Independence Day Weekend and Ybycui (2)

After our hike, we moseyed down the road to an iron foundry called "La Rosada." It was used to make weapons for the triple alliance war in the 1860s-and was also destroyed in the same war. Now it has a museum and you can wander around and look at stuff.

Parrots!

This is a common scene in the countryside. There are many cows roaming all over the place.

After all this adventure, we stopped in the small town of Ybycui to stock up on food and drinks, then went back to our hotel and did some more cooking, and leftover heating-uping. Another fun night of eating, games, and drinking led to this:

LEMONS! Now for some reason lemons are not even available in Paraguay anywhere. It's not like they don't grow. In fact, on the hotel property they actually do grow on trees. So at 1 or 2 in the morning, Kristi and I went lemon picking. I'm not sure why it was so fun and hilarious, but the beverage selections of the evening *may* have been a factor. We were so happy about our lemons!


The next morning was our last at the hotel, so we decided to take advantage of some pool time in the sun. The weather was perfect.

I need one of these for my patio. 

On the way back we took some meandering side roads. Our map didn't specify between nice, newly paved roads and muddy, rutted roads. When the former gave way to the latter, we changed our route. At any rate, it was a gorgeous day for a drive in the country.

Our last stop on the way into town was in a little town called Ita. There is a family of yacares (caiman) that just live in the lake and sometimes don't escape their fenced enclosure. WHAT? CAIMAN?!? OK I have a little bit of an alligator/crocidile phobia. But it was still kind of cool. But seriously, someone thought this was a good idea? Seriously? The little baby at the bottom totally could have gotten out under the fence and bitten someone! Anyway, hope you enjoyed this glimpse into what we do on long weekends for fun. :)