El Raton Peréz is NOT from Paraguay!

June 2, 2006 - Ciudad del Este
11:45 AM - Barrometric Pressure down to 29.36 inHg

It´s our third or fourth day of hanging just outside of town on a used car lot drinking tereré (cold mate w/o sugar) and talking... about anything and everything. Our guy who owns the used car dealership has invited us to lunch. Sam declines deciding to check out his last two possible buyers and we walk across the street with the owner's daughter and her boyfriend, I think. There´s a bus attendent hanging out of the side of his bus looking for fares with a colorful shirt that just says 'Albert Einstein'.

We eat at the busy comedor about the supermercado and next to the paint store and chat. The Paraguayan version of their history over the past 200 years is very different than say what the Argentines would say, also very different than what the LP South American Guide says, no fault to Morgan Konn I´m sure (also in my previous post I credited Carolyn Hubbard with the Ciudad del Este hotel recommendation when credit due goes to Morgan. We also think Morgan and her writing on Paraguay is some of the strongest in that guide - hats off Morgan!)

It´s always hard to get accurate information about what is really going on and about what has really happened in the past anywhere, especially if you´re a poor thrid world country in Latin America recovering (or still living) under a vicious Dictatorship like Paraguay. Our guy at the car lot is trying to help us but comes clean this afternoon and says he doesn´t have a buyer for the car. We´ve already decided to leave tomorrow morning regardless of what happens today. I´ve been so tempted to jump from here up to the North of Paraguay from some more solo exploration but need to get back to BA and back to real work, RealBuenosAires.com work.

The thing is before arriving in Paraguay I had given up on the speculative rumors of the clandestine US Military base up in the Chaco desert as nothing more than lefty conspirist theories and bad journalism by the Argentine press. Just recently the US Department of State´s 'Identifying Misinformation' Branch updated this report (a MUST READ for anyone that cares about how the US decieves the rest of the world)and completely denounced these rumors as purely false, but inside of Paraguay its a completely different story indeed.

"Not only do they have the base in the Chaco, they´ve got one in Concepción as well," the assistant to the Consul at the Paraguayan consulate in Posadas, Argentina tells me. "They are right next to the Paraguayan bases but no one is allowed near them, not even the Paraguayan military." Since arriving inside of Paraguay, EVERYONE I´ve talked to agrees with him and encourage me to head up to that area to see for myself, but not this trip. Our used car salesman who is also organizing a group to overthrow the current and continuing Dictatorship which hides under the political smokescreen of the current Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte and his Red Party told me he´s actually seen the US top seceret 'UNO' planes landing and taking off in the desert.

I´ll come back later, better prepared and with a plan. It´s not like I´m going to just run up to the Chaco, take pictures of the bases and get a couple of interviews wtih some US Marines on why they are here in Paraguay. "They´ll put a bullet in your head," one source tells me. But if they do indeed exist as the Consulate in Posadas confirms, Rumsfield is an even bigger liar than I thought cause he was year just last year and denied it over and over. But what was he doing here? This isn´t Iraq, there are no terrorists and its not about emergency medical aid or democracy or even freedom, that much abused and overused word. It´s about sucking the blood out of our neighbors to the South so we can preserve our way of life and stay on top at the expense of most others. But its really about our 'precious bodily fluids...'

After lunch while waiting for Sam to return with or without the car the car sales man stands up and points across the street towards some shacks. "How can those poor people live and cook on the street like that with all the dust and car pollution while two powerful and rich countries just across the rivers from us swim in US Dollars?" he rethoically askes. "You see that guy pissing on that tree? It hurts my eyes and makes my heart ache because I planted it thirty years ago, but where else can he go? There´s no running water and no toilets but yet they [the politicians] drive around in their fancy Mercedes and look the other way," he finishes while sitting down and wiping his eyes.

Black, blue, yellow and green butterflies duck in and out of the shaded overhang as I wait another thirty minutes for Sam chain smoking the worst cigarettes I´ve ever tasted in my life - they smell and taste like rat poison is the closest way I can describe them. That then reminds me of El Raton Peréz which is the Rat named Perez and is the Argentine equivilent of the tooth fairly, only its a rat not a fairy. Two more guys piss on the same tree and then boss tells me he´s got another small meeting to attend but if I need anything to just call him. He gets into a huge white custom pickup truck with tinted windows darker than black smoke and drives off. I wait the thirty minutes for Sam who doesn´t show and grab a cab back to the hotel. [TBC]