So the guy at the Paraguayan consulate in Corrientes says only the consulate in Clorinda, directly across the border from Asuncion, can give visas for a land entry, so it’ll have to wait another day, which is Friday, last day before a 3-day weekend.The only bus is at 8am and I’ve already booked a room anyway, so there is no choice really.The city bus I’m on runs over a motorcyclist caught on the inside track on a right turn, but other than that, there’s no real excitement, just the usual starchy food.Corrientes has nothing much to commend it so that’s when my laptop ol’ Betsy comes in handy for diversion.Only problem is there’s no wi-fi here and this is new Betsy, barely a month old, so I don’t have the encyclopedia nor much of the music yet.But I do have some.This is when that old 60’s Khmer stuff comes in handy.God only knows what they’re thinking in the next room.
Well the quickie two-hour jaunt up to Clorinda becomes a six-hour jaunt, so by the time we pull in, I’m stressing.One quick look around probably leads me to think I wouldn’t really care to overnight in Clorinda either.If that’s not bad enough, the skies are getting pretty uncooperative, the rain’s light hot licks quickly turning into determined drenching sheets.At least the Consulate is cooperative and soon I’m marching off with a proud new visa in my passport.Thorough that I am, I even looked at it before leaving.I should have looked harder.When I got to the Paraguayan side of the border, I wonder why they’re passing my passport around.“Typical Latino bullshit,” I figure. Well, yes, that’s right and wrong.Typical bullshit, but not on the immigration officer’s part.It seems the consul hand-wrote a typographical error, validating my visa today and expiring it yesterday.Huh?Do they want me to time travel?
Well sometimes a five-spot and a telephone call can back-fill the logic that was lacking in the first place, so soon I’m on my way again.If they’d made me go back to correct the visa, of course the logic may have worked out differently and I might have continued on back to Argentina instead.I DID stand on Paraguayan soil after all, so that counts for the country count.Everything counts.Of course if they hassle me on the way out or back in to Argentina, then I may wish I had re-booted.Welcome to Mexico.It would have been just as well, since Asuncion seems to have little of import.Mall culture hasn’t really caught on here yet, about like Phnom Penh.Supermarkets take your small items for purchase and lock them in a bag which can only be opened by the cashier.It kept me from even considering stealing a roll of toothpaste.Wages are higher than Asia, though, almost $350 per month minimum, according to the sign posted on the wall.That’s higher than the AVERAGE wage in Thailand, far above the minimum.So why do they have labor protests here and Thailand has none?
The big thrill is looking at all the chickens roasting on spits, that and people tossing coins down slot machines, hmmm….Beef takes a back seat here I guess.Maybe P.J. O’Rourke was right the first time.Maybe there is nothing here.Some fine wining and dining always helps, I guess.We’ll see. There’s still time, so on to Ciudad del Este and the falls of Iguazu’.It’s a bit hot already here anyway, barely getting down to 20c at night if at all (that’s high for a low, Homes; trust me).Where’s my spare suitcase full of logic anyway, the old-fashioned Aristotelian kind?The Boolean stuff won’t work here.This world ain’t digital. The coffee sucks real bad, too.Maybe that’s why everybody drinks yerba mate, through a silver filtered straw.It’s not bad, seemingly with some laxative properties.You need it after all that starch and grease… there, I’m relaxed now.
Of course Ciudad del Este is no great shakes either, weird in kind of an Asian border-town sort of way, Chinese-inspired modern construction backing right up to the line that separates nations.But it’s Sunday, so no coolies trudging across the bridge with bundles strapped to backs.So I catch a cab in Paraguay to go through Brazil and on to Argentina.How many places can you do that?For those of you counting countries and too cheap to spring for a Brazil visa, this is a cheap way to cut corners, literally, without the formalities.In retrospect $50 for Paraguay visa and tip seems like a waste, but at least the hotel was cheap, so balanced out.Of course the hotel lady short-changed me while warning me about street thieves, oldest trick in the book.Last time that happened a Peruvian street artist replaced my good note with his counterfeit one while showing me how it’s done.Ouch!
Paraguay’s cheap like Peru and Bolivia, which means poor, and really Argentina’s not so dear outside B.A.Is there anything there worth hanging for?There is.Puerto Iguazu’ is a surrealistic little dream town where the three countries meet, maybe the other Golden Triangle in the Bizarro world of opposites.Something like a cross between Ensenada and Panajachel, it’s calm and beautiful and cheap by B.A. standards, but hardly overrun by backpackers or anything like that, though there are a few scraggly stragglers. The falls of course are to die for, certainly one of the ten great falls in the world if not all natural wonders included.The view of the cataracts themselves from garganta del Diablo is unbelievable, frothy and turbulent, aptly named for those suicidal among us, the walking wounded, future zombies, for whom the mid-air roulette wheels where water sublimes to vapor must represent some kind of witches’ brew of Kabbalistic digital speed dialing 01110100101010100101010 your bar code all or nothing millions of times per second to see whether you live or die, whether today or tomorrow.The Golden Gate is for wimps and wannabes.
For the rest of us it’s a view of God at work as light passes through a prism and light breaks up into an infinite number of possibilities, including life liberty and the pursuit of happy meals.This is the kind of place where you could meet your little brown-skinned third-world soul mate doppelganger, settle down, and pump out some little pot-bellied poopers till your pumper poops out… zzzzz…Huh?Did I say something?How long have I been dreaming?I gotta’ get outta’ here.Somewhere back there I found out there’s a jazz festival in B.A. in a few days.I’ve got work to do.Now where’s my suitcase full of spare logic?
