More thoughts from Paraguay...

Soup Cake. Yes, you did read that correctly. It's soup, with manioc flour mixed in, which is then baked to make a cake. I tried it once and came to the conclusion that it is wrong to have soup in cake form.

Amongst all the cars in the centre, you'll see the occasional horse and cart. Even on a Friday night.

Asuncion must be a small place. We bumped into one of the Lebanese guys we met in the Chaco last night.

Terere. This is the national drink. It's a bit like green tea, but stronger. You have a little wooden of metal cup, into which you pile a lot of terere leaves. In the cup is also a metal straw, which has special drainage holes so that you don't suck up the leaves. With your cup you carry around a massive flask, which always leaks (I see a gap in the market here). The flask is full of cold water that you keep using to top up your cup, then suck the liquid through the straw. Paraguayan's share this drink as a social past time.

Being on TV. A little while ago when Sally and I were at the bus terminal, buying tickets to Laguna Blanca, we walked past a massive box on the pavement. As we passed, a clown jumped out, crashing cymbols and shouting 'happy birthday' which, as you can imagine, made us both jump out of our skins. Looking up, we saw a crowd of people watching, plus television cameras. Two weeks later, one of the children in our teaching group explained to us how she'd seen us on the Paraguayan version of 'You've Been Framed'! Fame at last!

Last night, whilst waiting for a bus to get home from the centre, Max, Bryony and Gary bumped into 'Red T-Shirt Guy' who they'd met in one of the gay clubs a few weeks ago. He stayed chatting for a bit and, although the way he constantly scratched himself was a little disconcerting, we were even more bemused when he pulled a wad on condoms out of his pocket! He decided to share, and distributed them amongst us... luckily we found out they were distributing these free in the gay clubs and he wasn't just being over ambitious!

Today we stumbled across a rather random flag taking down ceremony at the Plaza de los Heroes. There was rather a lot of fumbling and stumbling going on and no one really seemed to know what they were doing.

Some more pictures from Asunción: