All Quiet on Plaza Uruguaya
Taking a bus in South America is always an adventure; even when the most average, everyday things happen en route, a bus just can´t escape the absurdity of travel. On my bus to Asuncion - which, though a direct bus, picked up every campesino it could find . the cobrador breaked for lunch in one of the small villages scattered along the rivers and hills of eastern Paraguay. The bus slowed in front of a restaurant, stopped, the corbador got out, paced to the counter, ordered, waited, got his plate of food and proceeded to eat this meal as our bus idled on the roadside, packed with farmers and chickens and exhausted Americans. Sometimes, you just have to laugh at these things or lose your mind.
Asuncion is a strange and quiet town, somehow devoid of life in a downtown full of people. Sitting on a bluff over the Parana, the city steams during the day, thunders through the night, and never works. Shops - whether because of the weather or a cultural malaise - are open from mid-morning to about noon and then maybe...maybe...again from four to six. Everything closes, supermarkets, gas stations, everything. It´s a city in phases, day to day.
The downtown, or what seems like the downtown, is like a less cluttered Lima Centro - low, deceptively ornate colonial homes, small cornerstores that never open, half-finished, half-hearted high-rises. Not many ambulantes out, and the street vendors seem loathe to motivate a sell in the oppressive heat. Nothing in downtown is new, and even new things feel worn and tired.
On the Plaza Uruguaya, I think I see a protest; dozens of black plastic tents slung low between the trees, with men and women engaged in nothing beneath the cypresses and oaks. This was late in the afternoon, and I was wandering the city trying to find a hostel, so I didn´t pay much thought to it. This is South America, these things happen.
The next day I walked back through the Plaza, in no particular hurry. I saw men crowded around a stool, waiting to get a haircut. I saw women hidden in the triangular pup tents, pounding corn. A couple police officers sit in the shade, comparing batons. There are no banners. No literature or graffiti. This isn´t a protest at all - these are squatters, living apart from the swirl of business around them, in the heart of downtown. I see a section of concrete pulled up, filled with water, surrounded by children beating the stains out of shirts. I break for lunch myself just to get out of the sun.
I head to the Lido Bar, a diner across from the Pantheon of Heroes, one of Paraguay´s many, many monuments to its disastrous wars. Paraguayan food is delicious, if a bit odd - not nearly enough potatoes or corn to truly be South American. I started with sopa paraguaya; not a soup at all, but a cornbread with layers of cheese and onions, fried. It´s dense and tasty. The Lido Bar has to be one of my favorite restaurants in South America, and one of the few true diners on this continent. I guess I take for granted how American the diner really is - all bustle, ¨How´s it going, darlin´?¨greasy menus, staring into your cuppa at 3am. South America has cafes and comedores, but give me a diner - or give me death!
Well, the Lido had it, the American thing. (It´s a Peace Corps favorite, apparently.) All the waitresses are short, homely, and squat, obese actually, except for the one - and there´s always one - the skinny one who is just too skinny, too quiet, and too dour. They all wear these hideous striped orange and yellow nurse´s uniforms so snugly cut that they no longer seem like clothes being worn but an intrinsic piece of the body itself; an exoskeleton of starched cotton. Suffice to say, they were perfect.
I move on to a catfish empanada. The fans try to keep pace with the humidity in the afternoon. I pick at the remains of my cornbread, pushing aside the crumbs to fit my catfish onto one plate, staring across the street at the honor guard at the Pantheon sweat in sheets, and I start to think Paraguay is more like some lost South American Dixie - in spirit, if nothing else.
A bus streaks by, heading to the bus terminal.
Asuncion is a strange and quiet town, somehow devoid of life in a downtown full of people. Sitting on a bluff over the Parana, the city steams during the day, thunders through the night, and never works. Shops - whether because of the weather or a cultural malaise - are open from mid-morning to about noon and then maybe...maybe...again from four to six. Everything closes, supermarkets, gas stations, everything. It´s a city in phases, day to day.
The downtown, or what seems like the downtown, is like a less cluttered Lima Centro - low, deceptively ornate colonial homes, small cornerstores that never open, half-finished, half-hearted high-rises. Not many ambulantes out, and the street vendors seem loathe to motivate a sell in the oppressive heat. Nothing in downtown is new, and even new things feel worn and tired.
On the Plaza Uruguaya, I think I see a protest; dozens of black plastic tents slung low between the trees, with men and women engaged in nothing beneath the cypresses and oaks. This was late in the afternoon, and I was wandering the city trying to find a hostel, so I didn´t pay much thought to it. This is South America, these things happen.
The next day I walked back through the Plaza, in no particular hurry. I saw men crowded around a stool, waiting to get a haircut. I saw women hidden in the triangular pup tents, pounding corn. A couple police officers sit in the shade, comparing batons. There are no banners. No literature or graffiti. This isn´t a protest at all - these are squatters, living apart from the swirl of business around them, in the heart of downtown. I see a section of concrete pulled up, filled with water, surrounded by children beating the stains out of shirts. I break for lunch myself just to get out of the sun.
I head to the Lido Bar, a diner across from the Pantheon of Heroes, one of Paraguay´s many, many monuments to its disastrous wars. Paraguayan food is delicious, if a bit odd - not nearly enough potatoes or corn to truly be South American. I started with sopa paraguaya; not a soup at all, but a cornbread with layers of cheese and onions, fried. It´s dense and tasty. The Lido Bar has to be one of my favorite restaurants in South America, and one of the few true diners on this continent. I guess I take for granted how American the diner really is - all bustle, ¨How´s it going, darlin´?¨greasy menus, staring into your cuppa at 3am. South America has cafes and comedores, but give me a diner - or give me death!
Well, the Lido had it, the American thing. (It´s a Peace Corps favorite, apparently.) All the waitresses are short, homely, and squat, obese actually, except for the one - and there´s always one - the skinny one who is just too skinny, too quiet, and too dour. They all wear these hideous striped orange and yellow nurse´s uniforms so snugly cut that they no longer seem like clothes being worn but an intrinsic piece of the body itself; an exoskeleton of starched cotton. Suffice to say, they were perfect.
I move on to a catfish empanada. The fans try to keep pace with the humidity in the afternoon. I pick at the remains of my cornbread, pushing aside the crumbs to fit my catfish onto one plate, staring across the street at the honor guard at the Pantheon sweat in sheets, and I start to think Paraguay is more like some lost South American Dixie - in spirit, if nothing else.
A bus streaks by, heading to the bus terminal.
posted by Jeffrey @ 12:48 PM
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