TravelStream™ news feed for member jessnsimon on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jessnsimon en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 11 May 2007 16:46:20 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1178667480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1178667480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1178667480/tpod.html Fri, 11 May 2007 16:46:20 -0400 Peace Corps Paraguay; our life and times

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Cuzco, Peru

We arrived in Cuzco and found our friend Mical. She had already been here for three days, so we booked a tour to Machu Picchu leaving the next morning. We chose a four day tour, the first day biking down the mountain, the second and third days hiking, and the fourth day seeing Machu Picchu. It's really hard to choose because there are hundreds of tour operators and they all tell you that their service is great and they'll give you a good price.

The next day, the tour guide showed up on time (miraculously), but on foot. So we followed her to the bus station where she bought us bus tickets. We were on the trip with two Israelis, and the bike day, there was and Australian, and a French speaking couple, he from England, she from Chile (French was their best common language, they live in Paris). We have met a lot of interesting people here. We got to be pretty good friends with the Israelis by the end of the four days, and the guide, too. She said whe is the only woman guide for the route we took. After five hours on the bus, we got out and ate cheese sandwiches and oreo cookies and then we got on our bikes. Mical's chain casing was bent, so they bent it back. My seat broke off so they tied it on, and the guide switched bikes with me. A few miles down the road, Mical's chain stopped working again and another guide switched with her. That guide had to have someone hold on to his bike and pedal them both up the slopes. Fortunately, it was almost entirely downhill. But towards evening, there started to be more uphill. We ended up walking our bike for the last half hour because the sun went down. We stayed in a hostal up on a hill that had decent rooms, but very simple, shared bath, no hot water. My body was super achy.

The biking was lots of fun. It is hard not to get going too fast, but if you sit the right way, it's really relaxing, just cruising downhill. And the views were pretty amazing. We went through a few streams that cross the road. And we went through a town where they were having a party and Simon went up to take pictures and the Peruvians asked them to dance.

The second day was a nine hour hike. I can still hardly believe it. First we hiked down the road, then we came to a cable cart to cross the river. We crossed the river five times on one of these contraptions. At about nine in the morning we started to seriously climb. And I mean steep stairway like climbing. At about eleven we came to the part of the trail that was originally constructed by the Inkas (down here they write it with a K, I don't know why). At that point, there were huge drop offs and narrow paths. Yikes! After another half hour, it ceased to be all up hill, and was more up and down, but steep either way. At about five thirty, we got to the hot springs. What a relief! It was wonderful. If the sun hadn't gone down, I could have stayed for hours. As it was, we stayed about an hour and showered and took a truck cab (crammed full with about 20 people in the bed, Simon, me and the driver in the front) to the hostal. About the same as the night before. I had no idea how I was going to get up and hike again the next day, but the guide said it was flat.

Well, aparently by flat, she meant no stairs, not no uphills. There were a lot of uphills. Then we started walking on the railroad tracks. If you have ever done this, you know how dificult it is. Either you have to measure your steps to the uneven ties, or wlak on the rough rock between ties. Then it started to rain. Simon said he had a good time, but this was my least favorite day. No soaring sights to make up for the dificulty. We arrived in town about 2:30 and ate lunch. I had great trout. Everyone else had mediocre chicken or spaghetti. We went to our hostal. It was awful. Smelled like wet paint and mold. No TP, no towels, the shower curtain came down to my knees. The hot water went out in the middle of everyone's shower. The bed felt like more holes than matress. We were so tired and just wanted to nap, but it was so bad, I couldn't. I decided to find a new hostal and just pay for it out of pocket. I asked all up and down the street, but the best was right next door. It had everything the other didn't, plus TV. And they anly charged us 40 soles ($14), and the guide said the other had charged 60 ($20). So Simon and I had a restful night.

The next morning, everyone in the group got up a 4:30 to hike the last hour and a half up to Machu Picchu. I stayed in bed for another hour and took the bus. I had had enough hiking. We all got up there about the same time, before sunrise. But when we got to the top, the sun rose behind the clouds, so we missed the dramatic shadows. Oh well. It was still amazing. I spent the whole day wondering what it would have been like to live there, in this religious village with thick stone walls on all of the buildings, surrounded by green mountain peaks.

The whole place is full of temples. At the summer and winter solstices, light comes through certain windows and forms the Inka cross, representing the underworld of death, the present world, and the higher world of the gods. They had centers for astronomical observacion, and experimented with new crops in the surrounding terraces. All of the doors and windows are shaped like trapezoids to resist earthquakes. They built with huge multisided stones for the same reason, and some of the construction is built with stones projecting from the mountain itself. Our guide said that in the huge earthquake that happened 50 (?) years ago, all of the churches that had been built on Inka foundations fell down, but the foundations stayed put. There are buildings all over Cusco where the Inka wall goes halfway up, then the top of the building is modern plaster.

We had a great time on the guided tour, and then spent some time wandering around. It was so easy to get lost. When you aren't following the guide, you try to go up a staircase, and it just gets narrower and narrower until there's nothing left. Or, you go down a staircase, then you go down wall steps, which are stones that just stick out of the wall farther and are staggered, then to get to the next level, there's nothing. We took lots of pictures. 200 over the four days. I will post some as soon as I get the opportunity.

The next day, we went shopping with Mical in Cusco, and she took a bus to Lake Titicaca, and then to fly out of La Paz later this week. We ate gyros for lunch and Indian food for dinner. Yummy! The Indian food restaurant only had chicken and lamb. The owner said that as the only Indian restaurant in miles, you shoot yourself in the foot if you serve beef, the hindus won't come, and if you serve pork, the muslims won't come. We giggled and ordered vegetarian.

The next day we took the bus to Tacna, then crossed to Arica. We couldn't get a bus to Santiago that same day (at least not a nice bus; we're tired of traveling in crummy busses), so we stayed in Arica. Next entry, the charms of that Northern Chilean city!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1178494800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1178494800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1178494800/tpod.html Tue, 08 May 2007 20:41:12 -0400 Peace Corps Paraguay; our life and times

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Cuenca, Ecuador

So we made it to Cuenca late at night and stumbled into the first hostal we could find--Siberia. If the name concerns you, you are a smart person. The room wasn't that bad; it had soap and a tolerable bed, but someone's car alarm kept going off all night and when Simon and I came back from dinner, there was a naked man in the hallway. When I went by (tactfully turning my head the other direction), he said excuse me. But then he stayed there in the hallway and said the same thing when Simon went by! So, the next morning we upgraded from the eight dollar a night hostal to a twelve dollar a night hostal and got a lovely room with free breakfast.

We went to two markets that day. The first was large and had meat and cheese and unsweetened (much to my disapointment when I bit into it later) chocolate, and lunch stalls inside, and produce outside. It was lots of fun to walk around and see the ladies in native dress selling their wares. We ate some snacks, too. Fresh pineapple and coconut and a concoction with banana chips and cornnuts and beans and tomato and lime juices and onion and salt. Delicious.

At the second market, they had lots of weavings and sweaters and hats and scarves to sell. I bought myself a huge tablecloth that I'll probably hang up somewhere and one of those sweater ponchos. Simon hung out and watched kids play soccer.

We met up with some Peace Corps Ecuador volunteers which was lots of fun. We got to compare experiences and talk about development.

On Monday, we did some shopping, then headed off to Cuzco in the afternoon. We didn't arrive until Thursday morning. Blech.

I don't have the USB port with me now, but I'll send pictures soon.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1177624440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1177624440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1177624440/tpod.html Thu, 26 Apr 2007 19:01:56 -0400 Peace Corps Paraguay; our life and times

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Puerto Lopez, Ecuador

It is beautiful here. We are having a great time, finally relaxing after two years of hard living and one week of hard bussing. The food here is good (though we think Peru beats it), and our hotel is more like a resort. We are right on the beach, we have a hammock in the room, I don't know if we'll ever leave.

On Tuesday, we hung out at the hotel and on the beach. Lots of fun playing in the waves. Wednesday, we went to Isla de la Plata, which is supposed to be like a Galapagos island. We saw a lot of blue footed boobies, an albatross, and even some sharks. Unfortunately, we were there from 11.30 to 2.00 walking around in the equatorial sun with not a bit of shade (we rested 4 or 5 times in huts and drank water, but still). So after lunch, we went snorkling. The water felt great, but I couldn't see anything because the snorkle mask doesn't fit over glasses. And then I got to feeling sick. I went back to the boat. I sat around feeling crappy for a while. Then I tossed my cookies overboard. I was feeling bad about dirtying the gorgeous blue water when some lovely tropical fish swam up and ate the mess. Clean water, clean tummy, I felt much better!

Today, we went zip-lining. it was fun and not nearly as scary as I thought. It feels a lot like riding in a cable car, but you get a better view. The place was beautiful (I'm going to need a thesaurus, soon). We ate lunch there, too. I didn't think it would be as fun, going by ourselves, but it was actually very relaxing. Next stop, Cuenca.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1177620360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1177620360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1177620360/tpod.html Thu, 26 Apr 2007 17:54:03 -0400 Peace Corps Paraguay; our life and times

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Guayaquil, Ecuador

We finally arrived in Ecuador! After 100 hours on the bus over 7 days, we made it! The bus was not always fun, but we did get to see the countryside. We drove through the Andes, which are super dry. Then we drove through Northern Chile and southern Peru, also super dry. We stopped for dinner in Calama, Chile. It was nice to have a little break. Chile is great. It's amazing the differences between the countries even when you just drive through and eat a couple of meals there. We difinately got the short stick when Peace Corps sent us to Paraguay. They have programs in Ecuador, Peru, and now even Chile, and where did we spend two years? The flatlands where there are all of ten different possible meals.

Anyway, Guayaquil is kinda scary. There are definately nice areas, but our hotel is definately not in one of them (though it's only a couple blocks out). We spent the day on the river walk because it's Sunday and we can't check for trips to the Galapagos. The riverwalk is beautiful. See pics. We ate ceviche and cheesecake.

Monday, and the Galapagos is too expensive, and takes too many days. We are going to the Parque Nacional de Machalilla.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1176655800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1176655800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1176655800/tpod.html Sun, 15 Apr 2007 13:42:31 -0400 Peace Corps Paraguay; our life and times

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Asuncion, Paraguay

We're leaving in an hour to get the bus to Resistencia, Argentina. 7 hours! (It doesn't look that far on a map). Then we'll cut across Northern Argentina to Chile, and head north, si Dios quiere y la virgen, as they say down here (God willing).

I just made this entry so I can post a bunch of pictures. These are our goodbye pictures, going away parties, families and friends we're leaving behind, and at the very end there a cute pictures of Simon and I together. Enjoy!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1176568740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1176568740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1176568740/tpod.html Sun, 15 Apr 2007 12:50:13 -0400 Peace Corps Paraguay; our life and times

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Asuncion, Paraguay

We made it!

It has been a busy last four months. Simon spent a lot of time painting a world map on the basketball court he had built at the school in Yataity. He also built a fogon at the school in San Ramon, and helped Chris and Marissa build their new house. Chris and Marissa are new volunteers that just moved to San Miguel in December, only 6 K from us. Chris is environmental ed., and Marissa is agriculture. We are also getting follow ups, Roberto in Yataity to continue Simon's health work and Annie in Yhu (the nearby town where I gave some workshops) to continue my education work.

I gave before school inservice for two days to all of the area teachers (90 of them, yikes!) and gave a workshop on how to use new materials all of the kindergarten teachers recieved to create centers and teach Spanish. I also worked with the teachers in Yataity on using the library to read with kids 15 minutes everyday, and with San Ramon to get their library up and running.

Packing was difficult. We had to decide what to do with everything, down to the pencil sharpener we found when we moved the fridge. Everything we take with us, we are carrying home, so unlike when I have moved before, I couldn't just throw everything in boxes and worry about it later. But that's done.

Leaving was difficult. We had four small going away parties with different groups of people. It felt good to say good bye to everyone, to have closure. We almost couldn't leave Oscar and Pablina, but we did. That's done.

Finishing everything for Peace Corps was difficult. Lots of details and not a lot of time. But I completed the manual on model lessons and it can go to the new volunteers who will start at the end of April. That's done.

Last night we had our going away party with other volunteers. We had fun and said good bye. That's done.

Now we're going to travel to Ecuador to see the Galapagos, Peru to see Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca, and Chile to see the desert and Santiago. I'm so excited to have some time to relax and sleep in comfy hotel beds. Then we arrive back in the States May 25! I can't believe it. I remember the day I started this log. I wrote the end of service would be April, 2007, but it seemed so far away. Here we are!

Thanks to all of you for the support you have given us. You may feel like you haven't done much, but even sending an email, or just reading what I write here has meant a lot to me.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1168095180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1168095180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1168095180/tpod.html Sat, 06 Jan 2007 14:18:42 -0500 Peace Corps Paraguay; our life and times

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Sao Paolo, Brazil

We had a great Christmas vacation with Simon's family. Ireri arrived on the 13th of December and we spent a little time in Asuncion. Then we headed out to site. Here's a little compare and contrast of what Simon and Jessica are thinking and what Ireri told us she was thinking (though at the time she told us everything was great, which was nice because we didn't have to worry she was uncomfortable : ) ).
Simon and Jessica: We'll take her to the nicest hotel that has a pool and eggs for breakfast. Ireri: This is an OK hotel, but the breakfast isn't that great. S and J: We'll drink sugar cane juice and terere so we don't get overheated while we're out shopping. Ireri: Oh my, he just rinsed out that cup in a bucket of water from God knows where. I now have the germs from everyone in the entire city. S and J: It will be fun to cook at Dr. Avila's house so everyone can try some authentic Mexican food. Ireri (and Jessica, after we got to the house): It is insanely hot cooking in this kitchen with no AC in 90 degree weather. Ireri: That's the least authentic Mexican food I've ever made. Everyone else at dinner: This is great Mexican food. Why can't we eat like this every day?
S and J: We will relax and sleep in at the hotel in Caaguazu. Reality: The window won't close in the hotel room. Street noise and heat keeps us up all night. S: We're pretty close to the bus station, we can just walk. J and I: I don't know if we'll make it in the noon heat carrying all of this stuff (only two back packs, one duffle, one suitcase, one suitcase size bag of groceries, and one 2 ft x 18 in package). S and J: We're almost home. Ireri: This bus doesn't have a single seat that isn't broken. How are we going to sit here for an hour and a half? (after the first berakdown) Two hours in the heat? (after the second breakdown) Three hours in the heat with pumpkin orange faces from the dust?
S and J: Ah, home sweet home. And it's still almost as clean as we left it. Ireri: I haven't slept in four days and I have to sleep in this room that has more bugs and spiders than I can even count? (after sweeping out the bugs, setting up the bed and the mosquito net) Oh, well maybe this is OK. She said that was the first night she really slept since arriving.
We had a good time. We visited our friends in site, we painted some world map on Simon's newly finished basketball court. We went to the creek to swim (well, more like lounge in the two feet deep water). Simon went to pick up his dad and brother. They got in late, but in one piece, and when they arrived in site after traveling for 30 hours and sleeping maybe three of those, they were so tired they didn't care whether spiders crawled into bed with them or not. Simon and his dad went to the pig killing ritual early Christmas eve morning. Ireri and I made pumpkin, apple and pecan pies while Jaime slept. Then we walked down to join the party. A lot of Oscar's family was there, and our new freinds and neighbors, Chris and Marisa. They are Environmental Ed. and Agriculture volunteers who just moved to San Miguel, the community an hour and a half walk away where Simon and I have been working in the school. We had a great time hanging out and talking and cooking and drinking a little beer. We had dinner late, about 10:30. That night we opened presents from each other and the next morning we opened presents from my family. We had left over pork sandwiches and tacos for Christmas dinner. Simon gave his dad and brother the grand tour over the next couple of days, then we headed out to Ciudad del Este. We shopped and headed over to the waterfalls. They were much more powerful than when Simon and I had gone in August. And we saw them from the Argentinian side, where you get much closer.
Then we got on a bus to Sao Paolo. It was a sleeper, so we were ready for a relaxed ride. Not to be. The bus broke down and filled up with smoke, so we waited outside for an hour waiting for the driver to figure out what to do, then we waited for two hours in the bus, waiting for another bus to come pick us up. It was not a sleeper.
We arrived in Sao Paolo New Year's eve and spent a while finagling ticket half-refunds and hotel reservations. When we got to the hotel, we figured out the finagling paid off. It was the nicest hotel Simon and I have ever stayed in and one of the nicest Jaime and Ireri have stayed in , whick is really saying something. And not that expensive. We had and excellent dinner at a churrasquerria (like the restaurant where we had our wedding reception). Then we went to the street party. It was cool; people from all walks of life were there, there was a concert, we counted down and they showered us with glitter and then set off fireworks for almost half an hour.
The next day we rented a car and drove to Rio de Janeiro. They told us on the phone it was a Sienna. We're thinking a Toyota Sienna, the mini-van. We get there to discover it's a Fiat Sienna, and that's the biggest car they have. Plenty of space in back for three people maybe if they were two years olds and asleep.
It rained in Rio, so so much for the beaches. The two major tourist attractions are the Christ the Redeemer statue and the Pao de Azucar rock formation, both things you climb to see the veiw. Not much of a view when you're above the clouds. We went up anyway. Check out the pictures. So we headed back to Sao Paolo a day early to stay in the nice hotel again. Then Simon and I headed home on the bus, and the family on the plane. Quite the adventure. I can't believe we only have three months to go. I remember when I set up this travel log and I had to put in the return date and 2007 seemed ages away. Well, here it is. We're almost home!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1159136280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1159136280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1159136280/tpod.html Sun, 24 Sep 2006 19:13:06 -0400 Peace Corps Paraguay; our life and times

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Asuncion, Paraguay

So, the other day I go to my home school in Yataity to work on setting up the library with the ninth grade class. The principal told me the previous week how jealous they are that I'm spending all of my time at the surrounding schools. To which my unspoken response is "hmm. Last semester only one teacher was available to work with me, was obviously annoyed by my presence, and did no work to support the project. Now, there was a meeting last week where all of the teachers at the other schools were talking about what great work we're doing and you are embarrassed. Hee hee hee." My out loud response was "Oh, great, what projects can we work on together?" So, here I come, ready to work on the library (a project inspired by all of the lovely books I received from you all in the States, not by any community iniciative) and listen to all of their great new project ideas.

During recess, all the teachers float over. One of the teachers brings the "Acta" an official book used to record meeting notes. Very official. The principal, Mimi, begins to tell me about how I have been neglecting them and I am their volunteer and they really want me to spend more time here in Yataity. I say, great, what project would you like to set up? She says, Simon works with us so well here at the school. And you know, the work you have been doing in San Ramon, teaching English, is illegal because you arranged it with the school and not the higher authorities. I say, well, at this point I feel responsible to the students and I can't abandon them when we've only got a month of school left. But I would like to spend more time here, working with you all on this new project you're ready to present to me today. So, what is it?

She says, it's against the law and the teacher who is in the book has to be responsible for the class. At this point I cut her off and say, So, Professor Felix, you wanted to work on a little project to fix some old books, right? He says, yes, we were going to work on it on Fridays. I say, yeah, that's great. Who else has some project ideas? Mimi says I hear that you are teaching kids to read and working with older kids in the other schools. We want you to do that here, too. This is technically true, but within the context of a different project which is definitely my job definition. I'm not supposed to just take over teaching for the regular grade school teachers and I don't have training for teaching 4th-6th grades and 7th-9th grades are so different here, I don't feel real comfortable with that either.

Despite this, I say, well we might be able to do that, what specifically do you have in mind? She says, we want you to work here two or three days a week. I ask, Doing what? She says, how many days are you working in the other schools? I say, well, two days in San Miguel and one day in San Ramon and I started working there because your teachers kept putting me off when I asked when we could next work on our project, putting me off for an entire month more than once in fact, so I had to find something to do with my time. She says (making sense for the first time), we must have miscommunicated. We misunderstood you and you misunderstood us. Thus concluded the meeting and the teacher who had been taking copious notes in the "Acta" read it out loud.

It had everything that Mimi had said and nothing that I had said. So it reads something like this "Principal Mimi informs the Volunteer Jessica Garcia that she is neglecting her work at her home school. Her work in San Ramon is illegal. Simon Garcia is a much better volunteer." Everyone starts signing the "Acta." I was so mad I could have spit. I decided to sign anyway, that no one ever looks at these things anyway, and two teachers have told me during the meeting that they will propose new projects to me, and that is all I really care about. So I sign it.

Half an hour later I am still mad enough you could have used my cheeks for an example of the color "rojo." I decided to sneak into the office and revise the "Acta." I wrote in in tiny letters at least some of my comments between the lines, emphasizing that I can't do projects by myself, some initiative has to come from them.

So, the next week I come to school with lesson plans on using library books in the classroom for all ten classes. I'm all ready to work with the kids on how to check out and take care of library books so that they can really go to town on the reading contest we started the week before.

When I get to school, not only have zero teachers given their classes opportunities to use the library and read for the contest, not only has no one given me anything vaguely resembling a project proposal, there is actually no class at all that day because it is Youth Day. Never mind last month everyone partied for Kid's Day, now we all have to take off to party for Youth Day. And all my lesson plans go down the drain, and no one bothered to tell me. Not at the Very Important Meeting last week, telling me what an inadequate volunteer I am. Not even the day before by my next door neighbor, Principal Mimi. Sometimes I am amazed that this is my life. I need an instant replay button. Did that really happen?

Well, at least we got a new garden fence. Wasn't it Voltaire who said "just cultivate your garden?"
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1156527060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1156527060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1156527060/tpod.html Fri, 25 Aug 2006 19:31:13 -0400 Peace Corps Paraguay; our life and times

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Ykua sati, Paraguay

I'm in for an HIV AIDS conference with Tila from my site. It was more interesting than I expected. And I think we might actually go back and work together, which would be a first.

Simon and I went to Foz d'Iguazu, a big water fall on the Brazil/Argentina/Paraguay border, for our anniversary. Pictures to follow.

There are also pics of both of us working, Simon making soap with the health commission and me giving a calendar workshop. We spent the morning practicing using the calendar and discussing other lessons that could stem off. We spent the afternoon making the calendars.

I'll tell all the fun stories with the pictures.

Jessica
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1153248000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1153248000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jessnsimon/paraguay-pcv/1153248000/tpod.html Tue, 18 Jul 2006 16:02:01 -0400 Peace Corps Paraguay; our life and times

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Asuncion, Paraguay

We just got back from the states. We went to two weddings; my sister, Katie's, and Simon's best friend's John's. We had a great time, gained 20 pounds between the two of us, and bought so much stuff that we have to take a taxi everywhere.

The plane ride home was an ordeal. At the Fort Worth airport, we couldn't check our bags through because our original flight was with Varig. The guy at the desk assured us that he would just check them through TAM through some sort of official override, and that we would still be on the same flight because it was operated by TAM anyway.

The flight from Dallas to Sao Paolo was fine, but I didn't get much sleep. When we arrived in Brazil, the people at the TAM counter couldn't find our boarding passes. They took our tickets and our luggage tags and told us they would look for our reservation and get back to us. An hour later (half an hour before boarding) they told us we have no reservation, go talk to American Airlines (from whom we bought the tickets in the first place). We go to American Airlines (a half hour walk across the airport) and the people there tell us that we do indeed have reservations on the computer, but that TAM are jerks who frequently do this to passengers when they have overbooked their flights. The AA guy books us on the next flight, at 10pm and gives us meal vouchers. We settle down to spend 14 hours getting to know the Sao Paolo airport (as though we didn't already know it from the 12 hour layover traveling the other direction).

At seven pm we go to the check in counter. No one is there. We spend some meal voucher on ice cream. At eight I stand in line for twenty minutes to find out that the flight has been delayed until 1:30am and no one knows where our luggage is. We get boarding passes this time. We check on the luggage 5 more times. No one knows. We finally board. I'm so tired I'm nauseous. We get into Asuncion at 3:00am. We find our bags in a huge pile apparently from the morning flight (yea!). We ask four different baggage handlers if we have to wait in the fifty-people-long-moving-super-slow line to claim our bags and they all tell us yes (we are suspicious because no one in this line leaves with baggage, as though theirs was lost). Sure enough, we get to the front of the line and the guy tells us, oh, you already have your bags? You can just go.

We get a taxi. He charges us more than he is supposed to. We get to the hotel and all of the rooms are full. We go to another hotel. Same story. We go to four more hotels. Same story. At the last hotel, the guy tells us there is a soccer game tomorrow, that's why we can't get a room. We give up and go to the Peace Corps office and call the security director (at 4:00am) for permission to just stay here. He says yes and we crash out on the couches. When we first had problems at DFW, Simon and I looked at each other and said, you know, if they don't want us back, we could just stay . . .

Well, here are pictures of our trip home. Hope you enjoy!
]]>