My Adventures and Travels

San Bernardino is a tranquil little resort town, originally settled by German immigrants, only about an hour outside of Asuncion. We took a day trip here to see what there was to see. Our first stop was a flea market. There wasn't really anything of interest to buy, but it was fun to be surrounded by people speaking German! Then we went down to Lake Ypacarai to watch people and boats come and go. It was a beautiful fall day so we just soaked in the sun! After that we started exploring. One of our Paraguayan friends had mentioned an old, abandoned amphitheater. We are the type of people who think that could make a fun afternoon! After many dirt roads, U-turns, asking locals for directions, we finally found it. The last concert held here was Ricky Martin in 1994. After that, the amphitheater was closed and basically became completely overrun by jungle. A couple years ago someone decided to clean it up-but since then it seems it's just a place teenagers come to drink, as ev...

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 ...

Any time there is a long weekend, there is always the buzz of "where are you going for the weekend?" and "what are your plans?" That is one of the cool things about being surrounded by a group of adventurous, traveling type- a four-day weekend spells ADVENTURE! Originally we had talked about going camping, but the weather forecast was terrible. Instead, we found a really cute "hotel" with separate cabins/bungalows. (What is the difference anyway?) In two cars, eight of us (6 teachers and 2 visiting friends) set off for our adventure. The first delay happened almost immediately...we were pulled over. This happens ALL THE TIME in Paraguay, and they don't have to have a reason to pull you over. You're driving along and there are check points, and they just pull over whichever cars they feel like. Normally you show your paperwork and are on your way in under a minute. However, this was the exception. We STILL don't know what happened. Apparentl...

I have some leftover pictures that I like, but they don't really go with any of my other posts. So, here they are.  After days of rain, the clouds start to lift. This was my first view of the mountains around Rio! Beau and I saw tons of these critters in a park. What are they? There are tons of these mega sandcastles along the Ipanema and Copacabana beaches. Often they want a donation in exchange for a picture. Drinking water out of a coconut was on my Rio bucket list. Watching the guy hack it open was impressive! These last two pictures are from the trendy Lapa neighborhood. We went out one night with our new friends Rob and Chrissy. Check out how busy the streets below are-this was at about 4 a.m.! 

One of the nice things about Rio (and a huge change from Paraguay) is that it's a huge tourist destination. Now, on the downside, there are tons of tourists. But on the upside, it's really easy to attend events and outings without having to do all the planning on your own. Plus, some of the said tourists turn out to be awesome people who even speak English to boot! This is Chrissy. She's awesome. One of the events we found online and decided to attend was nicely called the "Sunset Boat Cruise." But I have been on this type of thing before-it's all about the drinking, who are they trying to kid? Anyway it was really fun. :) We met these nice people Chrissy and Rob early on in the week, and this was the 3rd time we made an excuse to hang out with them! I'm really glad they came because they have this weird scheme to get everyone drinking and partying. Ladies only can go to the top floor of the boat and have all they want free drinks for the first hour....