Having checked out the luxury Argentinian buses on the internet, I was quite looking forward to my journey to Paraguay.
When I arrived at the bus station, half an hour before departure as requested, I headed straight for platforms 63-75 from where I was supposed to get my bus - only my bus was nowhere to be seen. I managed to spot some other people who looked like tourists who reassured me that their bus was due to depart in three minutes and it still hadn't arrived. However, when it reached 30 minutes after the departure time I was starting to panic a little. This must have been evident as a kind Paraguayan girl came to tell me that the bus was delayed due to traffic. Shortly afterwards the bus arrived and, after waiting to check that my luggage was loaded on board, I made my way to my 'cama' seat. Oh, what a seat that was.... a single seat (so I didn't have to sit next to anyone) the seat was softer than a mattress and reclined to almost horizontal. It was as wide as a first class aeroplane seat, and even had a little foot/leg rest. Opening my little blanket and pillow package, I made myself comfortable....then they decided to turn on the television. In spite of the fact that each seat had it's own headphone socket for listening to the TV independently, the decided to blare out the dodgy Argentinian/Paraguayan pop as loud as the speakers could manage. My iPod saved the day, although I had to turn the volume up to maximum to avoid my songs sounding like a mash up with the pop.
After we had been travelling for about an hour, the second driver walked up the aisle asking if people wanted something. Unfortunately, due to my limited Spanish skills, I couldn't understand what it was he was offering. Eventually, having managed to work out, through gesters, that he was offering a drink, I responded 'si' .... and five minutes later had a glass of whisky in my hand. Having expected water, I found this quite random, but fortunately the whisky was rather nice. After a rather strange dinner, which included something that looked slightly like a slice of swiss roll with savoury filling (even after tasting it I couldn´t work out if it was supposed to be sweet or savoury) and jelly, we were offered a glass of champagne (I understood what he was saying this time). The champagne even came in a hard plastic champagne glass, not a cheap plastic cup....National Express could learn a lot from the Argentinians!
Finally the music was turned off and I settled down to sleep, only awaking at 6.30 when we pulled into a bus station. I wasn't entirely sure of the purpose of this stop, but a few people got off and on again. At about this point I started to worry that I hadn't asked the bus driver to stop at immigration (as advised in the guidebook) so started searching through my phrasebook for some suitable words to ensure that I didn't end up in Asuncion without the correct stamps in my passport. At about 9.00 to bus came to a halt, and when we were offered breakfast, I used this chance to try to ask the driver if we were stopping at immigration. He replied in very fast Spanish so I just had to hope that I'd got my point across.... three hours later, the bus finally started moving again, and the next time we stopped was at immigration...at which point I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Going through a land border crossing without knowing the language is always an interesting experience and this was no different, particularly when the Paraguayan immigration officer kept hold of my passport and waved goodbye to me! Fortunately, my passport was eventually returned via my bus driver, and we took the last stretch of the journey to Asuncion.
Crossing the River Paraguay, with the view over Asuncion was spectacular. Unfortunately I couldn't take a photo as my camera was buried deep in my bag and my memory cards were stashed in my money belt. We arrived into Asuncion bus station at 3.00pm (only three hours late). I managed to find the phone booths and, on my third try, got through to Rafael from Original Volunteers who was coming to pick me up. Rafael arrived with Bryony, who I'd already been talking to on facebook, and she chatted nineteen to the dozen, all the way back to the volunteer house.
More on that later...
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