It's a good job it's pissing it down in Buenos Aires as I have a blog to write.
Now what's next?
Asuncion: Part Deux. Like Hotshots: Part Deux but with less funny bits. And that's saying something.
So I was still on a high after witnessing the thrilling Libertadores semi-final the previous night and now had an extra couple of days in Paraguay's capital that I hadn't bargained for.
Being a football fan in football-mad South America, my first thought was to turn to the fixtures. I knew Asuncion had several teams so hoped to possibly catch another game before my departure on Saturday morning.
I found out that there was one top-division game happening on Thursday and another on Friday. And, brilliantly, both were taking place in Asuncion.
On the Thursday morning I bumped into a couple of English blokes who'd just arrived: James and Chris. I managed to persuade them to join me later that day to take in the match and then set off to go and buy a camera.
Ever since I dropped my Panasonic Lumix somewhere in Chile the lens had been opening and closing sporadically - an annoyance I could no longer take.
So I wandered to a galleria mall down the road that I knew was the main electronics centre of Asuncion. In there I found shop after shop selling cameras, laptops, phones and TVs. The Paraguayan Tottenham Court Road.
Almost all of the shops were managed by Koreans. I liked the way they had set up business in this city far from home, bringing low prices and friendly service to a gringo like me.
True to my Jewish roots, I traipsed up and down the mall looking for that bargain to end all bargains and eventually found an almost identical camera to mine for about 40 quid less than I'd have paid back home. Harry 1-0 The Man.
The second match of my three-match week in Asuncion would pit Guarani against Sporting Luqueño.
Guarani is several things in Paraguay. It is the name of the indigenous Paraguayan language (still spoken widely across the country), it is the name of the unfathomable Paraguayan currency, and is the name of a top flight football team from Asuncion.
The three Englishmen got a cab to the outskirts of the city and found ourselves dropped off on the side of an unattractive dual carriageway. The taxi driver promised us the Guarani ground was just down a side street so we tentatively paid and got out.
First up: tickets. We found the ground; it was built into the back of some shops and houses (or vice versa). Located halfway up one of the high perimeter walls was a small brick-sized opening with the word Boleteria above it. Ticket office.
I stood on tip-toes and stuffed thousands of Guaranis into the little hole, shouted up that I wanted tres entradas and some tickets appeared. We paid about one pound fifty each.
After a quick beer in a shopping centre (chosen due to a lack of an alternative) we got into the ground just as the reserve team fixture was finishing.
Comparing the setting, the stadium and the atmosphere to the previous night's outing at Cerro Porteño would be like comparing Northwich Victoria with Newcastle United.
There must have been less than 200 in the ground, so we had no trouble picking a spot and decided to bunch up close to the small singing section near the halfway line:
Almost all teams in South America, however small the fanbase and however small the ground, have a few fans who really like to put on a show. Guarani had about fifty of them and they'd bought the usual array of banners, drums and trumpets.
The standard of football wasn't brilliant, but Guarani held the upper hand for most of the game. They were sitting fourth in the league and had been champions of Paraguay the previous season. Luqueño were second bottom.
Half-time came and the game was still 0-0.
During the interval, Luqueño's fans decided to show up. Until that point they had no fans in the ground, and then suddenly there were about 60-70 of them.
Whether they had got the kick-off time wrong, their buses had broken down, or they were doing some sort of protest, I don't know. But it was a strange sight to see lots of them pouring into the section to our right, hanging up their banners and singing their songs 45 minutes after the game had started.
The second half continued in the same vein as the first: Guarani applying pressure but Luqueño standing firm.
And then, mercifully, the breakthrough came. A small winger wearing a Steve Foster-style headband was brought on from the subs' bench and within a minute, with his first touch, he had slotted the ball confidently past the keeper. Finally.
This was the last game of the Apertura for both clubs. Seasons in South America are split in two: the opening half (Apertura) and the closing half (Clausura).
So we found ourselves into the last minute of the opening half of the season (if you're still with me?) and the ball broke to one of the Guarani midfielders outside the box. He volleyed it first time and it flew into the far corner off the post. We were right behind it: a great strike.
And with that, the ref blew his whistle.
The locals went home happy in the knowledge that they'd secured a decent fourth place in the league. The Luqueño fans headed back to Asuncion's airport area (I know that's where they come from because they had a massive flag with AEROPUERTO written on it) in a sulk.
A decent game then, and it was great to see the other side of Paraguayan top-division football away from the Libertadores hoo-ha.
James, Chris and I got a cab back to town and decided to see what nightlife Asuncion could offer us. We had been seperately recommended a place called the Britannia Pub, so that seemed like the obvious venue for a drink.
The name Britannia Pub conjures thoughts in my mind of drunk English tourists being rowdy. Asuncion's Britannia Pub was anything but.
It was a well-to-do bar that most of the locals seemed to have dressed up for. People were wearing cravates, eating expensive dinners and drinking bottles of wine.
We settled down to watch Velez Sarsfield v Peñarol in the other Libertadores semi-final and drank our way through a few of the beer towers so loved by our German and Czech cousins:
At the end of the night we got up to leave and I saw a folded up note sitting in front of me. None of us saw who had put it there. I opened it and found a proposition:
We took bets on whether 'Ronny' was a guy or a girl, and I told the others I would contact Ronny the following day and find out.
The following day came, I texted 'Ronny' and it turned out my hunch was correct: Ronny was a man. I thanked him for the compliment but said I wasn't interested. Sorry, Ron.
That afternoon I had yet another match to attend: Rubio Ñu v General Caballero. Which probably wins the award for the best named match-up of my trip so far.
What I love about travelling is that things crop up all the time that you haven't planned for. Like the day I was heading to the far side of the city to watch Rubio Ñu. I looked at my map while on the bus and saw that a big park with a botanical garden was less than a mile from the ground.
I had just over an hour to kill, so got off by the garden and went in. Now I've been to a few botanical gardens in my time, but this had to be the worst.
There were a couple of tended flowerbeds on the way in, and this tree...
...and that was it.
I asked the guy on the gate if I was looking in the wrong place, but no. He confirmed that the Asuncion Botanical Garden consisted of some flowerbeds and a tree. No wonder there was no-one there.
Fortunately there were a couple of other attractions in the park that I had time to visit. First, some neat copper sculptures:
And then a zoo.
At this point I had about 40 minutes til kick-off so I legged it around the zoo, ticking off the animals as I went.
Anaconda (we meet again...): check.
Toucan: check.
Baby gorilla (awww): check.
Massive hippo: check.
Alligator: check.
Elephant (farting): check.
And there were various others including a lion, a leopard and a big ostrich who kept following me as I walked round the fence to his pen.
The conditions weren't the best, but I have seen worse. There didn't seem to be much life in the zookeepers and tourists were thin on the ground, so it was a slightly depressing place.
My whirlwind tour complete, I hot-footed it over to the small stadium owned by Rubio Ñu:
I got a good feeling for the club straight away. They were in the middle of building new facilities for their youth development programme and the people running the club seemed to be on first-name terms with lots of the fans.
The sun was out, I took my (one pound fifty) spot on the terrace behind the dugout and enjoyed a good couple of hours with the other 150 or so fans.
General Caballero occupied the bottom place in the Apertura and Rubio Ñu were fifth. Very similar positions to the previous day's game.
I was therefore expecting an avalanche of goals for the home side, but General Caballero hadn't turned up to get turned over. They were kicking and fighting from the first whistle and it turned into a tough afternoon for Rubio.
In the dugout below me, the Rubio coach (who I had learned was a bit of a legend in these parts) was out in the technical area for almost the entire game. He was yelling specific instructions to certain players and if they didn't respond he would yell even louder and beckon them over.
During the next break in play they would fearfully trot over to the dugout and he would forcibly show them exactly what he wanted.
I'm not sure if they then carried out his instructions but if they had any sense they would have. Not a character you'd want to get on the wrong side of.
Midway through the second half of what had become a fairly turgid game the curly-haired Rubio No.11 played a one-two with a striker. He found himself on the edge of the six-yard box and expertly threaded the ball under the keeper's dive and into the net.
The family next to me - Caballero fans - were furious. The dad was shouting 'puta!' at several of his own team's players every time they made the slightest mistake.
Puta is a common word heard at football matches throughout South America. Translation: whore.
The only other noteworthy aspect of the match was the appearance of Caballero's lumbering No.9. He was the spitting image of Calum Best, but possessed none of Calum's dad's legendary skills. He took a fair share of the puta catcalls from Angry Dad to my left.
The stadium was nice and compact, and the players had to walk through the fans in order to get back to the changing room. I liked that, but not sure if the players would enjoy it after getting beaten.
And that concluded my three-game marathon of matches in Asuncion. Three matches, nine goals, lots of entertainment, some great fans and a few putas thrown in for good measure.
Paraguay was a worthy diversion on my trip, and although I only stayed in the capital I got a good feeling for a country that often falls under the backpacker radar.
Here are some more pics:
Now what's next?
Asuncion: Part Deux. Like Hotshots: Part Deux but with less funny bits. And that's saying something.
So I was still on a high after witnessing the thrilling Libertadores semi-final the previous night and now had an extra couple of days in Paraguay's capital that I hadn't bargained for.
Being a football fan in football-mad South America, my first thought was to turn to the fixtures. I knew Asuncion had several teams so hoped to possibly catch another game before my departure on Saturday morning.
I found out that there was one top-division game happening on Thursday and another on Friday. And, brilliantly, both were taking place in Asuncion.
On the Thursday morning I bumped into a couple of English blokes who'd just arrived: James and Chris. I managed to persuade them to join me later that day to take in the match and then set off to go and buy a camera.
Ever since I dropped my Panasonic Lumix somewhere in Chile the lens had been opening and closing sporadically - an annoyance I could no longer take.
So I wandered to a galleria mall down the road that I knew was the main electronics centre of Asuncion. In there I found shop after shop selling cameras, laptops, phones and TVs. The Paraguayan Tottenham Court Road.
Almost all of the shops were managed by Koreans. I liked the way they had set up business in this city far from home, bringing low prices and friendly service to a gringo like me.
True to my Jewish roots, I traipsed up and down the mall looking for that bargain to end all bargains and eventually found an almost identical camera to mine for about 40 quid less than I'd have paid back home. Harry 1-0 The Man.
The second match of my three-match week in Asuncion would pit Guarani against Sporting Luqueño.
Guarani is several things in Paraguay. It is the name of the indigenous Paraguayan language (still spoken widely across the country), it is the name of the unfathomable Paraguayan currency, and is the name of a top flight football team from Asuncion.
The three Englishmen got a cab to the outskirts of the city and found ourselves dropped off on the side of an unattractive dual carriageway. The taxi driver promised us the Guarani ground was just down a side street so we tentatively paid and got out.
First up: tickets. We found the ground; it was built into the back of some shops and houses (or vice versa). Located halfway up one of the high perimeter walls was a small brick-sized opening with the word Boleteria above it. Ticket office.
I stood on tip-toes and stuffed thousands of Guaranis into the little hole, shouted up that I wanted tres entradas and some tickets appeared. We paid about one pound fifty each.
After a quick beer in a shopping centre (chosen due to a lack of an alternative) we got into the ground just as the reserve team fixture was finishing.
Comparing the setting, the stadium and the atmosphere to the previous night's outing at Cerro Porteño would be like comparing Northwich Victoria with Newcastle United.
There must have been less than 200 in the ground, so we had no trouble picking a spot and decided to bunch up close to the small singing section near the halfway line:
Almost all teams in South America, however small the fanbase and however small the ground, have a few fans who really like to put on a show. Guarani had about fifty of them and they'd bought the usual array of banners, drums and trumpets.
The standard of football wasn't brilliant, but Guarani held the upper hand for most of the game. They were sitting fourth in the league and had been champions of Paraguay the previous season. Luqueño were second bottom.
Half-time came and the game was still 0-0.
During the interval, Luqueño's fans decided to show up. Until that point they had no fans in the ground, and then suddenly there were about 60-70 of them.
Whether they had got the kick-off time wrong, their buses had broken down, or they were doing some sort of protest, I don't know. But it was a strange sight to see lots of them pouring into the section to our right, hanging up their banners and singing their songs 45 minutes after the game had started.
The second half continued in the same vein as the first: Guarani applying pressure but Luqueño standing firm.
And then, mercifully, the breakthrough came. A small winger wearing a Steve Foster-style headband was brought on from the subs' bench and within a minute, with his first touch, he had slotted the ball confidently past the keeper. Finally.
This was the last game of the Apertura for both clubs. Seasons in South America are split in two: the opening half (Apertura) and the closing half (Clausura).
So we found ourselves into the last minute of the opening half of the season (if you're still with me?) and the ball broke to one of the Guarani midfielders outside the box. He volleyed it first time and it flew into the far corner off the post. We were right behind it: a great strike.
And with that, the ref blew his whistle.
The locals went home happy in the knowledge that they'd secured a decent fourth place in the league. The Luqueño fans headed back to Asuncion's airport area (I know that's where they come from because they had a massive flag with AEROPUERTO written on it) in a sulk.
A decent game then, and it was great to see the other side of Paraguayan top-division football away from the Libertadores hoo-ha.
James, Chris and I got a cab back to town and decided to see what nightlife Asuncion could offer us. We had been seperately recommended a place called the Britannia Pub, so that seemed like the obvious venue for a drink.
The name Britannia Pub conjures thoughts in my mind of drunk English tourists being rowdy. Asuncion's Britannia Pub was anything but.
It was a well-to-do bar that most of the locals seemed to have dressed up for. People were wearing cravates, eating expensive dinners and drinking bottles of wine.
We settled down to watch Velez Sarsfield v Peñarol in the other Libertadores semi-final and drank our way through a few of the beer towers so loved by our German and Czech cousins:
At the end of the night we got up to leave and I saw a folded up note sitting in front of me. None of us saw who had put it there. I opened it and found a proposition:
We took bets on whether 'Ronny' was a guy or a girl, and I told the others I would contact Ronny the following day and find out.
The following day came, I texted 'Ronny' and it turned out my hunch was correct: Ronny was a man. I thanked him for the compliment but said I wasn't interested. Sorry, Ron.
That afternoon I had yet another match to attend: Rubio Ñu v General Caballero. Which probably wins the award for the best named match-up of my trip so far.
What I love about travelling is that things crop up all the time that you haven't planned for. Like the day I was heading to the far side of the city to watch Rubio Ñu. I looked at my map while on the bus and saw that a big park with a botanical garden was less than a mile from the ground.
I had just over an hour to kill, so got off by the garden and went in. Now I've been to a few botanical gardens in my time, but this had to be the worst.
There were a couple of tended flowerbeds on the way in, and this tree...
...and that was it.
I asked the guy on the gate if I was looking in the wrong place, but no. He confirmed that the Asuncion Botanical Garden consisted of some flowerbeds and a tree. No wonder there was no-one there.
Fortunately there were a couple of other attractions in the park that I had time to visit. First, some neat copper sculptures:
And then a zoo.
At this point I had about 40 minutes til kick-off so I legged it around the zoo, ticking off the animals as I went.
Anaconda (we meet again...): check.
Toucan: check.
Baby gorilla (awww): check.
Massive hippo: check.
Alligator: check.
Elephant (farting): check.
And there were various others including a lion, a leopard and a big ostrich who kept following me as I walked round the fence to his pen.
The conditions weren't the best, but I have seen worse. There didn't seem to be much life in the zookeepers and tourists were thin on the ground, so it was a slightly depressing place.
My whirlwind tour complete, I hot-footed it over to the small stadium owned by Rubio Ñu:
I got a good feeling for the club straight away. They were in the middle of building new facilities for their youth development programme and the people running the club seemed to be on first-name terms with lots of the fans.
The sun was out, I took my (one pound fifty) spot on the terrace behind the dugout and enjoyed a good couple of hours with the other 150 or so fans.
General Caballero occupied the bottom place in the Apertura and Rubio Ñu were fifth. Very similar positions to the previous day's game.
I was therefore expecting an avalanche of goals for the home side, but General Caballero hadn't turned up to get turned over. They were kicking and fighting from the first whistle and it turned into a tough afternoon for Rubio.
In the dugout below me, the Rubio coach (who I had learned was a bit of a legend in these parts) was out in the technical area for almost the entire game. He was yelling specific instructions to certain players and if they didn't respond he would yell even louder and beckon them over.
During the next break in play they would fearfully trot over to the dugout and he would forcibly show them exactly what he wanted.
I'm not sure if they then carried out his instructions but if they had any sense they would have. Not a character you'd want to get on the wrong side of.
Midway through the second half of what had become a fairly turgid game the curly-haired Rubio No.11 played a one-two with a striker. He found himself on the edge of the six-yard box and expertly threaded the ball under the keeper's dive and into the net.
The family next to me - Caballero fans - were furious. The dad was shouting 'puta!' at several of his own team's players every time they made the slightest mistake.
Puta is a common word heard at football matches throughout South America. Translation: whore.
The only other noteworthy aspect of the match was the appearance of Caballero's lumbering No.9. He was the spitting image of Calum Best, but possessed none of Calum's dad's legendary skills. He took a fair share of the puta catcalls from Angry Dad to my left.
The stadium was nice and compact, and the players had to walk through the fans in order to get back to the changing room. I liked that, but not sure if the players would enjoy it after getting beaten.
And that concluded my three-game marathon of matches in Asuncion. Three matches, nine goals, lots of entertainment, some great fans and a few putas thrown in for good measure.
Paraguay was a worthy diversion on my trip, and although I only stayed in the capital I got a good feeling for a country that often falls under the backpacker radar.
Here are some more pics:
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| Guarani flag |
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| Back of the net: Guarani v Sporting Luqueño |
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| Asuncion zoo welcomes its daily visitor |
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| Rubio Ñu flags |
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| General Caballero fans: great. Unlike their team. |
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| Corset mural at the Black Cat Hostel |
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| 200 years old. Happy Birthday Paraguay |