Argentina was hot but this was something else. As we travelled by cab on Saturday evening from the bus station to a hotel selected from the Lonely Planet, we felt desperate for a cool breeze but there was none. We wound down the windows hoping our inertia would generate a refreshing blast but instead it felt like a thousand teenage girls were aiming their hair dryers in our direction.
It was, as Kerry so eloquently put it, boil pig.
Paraguay is noteworthy for being the first South American country to declare independence from Spain and Asuncion, handily placed on the Rio Paraguay, has always been the capital.
Ruled by various dictators and military personnel over the years, one such despot had every building above two storeys in height demolished to reduce the risk of being assassinated by a sniper. His paranoia has left a city quite reminiscent of Managua in Nicaragua; somewhere that doesn't quite have the feel of a city, much less a capital, at all.
We pulled up at the hotel and had soon changed and were out on the prowl for sustenance.
We were, as we often seem to be, in a less than salubrious area but once we'd negotiated the missing drain covers, four feet high and fly infested piles of rubbish and stepped over the prone individual who appeared to have needed the lavatory about an hour ago, we happened across a little belter of a restaurant.
We once again felt a bit out of place; travel grunge, flip flops and a fetid stench emanating from one armpit for us; best bib and tucker, nice frocks, jewellery and pleasant, perfumed odours for the other patrons.
However, we were placed in a corner so as not to offend and the food was lovely.
Having slept like new born babes, we availed ourselves of the gratis breakfast and stepped out to explore this baking metropolis. The first thing we read in the guidebook was that on Sunday's the city centre resembles a ghost town, something we can now vouch for.
On the plus side this meant we were spared having to inhale dangerous levels of carbon monoxide, also we could cross roads without fear of ending up under the wheels of a jalopy.
Another plus was that in one single visit to the cashpoint I found myself a millionaire.
I think the best way to sum up Asuncion is to say that it was nice to see, it will be nicer to say we've seen it and that it is probably more likely that we visit the moon before we go back again.
There were one or two nice buildings, though only two storeys high, a couple of lovely plazas and I particularly liked the idea of the "Pantheon of Heroes", an impressive, domed mausoleum containing the remains of anyone and everyone deserving in Paraguayan history.
Because of the ease with which we crossed the road, and in no small part because of our desire to escape the relentless sun, we were about done with the city by lunchtime.
That sounds dreadful I know but we'd seen all the buildings as recommended by LP and walked in a big loop around the whole of 'downtown'.
There just wasn't an awful lot here.
In the afternoon we caught a bus through a much more swanky suburb and went to a shopping mall to see if we could find a couple of bits we were after. We couldn't, but we did enjoy the lovely air-conditioned surroundings for an hour or so.
Re-emerging into the afternoon was hard as the temperature had risen to 40 degrees. (That's about 107 Ma).
Asuncion was but a stop-over en route to greater things and on Monday morning we were haring through traffic in a taxi, hoping to make the 0900 bus to Ciudad del Este.
Ciudad del Este (CDE) means 'City of the East', not the most inspirational moniker I grant you. It was previously known by the name of a president but when he was disgraced it was changed to its current, less controversial title.
From what I can gather, similar is happening across England as I type with all those 'Jimmy Savile Avenues' being renamed 'One Direction Road'.
CDE is on the border with Brazil and Argentina and, so I thought, the place to go to see the Iguazu Falls.
We made our intended bus but we wished we hadn't. It was a second class service which took over an hour to leave the limits of Asuncion and when it did get going it proved to have the least effective air-con imaginable. It was better to open the window but when we did so the conductor shut it again, so we boiled.
The journey took a seemingly interminable six and a half hours, yet another child vomited in our proximity and by the end of it all I calculate that I lost half my body weight in sweat.
(If only!)
You may have picked up on a theme of late: desperation to alight from various modes of transport, pained agonies at the length of journeys, weariness per se.
Yes, we've about had it and this last big push, from Bolivia to the beaches of Uruguay via Iguazu, is hard going.
The driver of the taxi we took from CDE bus station was unhinged.
(Bear in mind that Paraguayan Spanish is seemingly like broad Geordie English, utterly unintelligible to all except their own)
-Hello mate, to the town centre please
-Where do you want to go?
-The centre, the town centre, the central area of town
-You want a particular hotel?
-No. The town centre please
-Whereabouts?
I show him my map
-There. Just there. That bank marked there. That's where I want to go.
-So you need money?
-(Weeping) No, I just want to go to the town centre
We set off, he stopped to ask other taxi drivers some directions and then, when I shouted
"Here. This'll do"
on seeing a decent looking hotel, he stopped immediately, in the middle of a large junction, oblivious to his holding up scores of cars, not to mention our safety.
I'd been struggling with the heat these past few days and, later on, when I saw a barber shop I knew it was time to wave 'adios' to my thick beard of two months.
Over dinner I admired my new, youthful complexion in the mirror behind Kerry and read the LP with horror, realising that Iguazu Falls are not only not in CDE, they're not actually in Paraguay at all.
As faux pas go it's quite a pearler, explained by my seeing "Foz Do Aguazu -1km" on the CDE map and thinking it meant Iguazu Falls.
(Foz is actually a town. In Brazil.)
Easily explained or not, we found ourselves in a bit of a dump and nowhere near the attraction we sought.
In order to save face somewhat we were lucky that the world's second largest dam was but fifteen minutes out of town.
The Itaipu dam was constructed in the 1970s in a joint partnership between Paraguay and Brazil, the fruits of this partnership producing 80% of Paraguay's and a quarter of Brazil's power.
Impressive stuff.
Less impressive is that 10,000 people were forcibly moved to enable the project and that bigger falls than Iguazu were flooded when the dam lake was formed.
We planned to see that on Tuesday and turned in early so as to be up and out first thing.
As we lay there Kerry thought she'd been bitten by a mosquito so we rigged our net up and settled down.
At 0400 I was woken by a commotion; showering, lights on, cussing; Kerry was sporting sixteen nasty lumps about her, courtesy of bed bugs.
Putting a positive spin on things I'd say that to go for eight months through the third world on a different bed every other night and only to fall foul of bed bugs once is a result.
I didn't bother pointing that out though.
Another positive aspect of being awake so early was that we were among the first visitors of the day at the dam.
We watched a quick film in Spanish and then hopped on a bus for a tour to a couple of lookouts and across the dam itself.
With that out of the way we just had the simple task of crossing the border to Argentina, finding a room and preparing for the visit to Iguazu Falls next day. (Now we've ascertained exactly where they are).
What followed is quite a painful and convoluted sequence of events so I'll just list them for impact's sake:
•Stood by side of road in blazing sun waiting for bus to the border
•Advised by a bus driver we need other side of road
•Cross road. No buses apparent for ten minutes so gave up
•Walked to taxi rank. Asked driver how much to Argentina border. $60US. Declined kind offer. Took taxi to bus station
•Bought tickets for next bus to Argentina border
•Bus crawls through town, past where we were standing an hour and a half ago
•Bus sits whilst driver has a fag
•We have a change of driver
•New driver is thirsty. Bus sits whilst driver has a drink of orange juice
•Bus arrives at Paraguayan customs, 400 yards past our hotel. We are told to get off.
"Will you wait?"
"No. Get next bus".
•Customs is utter chaos. Taxis, buses, cycles, motor bikes, people everywhere. We decide to walk across the bridge to Argentina customs.
•Before we set off I decide to check we are doing the right thing. I am glad I did, if we cross that bridge we are in Brazil!
•Finally determine that we need a bus which will cross the bridge, go through a part of Brazil without stopping to reach Argentinian immigration
•Stood like lemons for 45 minutes before a bus for Argentina finally comes. Success!
So, we're back in Argentina, in Puerto Iguazu and buses to the falls run every twenty minutes from here.
We've nearly cracked it.
They'd better be worth it!
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