...and got to the place in the picture below which appeared to be the Paraguay version of the White House.  I hung out the car with a camera as we passed it, only to realise there was a platoon of army men looking at the approaching threat.  I felt it best that we should stop and demonstrate our non-threat by being touristy rather than set off at speed.  As we parked nearby Pedro asked one of the soldiers if I could film (and I suspected the pistol he had holstered was a fake plastic gun, but I didn’t want to say anything), and he said we could film, so we were OK and not dispatched.

From there I got to see my first view of the Rio Paraguay, the great river that runs through Paraguay.  Argentina on the other side didn’t seem far enough away or suitably different to be believable as another country altogether.  In fact I didn’t realise it was Argentina until I got back, looked at the pictures, and remembered that the river acted as the boundary between the 2 nations at this point.

The presidential White House (with its pink hut placed on top the white building like a scoop of peach ice cream to add to the vanilla) was set amongst a few acres of fancy, old buildings (in fact all the ones pictured on the map), and immediately behind them, sandwiched between the presidential grandeur and the river’s sandbanks, was a large shanty town.  From the stairs down to it I could see the storm picking up clouds of sand from the banks and blowing them over the horizon.  As the kids and I watched the sight, some of the local fuzz approached the tourist with a camera, possibly to get a bribe (if travel books and advice are to be believed), but I saw them coming and headed off before they could shake me down for the £3.40 in local loot I have.  Pedro said it was a lucky escape.

We moved onto a grand museum which was three levels high and was to celebrate Paraguay’s 200 (now 201) year history.  It was probably the most sparse museum I have ever seen.  There were a few statues of 4 or 5 famous Paraguayans from its past 200 years complete with huge papier mâché heads.  There was also a serious-looking decapitated head on a stake in a room of flags, a canoe so long and dark I mistook it for a while as a beam to hold up the ceiling, and some instruments.  

It was a bit disappointing, but the mens toilets had a narrow spiral staircase that led up to the roof (to make up for its apparent lack of anything more than a sink) where I got a good view of the shanty town the museum on the country’s greatness overshadowed.