The end is near...

...well, the end of our trip is near. We arrived in Asuncion this evening without too much confusion or delay, despite the darkness, the lack of clear road signs, and the weird driving habits of the locals. We fly out tomorrow evening but I wanted to make sure we got here to avoid any unforeseen circumstances that might prevent us from getting to the airport on time. We could walk to the airport now. It would be a long walk, but we could do it if we had to.

We are staying at the beautiful Portal del Sol Hotel here in Asuncion. It´s a really nice place and the price is very reasonable. I would recommend making reservations as both times I´ve been here, we´ve been very lucky to get a room.

I had another Trans Chaco Rally moment on Sunday. We went out to Potrero Guazu for a final visit. It had rained on Friday and the road was in decent shape on the heavily used parts. We stayed late and headed back to Caazapa in the dark. Now, the road is a bit of a challenge to drive in daylight to avoid the worst parts. At night it´s a lot more difficult. The headlights cause shadows or hide ruts making it even more challenging. Throw in the fact that the not-so-used parts of the road are difficult to judge for driveablilty and you´re asking for trouble. Well I found it. A car was approaching in the other direction and I had to get back on my own side of the road. In this case it was the unused part of the road. It was rutted but look passable...in the dark. We got sucked over to the farthest right side of the road and just sank. Fortunately I was able to go back and forth a bit until I was able to get back on to solid road. The little Daewoo pulled through!

Lourdes hasn´t been feeling well. She started with the standard runny nose, cough and a low fever just after Easter. Somehow we didn´t bring enough Little Colds multisymptom medicine with us and we had to buy some medicine here. It doesn´t taste very good and it´s a battle to get some down her. I´m not sure how effective it´s been. She improved, but not for long. She had a bloody nose yesterday evening and that was a little puzzling. I have to assume that with all the activity she´s had in her nose (runny nose, blowing the nose, picking the nose) that it just couldn´t take the abuse any longer. Other than being runny, her nose has been fine today. I think she may have strep or some virus as she has had a sore throat and has a couple sores in her mouth. The pharmacy reccomended an antibiotic (although if it´s a virus, the antibiotic won´t do any good) so hopefully she will show some improvement by tomorrow evening´s flight. I´m not sure what time we get home on Wednesday, but I´m sure it will be too late to get her to the pediatrician. Poor baby.

The Rivermen are in the first round of the playoffs and aren´t doing very well. They´re down 3-0 in a best-of-seven series. They play again Wednesday. I´m going to try and get to the game, might be the last of the season.

I don´t plan on posting on Tuesday, but I might do so to kill some time as our flight is in the evening. Regardless, once back in the states, I´ll probably have a bunch of catching up to do so don´t expect a post for at least a couple of days. I know, Greg and Deb will say that I´ll fall back into obscurity as far as posting is concerned, but we´ll see. I´ve got lots of pictures that I want to go through so keep an eye on the flickr.

Ciao for now!