Some travelling in Enarcacion

Being a small city/town, Encarnacion has an artificial coastline of river where people can enjoy the beach, sand and water. The water was shallow but good to chill out under the hot sun. We enjoyed an afternoon with terere and dipped in water. Later Tzveti joined in and we had a good time in an outdoor concert where we listened to traditional Paraguay and Guarani music. It was a good end of our last day in there.

Our comfortable stay in Asuncion couchsurfing - I

Eduardo’s house is in a middle class community; a few blocks away is a luxurious community of double price. We stay in his son’s room for 3 days. It was a comfortable place. Better is that the kitchen is big where we made a good chinese meal on a Friday party. He invited friends and also a professional singer and guitarist. He sang local Paraguay and Guarani songs and gave us a great night. As for our cooking, it was an adventure for the whole process. Eduardo took us to a Chinese food store where we bought bean curd, sha cha (sand and tea) sauce, frozen dumplings, rice vermicelli, black beans, sesame sauce, frozen shrimp (Maria’s idea to make shrimp in sweet and sour sauce) and very yummy freshly made spicy bamboo soot. The shop was opened by Taiwanese and we had some chat with the shopkeeper. At 7pm we were still buying ribs, chicken wings, beef strips, chicken heart, liver and kidney and vegetable in the supermarket. We started cooking at 8pm. As people were coming we made quick appetizers: fried dumplings, cold noodle in sesame sauce, bean curd in sesame sauce and bamboo soots. The guests seem to like the dumplings more than the other three. Then we made Shanghainese style sweet and sour ribs, chicken wing in Sha-cha sauce, shrimp in sweet and sour sauce and fried rice.

The pork was finished in 5 minutes, but there was leftover for cold noodles and bean curd. We can only blame for the bean curd which was for fried but not for cold eating. Anyway, all were satisfied and we still haven’t made the black bean beef fried rice vermicelli. We drank a lot of beer and wine and party till 4am.

Later we also learnt to make empanadas from Eduardo’s mother Margarita. Speaking good English, she was a very talented woman that we both liked her a lot. If only we could stay longer that we could learn a lot of Paraguay cuisine.

巴拉圭初印象

未見官先打八十仗

巴西/巴拉圭一橋之隔

我們以特區護照從巴西出境，再想以visa free 的BNO入境被拒，指手畫腳地聽懂那海關解釋說那是新的護照，必須要用那本有入境紀錄的特區護照入境才行，而遊客入境承惠$50一位，合共$100（我們當時不明白Dollar指乜嘢貨幣，以為是巴西紙）。我們咕嘀著，建議可否步行回巴西（只是一橋之隔）用新BNO護照入境，然後再回來？他們說不行。那沒現金怎樣辦？收咭嗎？不收。忽然，那海關又問你有什麼咭？拿了出來後，他說對面商場可提款。大暴龍於是跑去拿錢。


那長途車司機等得不耐煩，示意叫我在車上提取行李，我們當時還穿著人字拖。我先跑回車上收拾細軟，一面擔心拿漏東西，一面想等一下要留下在路邊看行李，該如何通知大暴龍。司機已心急如焚的將兩個大背囊拿了下車。他問我拿行李單，我拿不出，他也不理那麼多，急步開車走了。

流落街頭 

提款的大暴龍拿到巴拉圭錢，便回海關贖身，若不是我烏龍的將所有護照留下，他早已想帶我逃之夭夭。（或許此後我們會被通緝，亡命天涯？）


為了息事寧人，我們每人交了二百五十萬（當地錢！即約合共HK$970!)沒有單據，又不知為何海關先生只肯將入境印印在BNO內。(Note: Start of another long story that cannot be told here! AT: 其實係賄款, 之後有朋友幫手攞番, 再講)


南美購物天堂？
巴拉圭的Ciudad del Este與巴西Foz de Iguazu接連，與阿根廷也相當近，相對物價低廉，無論電子產品、電玩、家庭用品護膚品、袋、衫甚至飲食，也有廉價貨供應。除大量百貨公司、盒子式小店、街邊檔，到拿著一兩袋貨便走到街上跑生意的小販，看起來也令我想起深圳或東大門，店舖分佈有點混亂，賣時裝和電器的也可以是一家。其價錢亦其實只是一般香港價，或在那之上 - 視產品而定。（但當巴西賣的家庭用品，香港十元店的那種，是香港的五倍，找到香港價的大陸貨已算不錯了。）


US Dollar is King!
原來他們口中的Dollar是指美金。而所有店舖也收美金、巴拉圭紙、巴西Reias及阿根廷Pesos。而以美金現鈔購物的話，最為實惠。而大部份商店也以美金列價，百貨公司化妝品部會提供現金九折、信用咭九五折的優惠，再次証明對很多小國而言US dollar is king！

@威尼斯賓舘守門口的大鼻先生　

找換店的滙率是US$1:Gs.4.500 但在這𥚃若要簽咭，他們卻居然先將當店滙率US$1:Gs.5.000對換，以巴拉圭紙結算。我們第一轉以信用咭買了US$7環保電芯與叉電器，中了招。之後，特意回酒店房取美金，才再次外出。


我們的午飯是在一家很本地的自助餐廳吃。有沙律、炒飯、意粉、炸雞肶、炸豬扒、燒烤牛扒、烤排骨，還有一種粗粗、一條條，貎似土豆的當地主食（原來是Cassava，木薯）。看看也吸引，亦有很多本地人幫襯，似乎甚為靠得住。在巴西，此類自助餐多是每位或以kg來計算價錢的，但我們在收銀處看不到磅，四處的牆上也看不到價目表，便嘗試查詢店員。他的答案無零兩可，只說livre(任食）及depends，咁depends乜嘢呢？實在有點莫名其妙。只見大男人又食、學生哥又食、小朋友又食、sales又在食，應該不會太貴吧。我們放任的吃了三大碟，有剛燒好的BBQ肉、加上可樂與鮮橙汁，埋單Gs.49.000(HK$93)，都算相當抵。


俾錢找粒糖
後來，我以US$3.3買了支St. Ives洗臉奶，心想他們會有零錢找換嗎？原來美金紙幣是有的，但那US$0.7便以巴西零錢極速節算代替。


然後，我們再在超巿買了Gs.21.683（約HK$42）的一點飲料和補給品,我們交上Gs.30.000，卻找回Gs.8.000加三粒糖。


廢物滿街
下午四時，走回街上，許多店舖已關了門。看看旅遊書，原來這𥚃政府辦公室的工作時間是7am至1pm 或2pm，而銀行的辦公時間是星期一至五8am至1pm。我想Ciudad del Este的店舖營業時間，主要取決於其顧客，巴西人或阿根廷多會即日來回、早出晚歸（家）的來購物，三、四點已是回家的時候。那時,街上所見盡是廢物，包括紙箱、包裝紙、膠袋和垃圾，這城市每天裝箱、拆箱，想很快便被這些廢物堆滿了。


晚餐
晚餐，本來想在街角的parilla (BBQ)吃。吃午飯的店已關，另一條街上，有幾家馬路邊的街頭小檔，除BBQ、還有三明治和熱狗等簡餐。那BBQ其實只有串燒牛肉（3串Gs.10.000，約HK$20，送麵包及木薯條）、雞肶（無帶紙筆， 只帶了iPhone，問極都唔知幾多錢）及大肉腸。後來我們回到酒店街上的Hotel Austria Restaurant，吃了一碟二人前的豬手、燒肉、腸仔、德國酸菜盆，加上生啤，及送餐包，吃不完仲打埋包，合共Gs.94.000 (約HK$180)兩人食兩餐，抵！

吃飽飽，早抖！

Enjoying the talk with the host Eduardo on the way to Asuncion

Eduardo had a long trip in previous days driving a German colleague around the area and had driven for over a thousand km. It was hard and kind of him to drive another trip back home to Asuncion. I had thought about helping him out on the driving but I was not confident in driving at night in the highway of a country that I have no knowledge about. In fact, the tired Eduardo could keep 80km/hour and crossed the opposite lane to keep the speed (there was only one lane for each direction and were many heavy trucks blocking long the way. That needed passing). He also paid for a buffet dinner where we had a better taste of cuppee. Meat made here was like in Brazil and Argentine: too much salt and done. The dinner was really good that we tried the sopa, which was like a cake made by maze. We also bought some beer in alcohol store and Eduardo enjoyed the beer drive withus and I could use the bottle opener with my ring, that I learnt from Richard in Rio de Janeiro.

see the beer we had on the trip !

On the way to Asuncion, we had a lot of topics: from Eduardo’s inheritance from Japanese (it turned out that he and Maria spoke Japanese that I was left in the back seat not understanding anything), to hisview about Japanese invasion to China that he thought history was sometimes bias to the one who said it. He had a hard time when a chinese co-worker rejected him right away once knowing he had Japanese heritage. I agree with him that mostly it was the government which waged war and did inhuman things and mostly the people suffered. However, people were also responsible for letting the government leading them do cruel things. That’s why the German deeply reflected their responsibility. I understand the result of Michigan experiment showing that people in the system could lose their individuality and critical thinking querying what the system wants them to do. However,not letting the system driving an individual's behavior and thought after self-reflection is an important part of intelligence and humanity. It really needs continual reflection of self and awareness of here-and-now.

We also mentioned our experience with the Paraguay immigration, Eduardo was upset about his country government official and he wanted to do something about it. On the drive he emailed to a lawyer friend on immigration matters. It was kind of him to speak up when facing injustice. We finally arrived his home in Asuncion.

Corruption in Paraguay immigration

We were fine exiting Brazilian border in Foz do Iguacu, but when we entered Ciudad del Este of Paraguay. The supposedly visa-free BN(O) passports, which were sent by courier with other things (the fuel bottle,foldable water tank and unnecessary clothes) in great cost, got problem in the immigration. The staff said the chops previously in the HKSAR passport should be in the new passports and thus claimed us to pay G530,000 (aboutHKD 1,000). Without Paraguay cash in that amount I had to rush to a nearby shopping mall to from ATM, leaving Maria behind. I should have given her the walkie-talkie. The bus driver could not wait anymore because the bus wassupposed to go to Asuncion (another five hour trip). He dropped our luggage next to the office and our outer tent was left on the bus (we later found that out). I paid the money but there was no receipt and there was no changefor the G600,000 I paid. Although I did not understand what the staff said, they said something in a playful way. These made me smell corruption and bribery. I got the chance that I took the money back as they just put thepile of note on the desk casually. They shouted something at me and seemed to likely cancel the chops they put on our BNO passport (that was strange, shouldn’t they chop on the HKSAR passport with all previous chops ?).With the bus and Maria behind, I could not argue with them anymore but to leave the money and take the passports back. Frustrated by such bureaucracy and corruption, we entered Ciudad del Este. If I had left the walkie-talkieto Maria, I would rather let the bus go, take the backpacks and stay in the simple office blocking operations for protest (until they gave up and let us in).

Not much shopping in Ciudad del Este

taken from bus seeing people walking along the bridge

Leaving the family in Joinville, we went to Ciudad del Este, Paraguay in the hope that we can buy a good backpack with bargain price for Maria, who had a hard time on the old backpack. With great help from Eduardo our Joinville host we went to the bus on time. We are so used to the long distance bus, of which the stuffy air-conditioning and moldy sofa scared us to cover from head to tail.

We were greeted by Mr Big Nose in the hotel

...also the attention-seeking boy

In Ciudad del Este we found an air-conditioned room with breakfast and wifi for just G150,000 (around HKD300) a night. Hoping to buy something cheap in return, also thinking about our next couchsurfer host Eduardo who would kindly take us to Asuncion and his way back, we took the room after other more expensive choices. The town was a really a shopping mall in South America. Many goods, especially clothing, were sold in bulk. Electronic products were sold much cheaper than in Brazil, but similar prices in Hong Kong (that means more expensive than in China or for any produce made in China). With that in mind, we were less attracted by that. We kept looking for outdoor gear shops, but mostly they were selling fishing gears. We bought a battery charger with rechargeable batteries costing US$7. We paid in credit card in Paraguay Guarani and got exchange in an unfavorable rate (USD1=G5000, while local money exchange shops only change G4300). We should have pay in US dollar cash as we had some. Paid by US dollar things did sell in good price there, so Maria bought face-washing cream (USD3.5), a good water-bottle (USD8) replacing a broken one. That’s it. It seems not a deserved trip to stay behind in this town not buying the backpack we want.

There were lots of packaging rubbish on the street when the shopping streets in the town were closing at around 4pm. It also became a nearly-dead quiet community when shops closed. People came from the border early in the day, did shopping and/or business and left on the same day. With a town like that, many people come to do business and shop and leave quickly, it is difficult to expect many people loving her and the local residents may have a hard time to do anything long-term to build the community. That makes me think about Hong Kong. While agriculture and possible industry can make locals live and build the city. Commerce, finance and tourism alien them from their own land. The more we are developing the latter aspect the more difficult to help us think long-term about the city, so do the government officials and politicians who are educated to do business but not to cultivate.

In the same evening we went to the restaurant of Hotel Austria next to us. It is one in German background, we went there for the “Munich” set that was so big with sausage, the yummy soar vegetable and the pork knuckle. We could not finish in one go but with a lunch box (Thanks to Carrie, a very good gift from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires) we took away for the lunch next day. The dinner was not expensive and costs only G130,000 (with chop beer).

The next day we went on finding any outdoor gear shops. Without success, we packed early and went to find Eduardo who left an address of his insurance company. The local taxi driver was a very nice and honest guy who made sure if we found the right place instead of dropping us on the street of nowhere to find the address. After a long wait when we sorted out our photos and blogs and he was working, we finally started the way to Asuncion at 7pm.

Re-energizing in Joinville

A quiet town with a million inhabitant and a hundred year of history is actually not a small town. We found Joinville on couch surfing as we plan to head south of Brazil and we love smaller town, with friendly neighborhood.

Joinville is near to beaches, river and places to hike. After the carnival excitement in Rio de Janeiro and non-stop hiking in Ilhe Grande, it's a good place to get some rest and quietness. We are glad to be received by Eduardo and his family.

A weekend of rest turned out to become 11 days of stay!


Due to change of plan of our friends in Hong Kong, they hesitantly canceled their South American trip and we are unable to meet them in Uruguay. Hence, we are unable to get some stuffs we need from Hong Kong by hand and that we don't really need to go Montevideo right away.


So, we skip Uruguay for later and go Paraguay for a short trip instead. Ciudad del Este in Paraguay is nicknamed 'Supermarket of South America' and it is a shopping paradise to Brazilians, with everything half priced, compared to Brazil!


We need our freshly re-issued BNO from Hong Kong to enjoy visa free to Paraguay. With help of my good friend, express FedEx of 2kg documents from Hong Kong to Brazil, along with some extra materials cost HK$1200! Well, as the delivery claimed to be 3 days, it was okay...But on the delivery day, we are told that the parcel was stuck in custom and we need to pay R$120 (HK$570) for tax, which is 1.3 times more than the reported cost of the items! Even the local say this is robbery! We've got a 60% import tax, then 13% delivery tax then another fixed amount of tax when the goods arrive Brazil. I don't get the difference but these taxing items all got some fancy title.

The parrot is the same age as Adley

The good parts are: We've got a private room, a beautiful house to stay with a nice kitchen to cook and some happy audience who enjoyed our food. The family love our fried noodles and Brazilian called it yakisoba; we met the energetic 80 years old grandmother, but 18 years old at heart, who is an artist with exhibition around town and made lovely painting on tea sets and glasses used in the kitchen, she also gave us two handpainted handkerchiefs; band practice with Eduardo and see that he is a good drummer; sun bathing at the beach and picking fresh mussels in the sea; hiking with Eduardo and his friend Victor, who always have a whiskey bottle at hand and camp under the rain in Monte Christo; gentle and handsome Eduardo who is caring, loving and open to share thoughts in politics, religion, work, love and travel; Papa Sergio is passionate and friendly; Mama Rosemary is loving, gentle, laugh like a singing bird (i'd really enjoy hearing her laughter!) and worked very hard to keep the house, garden in perfect order. She also hand makes a pair of earrings for me and a waistband for Adley.

The family and circle of friends are pleasant to be with. We are glad to share 11 days of our journey with Eduardo!


Photo: Eduardo is so camera sensitive! I'm wondering if there is something like 'Brazil got talent', he might become a celebrity!

Enjoyable time in Santa Catalina

After going back to Rio de Janeiro for the bus to Sao Paulo, we were lucky to catch a night bus to the latter city. It was early morning when we reached Sao Paulo. In order not to let the host wait for too long, we went for the more expensive bus instead of the cheaper but later bus. After four hours we were in Joinville, a town with some German ethnicity.

In the bus station we were not sure how to use the coin phone, we were blessed to find a phone that could allow us calling the number for 3 seconds but our host Eduardo could see the call display and call back. He is an energetic guy in early twenties and interested in Chinese culture. Before we went to his home we went to supermarket for grocery of the coming meals. The grocery was cheaper than that in the main cities and we bought the ingredients for fried noodle.

It was a middle class house with a good kitchen (we felt fortunate about that). Eduardo’s parents, Sergio and Rosemary were welcoming. There was also an old friendly dog, but with pity his hindlegs were not well. There was also a talkative Brazilian parrot. After not resting well since the Ilhe Grande trip the home was a good place for our rest and also knowing more about local life in Santa Catalina, a nourished province with much agricultural and industrial activities. So we started the call to ask the parcel (more importantly the passports, water tank and the fuel bottle) sent from Hong Kong.

In these eleven days we did not do much except updating the blog, living a family life, helping the mother doing the household chores. Although she said that she enjoyed making the home and the garden, we saw that her job was not easy, not to say that she was just having a break from her teaching job. We imagined that she would have a much harder time when housework and teaching job come together. Unlike our family, the guys in the house did less household chore as we observed. We did most of the cooking (lunch and dinner) and dish cleaning, as long as we were at home, to alleviate her load. She was quite loaded these days as her mother was depressed and in poor health. She had to stay with her mother for a few nights. There was not much cooking done by them and they used to have bread for dinner. Our coming did add some favour to their dinning practice. I made ox tongue, river fish in sweet and sour sauce, orange chicken. They still like our fried noodles the best.

We also note that Eduardo’s paternal grand mother was a very energetic artist in her eighties but heart of an eighteen. Her painting on the tea-set in kitchen fascinated us that we were so eager to visit her. She was so excited when seeing us, also of the trip in May to Germany with Eduardo. Couchsurfing of the grandmother and grandson would be an interesting scene. Good luck to them.

As for touring, we did not do much. We only visited the center of Joinville, with some German architectures but were transformed into shops and stayed vacant that made the small city quite boring. More exciting was the Sao Francisco do Sul, although smaller, with french style houses still alive with residents, also the beaches were nearby giving enough transquity. There we also had buffet livre in a local club next to the sea, and tried the new dessert. It was a thick sago jelly made with red wine.

With Eduardo’s guiding we also went to Porto Belo, a coastline with beaches connected with hiking trails., similar to Ihre Grande but the beaches of the latter were better. I did some swimming in the cool water and took mussels with Eduardo in the quiet mussel farm. The mussels were attached in the floaters (from primitive plastic bottles to more advanced buoyancy) in the water and picking them was not difficult, we just had to find the larger ones. We finally got around ten that gave us a good fresh dinner. We heard that seafood in Brazil was expensive although the ocean was resourceful and anyone could catch fish as long as having tools.

The most enjoyable trip was the hiking in Monte Crista, which included many streams and hills. It was raining and the camping was not an easy one. I felt fortunate that our gear was giving us more comfort (except Maria’s rucksack which I liked to try and got myself in her shoes) and Maria was keeping high spirit in unfavorable situation. It is a blessing that I met and united with her and we could go for adventures. In this trip we also met Victor, Eduardo’s brother-like close friend since childhood. He enjoyed whiskey along the trip and we could have whiskey in the rainy day in tent; it was a good experience.

After the hike there were certainly lots of cleaning to do, especially the stove that burnt kerosene. After changing the plug the flame burnt better with some blue flames but still yellow smoky flames at the end. Cleaning was fine to me as long as we were lucky to have a sunny day afterward that we can clean and dry things quickly. However, more frustrating was that our courier mail was one day delay, wasting us a day of waiting and worse we were charged 120 Reais of tax (about 600 HKD). The delivery guy also said it was robbery and our goods was worth only 450HKD. We were so reluctant and upset to have everything paid double here. Later we found that postage should be cheaper in Uruguay., but our trip to Paraguay would be northerly while we wanted to go south for Patagonia.

At the last night of our southern Brazil, we finally tried the barbecue (called churrasco). Although it was a little expensive (50 reais with drink per person), we had some favourite picks including the fillet of mignon, grilled pineapple, grilled wildpig, gruco the back lump of ox, which was very tender but with pity it was overcooked. Here a lot of salt was used for grill and there was too much oil and overdoing. No wonder high blood pressure was a serious health problem here. 

On the last day at Eduardo home we made river fish in sweet and sour sauce. His mother was less interested in learning due to its complexity and boneliness of the fish. However, it tasted alright with the sweetness from cherry. We were happy that the grandmother, who came for lunch, enjoyed it and the fried noodle. We hope that another fish in the fridge is well cooked.

The trip leaving the home to the bus terminal was quite an adventure because of traffic and we arrived at only 5 minutes before the planned bus arrival. Lucky to us that it arrived less. We should have used the waiting time to warp my rucksack with cover, so as to save the trouble later.

What an enjoyable experience in Joinville and Santa Catalina. Next time when we come again we should drive a car and go around. It is so resourceful, from hill to beach. Thanks so much to Eduardo and his family and we shall keep in touch.

Hiking in Monte Crista, Joinville, Santa Catarina, Brazil

Thirty minutes drive from Joinville downtown, Monte Crista is a natural playground with river and wooden hanging bridge. It is a nice weekend getaway for family, to picnic, sunbathing and relax. For adventurers, like us, it's an exciting adventure to hike and camp there on a rainy day.

When we decide to go hiking on Thursday, our Brazilian friend Eduardo got bewilderment from his friends and colleagues calling him crazy to hike on such a hot summer day of 36 degrees Celsius! Luckily, or unluckily, he got 3 others crazy companions and the weather turned out to be foggy in the morning of that Saturday.

We reached Monte Crista around 9:30am, parked the car and walked across the hanging bridge with our gear. After some broad trail, we reached a river and jumped between rocks to go across.

 The trail was filled with mud and slippery stones after the rain and its an exciting one with some 70-90 degree route. If it's a sunny day, actually it's a great hike with waterfall, river, fresh drinkable water along the way,

Dancing with Princesses

Medoc Marathon, here we come !!!

Thanks to the reminder of a friend, we just join the Medoc Marathon 2012. We shall be there on September 8, 2012, a good birthday event for me, or for our wedding anniversary !!! Come and join us. We have to train more (especially for Maria). (M :I thought I could walk, but early bird gets the treat, heard that if you are not fast enough, there will not be any food and wine left in each check point!!! For the sake of food, I'll run fast!)


http://www.marathondumedoc.com/index.html


Because of this fixed date, our travel plan has a better form, please click "Plan" and see if you can join us in any part of the journey.


See you