Collecting Stamps

After a linguistically challenging checkout, I figure out I get a free breakfast. So I sit, hand in my voucher and wait. Free breakfasts are a game of Russian Roulette, but this time the chamber's empty and I get croissants, passably jammy jam, coffee and OJ. Then I make the 25 minute return stomp to where I was ejected (fortunately not in a Jesuit sense) from the bus a day previous.

Pretty much as soon as I drop my pack a bus screams up, I'm bundled on, and heading to Posadas on the most local bus you'll ever see. Destined for the scrapheap a decade ago, it's a testament to local 'maintenance'. It's a bit chewy on the gears, you can see through the floor in places and smells like a steam engine, but she still rolls. The driver sits in a strapped down garden chair behind a badly cracked windscreen, reinforced with coins superglued to either side. The drivers glove box was tied shut and tape player taped in. Open windows create a hairdryer version of AC. I'm the only white on the bus and curtains billow and whip my face until I spot window seaters holding them down and follow suit. Double seats, covered in sticky green pleather with chewed armrests, are generally for three and the isle is packed. A clearly agoraphobic 14 year old squeezes through collecting fares. I love it. Culture ain't that shocking, it's fascinating.

From Posadas I mumble enough Spanish words to get aboard the bus to Encarnacion in Paraguay. On the nationally joining bridge I stamp out of Argey (why are the best stamps so badly applied? You could hardly read the thing) and head into Paraguay, reading the LP about Paraguayan Jesuit ruins and the fees incurred when caught at borders without the correct stamps...

It's no surprise when Southern Paraguay appeared much like Northern Argentina - red earth & green grass - but with more horse-pulled carts and car-seat-cover sellers by the roadside. Encarnacion bus depot has an altogether more Asian feel to it than the clean organised Argey Depots I'd thus far seen. Encarnacion buzzes with a throng of money changers, stalls selling battered chicken legs and poor dudes trying to hawk lukecold fanta and pastries to passengers with open bus windows. Lots of atmosphere, lots of holes in the ground and not a tourist in sight. Very travelly (another new word! ©).

I arrange a bus to the Trinidad ruins, dump my rucksack under the bus and wait. And wait. Here they reinforce the Asian theme with their bus filling method too. We leave not to a schedule, or even when it's full, but when it's REAL full. Then we finally set off, a scrum in a can, and stop every 100m & crush in more people. I'm even lucky enough to sit next to the screaming baby. For a moment the baby takes an interest in me and I pull the standard smiley baby faces. Mother looks over to see why her nippers ceased booing. She can only be 22. I pass her a 'Your baby is cute' smile and she throws a 'No, I think you'll find it's a pain in the arse' expression. Actually, when the tot gets bored of me and resumes the wailing, I see what she means.

Once I get droped off at Trinidad around midday I realise, to my elation, that I hadn't seen another tourist for a full half day. I soon convince myself I'm beating new paths, forging routes off the worn LP trail and on the way to the ruins I bump into two cheerful Polish fellows carrying 'The Book'. I pay my several thousand Paraguayan Guarani and wander into the Jesuit ruins. Inside I'm alone. How lyrical.

Paraguayan money is funny. 5 quid gets you 20,000 Guaranies. I had to learn the words for 'thousand'. The problem is, the money is knackered. It all looks like someone swam with it, fed it through their dog and selotaped it back together. I didn't sniff it, cos it looked unwise to do so. One deep sniff and you could pass out and wake up robbed blind on some roadside with a new walk.

Anyhows after the impressive ruins Of Trinidad, I shared a most beat-up taxi (impressively, there was nothing inside that didn't rattle) with a bunch of locals 20km down an almost unpaved road to the ruins of 'Da Jesus'! These ruins were half complete when the Spanish asked the Jesuits to push, so it's still half finished and looks pretty sweet. I was alone again, adding to the mad historical atmosphere and stretching to imagine the Jesuits and indians building the place. It also crossed my mind how much this part of the world looked the spitting image of Norfolk.

Fast forward, through various nefarious buses, to 9pm standing at passport control on my 16-hour nightbus from Encarnacion to Buenos Aires. While my fellow passengers and I wait in the long queue for Paraguay exit stamps, nature gives us a fantastic silent lightening storm to watch, turning the blackness into bolts through electric purple clouds. When I hand over my passport, the border cop flicks through for the entry stamp. Then does the same again. And once more for good measure.

'No entrada!?' he asks, evidently relishing his position. 'No, I got my stamp this morning' I say pointing to the faded stamp I genuinely believed was the Paraguay entry stamp. 'No. Argentinian exit stamp. No Paraguay entry! 50 dollar fine.' 'Shit' I simultaneously said and thought. '50 dollars!' I play poor. I resent paying idiot tax. 'No dollars'. They mumble together, quite a crowd growing on both sides of the glass. 'All money!' I've just bought the bus ticket with my very last local monies. So I pull out my wallet open it up and show the contents. 1000 Guarani. The equivalent of 10p back home. And to add insult to injury, it is an especially battered note I'd decided to keep for comedy value. A poor choice of note for a bribe. They laugh heartily. After further muttering they pass me back my passport and send me on my way. As I count my blessings I realise they never stamped me in or out. I was there illegally! A naughty immigrant for a day. Hardcore. I think I might frame that scratty 1000 note when I get home.

Just don't tell them about the hundred bucks in my moneybelt...

Barn