I arrived at the station and within a few minutes found my mission president. It was great to see him! He is one of the most influential people of my life and I was happy to get a chance to see him. He was kind of like a father for an important time in my life. He even looks like my dad. And he remembered a lot of details about me, which I found to be incredible. I am sure that he remembers a lot of stuff about each of his missionaries, and he had something like 400 or 500. He is an amazing man. He has these great attributes that I feel are a reflection of what God is like.
He took me on a small tour of Posadas and then home to his house. I knew that he was going to ask me a few questions. Well, two things at least: am I married? And then the next question, why am I not married? He hit those in the first two minutes, and then he asked me a lot about what I was up to in life. It was fun to catch up, especially since I never was able to talk to him for long periods of time as a missionary. I never worked in the offices with him and only talked to him in interviews and sometimes on the phone when problems came up. I was always jealous of those who worked closer to him, but now I had a night to myself. We ate a great dinner, talked about the mission, life, my family, and all sorts of stuff. I spent the night there and then he took me across the river to Paraguay in the morning so that I could catch a bus to Asunción, Paraguay.
A few weeks ago, I bought a plane ticket from Asunción to La Paz, Bolivia. If I had more time, I would have taken the bus. But since I was going back early for a family reunion, I had to speed things up, especially since my flight home was leaving from Peru. A ticket from Asunción to La Paz was not too expensive and saved me a lot of time. I was going to spend a day in Asunción but I wanted to see my mission president instead. I figured I would still get some time in Asunción before my flight.
My mission president dropped me off at the border. I had already gotten my visa at the consulate in Rio de Janeiro and just had to get my passport stamped. Then I got on a bus and went into the little city of Encarnación to catch a bus to Asunción. It is incredible to see the difference that a border can make between two countries. Posadas is not the nicest city on earth, but it is pretty nice. Encarnación, on the other hand, seems to have more poverty and way less infrastructure. I noticed the same thing when I was in Iguazú. The Argentine city (Puerto Iguazú) was not bad, the Brazilian city (Foz do Iguaçu) is bigger and nicer, but the city on the Paraguayan side (Ciudad del Este) is just like Encarnación: poor and full of cheap goods. Ciudad del Este is notorious for having tons of really cheap electronics (and drug deals), and Encarnación had a lot of markets that sold all sorts of stuff. Paraguay as a whole has a hard time. It is sad to see, and you can see a big difference between Brazil and Argentina (even with their problems) and Paraguay.
I arrived at the bus station in Encarnación at 9:30 or so. There was still a little bit of doubt as to whether I was going to make it for my flight. I had 12 hours or so, but a 6 hour bus ride in Paraguay could take who knows how long! I got to the terminal, checked some times on some of the bus agencies, and realized that I had just barely missed a big group of buses that were leaving for Asunción. I was not overly worried, but it would have been nice to get on one of those. Then I realized that Paraguay is an hour behind Argentina! I had not missed the buses, but was almost an hour early. I bought a ticket and got on. The ride was cheap, but not so great. It was really warm in the bus and my side has the sun on it. I get hot easily to begin with, and you know what they say about the sun in Paraguay!
The scenery was prettier than I expected. Paraguay is greener than I thought it would be, but is also pretty sparsely populated. We made a ton of stops, but eventually made it to Asunción. By the time we got there it was too late to go visit the city. I didn't want to risk missing my flight, so I just went to the airport. I was a little early, but I have had some bad experiences missing buses and almost missing flights, so it was a good idea. And I was glad that I went, because if I hadn't then, I never would have heard this terrible but great song in the taxi. Make sure you read the next post or two, because this flight leaving from Paraguay was the beginning of maybe the craziest 48 hours of my life!
2 comments:
What do they say about the sun in Paraguay?
It's really hot!
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