Paraguay v Sweden from Ciudad el Este 15 June 2006

Sally and I farewelled our friends in Sao Paulo, enjoyed an easy cab ride to the airport, checked in early and sat drinking good coffee in a sunny patch in the airport.

Our flight would take us to a little town called Foz do Iguacu. This destination had been picked out for us by our Brazilian friend Camilla who had conspired to keep us inside her home country, but just near the borders of Argentina and Paraguay. We shared laughs about strolling over borders from now on!

Sally and I boarded our flight collecting a bundle of free newspapers with glee. I flipped straight to the sport pages to find montages of the characters from the front row in Sao Paulo. Looking at their familiar faces, I felt connected to the World Cup, but challenged by these new feelings of validation. In a way, the Sao Paulo event and the photos in the newspapers were staged in a tacit agreement between media and subjects. What was in the newspapers was not real, but it made me feel like our experience was somehow more so. Cursed captivating mainstream newspaper press!

Following a two or three hour flight, we arrived at Foz do Iguacu. It felt like north Queensland as we stepped onto a tarmac surrounded by trees. Our eyes, noses and throats itched with the tropical air.

We took a taxi to what our research indicated would be a good value hotel, but a man with sympathetic eyes told us the place was full. He referred us to another hotel on the main street between Pizza Hut and McDonalds. The place was basic, not cheap, but 'Tres Frontiers Hotel' seemed a good name. We checked into a room with brown sheets, grey walls and a balcony overlooking the street. Dipping into the modest bar fridge, we went to sleep watching BBC World while passing traffic rattled our windows and walls.

We awoke for the Paraguay match a little late the next morning, rushing into the breakfast room, just beating the cleaners to the bread, coffee and cheese. We visited the nearby tourist office and then caught a bus heading over the border.

The bus had a little turnstile inside, set back from the door, with a guy sitting there to handle the cash. The tourist office had warned us about robberies on the bridge. My sense was that the turnstile arrangement was to create an extra obstacle between those on the street, the bus owner's cash, and fortunately, those of us who sat in the back.

The border crossing rumbled with motorbike men, scooting between market stalls and billboards promoting Paraguay's tax free electronic wares.

The bus took us over the bridge and into Ciudad del Este without stopping at immigration on either side. We were a little alarmed because Australians need visas for both Paraguay and Brazil and so we expected to stamp passports on either side of the border. We jumped off the bus at the first stop in Paraguay and considered going back to immigration to show them our passports, but, with the match due to start in two hours it seemed that this might cause delays and confusion. We decided to just deal with any problems when we came to try to exit the place.

Ciudad el Este teemed with street markets selling electronics, enormous fishing rods and the odd gun. Almost everyone held a cup with a spout in a hand to drink 'mate' and cradled a thermos of hot water under an arm. (I do find it hard to believe that 'mate', so popular, is not some sort of a drug ' somewhere in there with alcohol, coffee or cigarettes?)

At first, we felt rather vulnerable walking around town looking for a place to watch the match. Market stalls enveloped whole footpaths, swallowing us whole before squeezing us out. Motorbikes zoomed all around us. Men beckoned us into their stores. Almost no-one sold food; it was all about 'stuff'. We found new Paraguay shirts easily, but where on Earth in Paraguay would we watch the game?

The commercial district seemed compact, so we scoured the grid in a systematic search of the streets. We stopped at a pharmacy to attend to our shared developing head colds. An English speaking assistant helped us with something that seemed perfect and I was so pleased I bought six packs of the stuff. (Sal has stopped taking the tablets because she says they make her feel funny. I'm now working through my second pack.) We had no local money, but learned that every establishment on the border accepts four currencies: $US, Pesos, Reais and Paraguay's money which I am yet to understand. As the pharmacist made his currency conversions, I asked whether he knew a good place to go watch the match. He gave directions to a mall which we proved unable to follow.

As we moved around town, I was surprised that there seemed to be little interest in the impending match. Business was being carried on as (what I gathered was) usual and people were not excited or gathering together. 'Salon de Eventos' sounded promising, but was empty. A 'Coreon' restaurant had not quite the right feel. A supermarket with a screen looked a potential spectacle, but a security guard insisted we check our bags at the door. We grew desperate. With about fifteen minutes to go, we settled on a hotel restaurant called 'Guarania' which had three sections: a front bar with stools, a restaurant with clean tablecloths in Paraguay colours and a patio area which housed three kittens, a parrot and two insane monkeys in a cage. That had to be good luck. Each of the three areas had televisions and showed some promise for crowds.

We sat at a table in the corner of the restaurant section where we could best survey the place. There was not much going on. The restaurant seemed a little bit pricey and the people were reserved watching England play Trinidad and Tobago up on the screen. Nothing seemed right. I ducked outside and asked a man 'que hora es' ' what's the time? One o'clock? The border crossing of course! An enquiry with the proprietor confirmed the match was still two hours away!

We lamented lost sleep and being so far away from out hotel room, our stuff and our beds. We ate. We drunk. We killed time in grubby shopping malls filled with electronics and men yielding guns. I lazily asked around for an external hard drive. My enquiries produced CD burners and blank stares.

As the real match time approached, a movement developed on the streets. The shops started shutting down and people started walking in the same direction out of town. Excited, we joined in the stream, but found it dried up at the bus station. Everyone seemed to be heading home for the match.

We decided to head back to 'Guarania'. Turning into the hotel, we found the proprietor posing with her staff for a photograph before a giant Paraguay flag. They beckoned us to join them which we happily did looking the perfect Paraguay part in our shirts.

They sat us down in the back of the restaurant to join them to watch the match. In a way, I felt warmed to have been invited into their intimate affair and spent much of the first half smiling at the proprietor playing with her dog. The football was flat. Frankly, the fans were the same. Sal and I were really starting to settle into our colds. At half time, we decided to go somewhere else.

Back up the main street, we found a car park, an 'Autocentro', with a covered concrete slab at the front that had a bar and a tiny television in the corner. There were maybe thirty or forty people in there. All men. They were drinking cervezas from glasses which they filled from long necks kept cool in buckets of ice.

Having come late, we nabbed some spare chairs in the back. We could barely see the screen and no faces of the crowd. I was concerned for the quality of Sally's shots.

"Perhaps you should go and film from the front.

"Would you come with me? asked Sal.

"I don't know if there's enough space.

I was tired and surly from the heat and my cold. I complained that it might be easier for Sal to go on her own. In the end, I conceded and we both took our chairs around to the side of the venue. We were encouraged by a group of eight or so men to sit at the front.

They quickly positioned our bucket on their table and started filling it up with cervezas. Things were much better now. We all introduced ourselves by nationalities and names.

They asked about the match between Australia and Brazil coming up. I squished Brazil on the table with the end of my thumb. They all seemed to like that. We discussed Australia keeping Uruguay out of the Cup. They all seemed to like that as well.

A young one started doing beer ads for Sal's camera. He would pose with his glass of beer, skull, wipe the froth from his mouth and then smile broad at the camera. He repeated his gag a few times. One fellow asked me with his hands whether all of the women in Australia were so 'hour glassed shaped'.

"Si, I said in a tone producing a laugh.

"He likes men, said another pointing at the first.

"He is crazy! He is loco! said the first back.

All of these chaps worked for a money changer in town except for one, Pedro, who was a locksmith. He seemed a little shy about the fact, but said that if we ever needed a locksmith we could call him. I liked Pedro. I wanted to tell him that he would have been just the man for us back in Quito when one of my padlocks broke and locked my bag shut. And again in Sao Paulo when we had to wait for hours to get into our friend Lisandra's flat. But language did not permit such complicated concepts, so I just smiled and nodded while Pedro listed off all the Australian animals he knew.

"He crazy! Loco! said someone pointing at Pedro.

"No, he is loco! said Pedro tapping his head pointing back.

To be honest, it seemed that no-one was much watching the match anymore. We were the new diversions and fun and we enjoyed it at last. That is, until, Sweden scored.

The young one, who had done beer ads for the camera, smashed his hand on the table spilling his own and others' beers. He stormed off. He really took it to heart. Everyone did, but more quietly so. They looked sombre and ill. We were sitting so close to them that I felt shy to look back at their faces. At the same time, I was proud of courageous Sal for filming them so. I longed up at the screen for Paraguay to score to restore the good mood, but there was so little time left. When the final whistle came Sweden had won it one-nil.

"Now on Domingo, said Pedro. "We go for Australia.

I was touched. Paraguay was my favourite South American team and I was sad to see that there would now be no way they could take out the Cup. (Sal, infuriatingly, is supporting Ecuador! So, so, so far away!) But we would not wallow for long. A fellow named Marcus invited us to join him for something. It took a while for Marcus to communicate his invitation, but someone else helped him to find the right words.

"Karaoke! he said.

We accepted! Marcus' wife, Latetia (with such good English) arrived. We farewelled Pedro and the others and left. The karaoke venue, in a mall, was on levels, from the stage below to the bar at the top. Youngsters sat behind tables with holes cut in the middle to hold their buckets of beers. The place had the energy of a night club with happy people banging on tables, grooving to music videos being played on the screen, anxious for karaoke to start. One would never know Paraguay had just lost the match.

To my pleasant surprise, Pedro appeared in the venue, wearing a change of shirt and all ready to go. Marcus and Pedro bought some cervezas. I felt conscious of the imposition of cost and decided to go fetch some as well.

The bar tender named his price for two beers. I tried to present him with some Brazilian Reais, but he wanted something else. In my pocket, I found a bundle of crumpled brown local notes which I had received as change earlier in the day. I presented them over the bar and the guy took the lot. I expected him to pick out the right amount and leave me with the rest, but he took it all. I did not know what to say. I felt embarrassed to have acted like someone to whom money didn't matter. What I wanted to communicate was: 'Here, I trust you'. What he communicated back was 'Ah, thank you. Screw you!'.

"Is that enough?" I asked trying to reopen the matter already closed.

"Yes, that's enough, he said folding the notes over in his hand and smiling at me. Then came the obvious question: "You Americano, Aleman?

"Australiano, I said smiling back hoping that my 'exoticism' might earn me some change. There was no such luck.

I tried not to be upset, but I was irritated to have been ripped off and to be so ignorant to not even know by how much. I sat at the table trying to recall where I had picked up the bundle of notes. I just could not remember. I was annoyed to have presented myself as a sucker with too much cash and then to have been accurately picked out as such.

Of course, the generosity of the many made up for a fool and the opportunism of few. Marcus bought more and more beers. Pedro ordered food and when I reached for my wallet, he held up his hand.

"My country, he said paying the bill.

Eating and drinking, I tried to gear myself for karaoke. I'm not much of a singer, but I figured as guests we would be dragged up the front. Letitia was the first singer up for the night and when she sung such a stunning bilingual bit, I decided, no matter what, I did not want to go up there. The standard was too high for a hack singer like me. Even in a faraway place, and among new and kind friends, humility kicks in.

Marcus and Latetia announced that Latetia's brother, Jose, was coming to pick us up and take us on a tour of the town. I felt bad to ditch Pedro again, but, tired, drunk and compliant, we left. Our new friends were proud of their little town. We saw the school, the library and the prison where a friend of Marcus' was doing time for a crime he didn't commit. Latetia pointed out the shop where she works. She said she sees about two Americans a week and no more than two Australians in a year. We stopped in another mall, seemingly the place for trendy bars and clubs. They ordered more beers for us and a plate of meat and a type of tasty solid Paraguayan soup. And as a parting gesture, in honour of us, they arranged for the video DJ to play INXS.

"Now, we will drive you back to your hotel in Foz.

With no stops at the border, we were seamlessly delivered back to Brazil.

As we came to our hotel, I think my indication of 'here' was misinterpreted by Marcus as a call for more 'beer'. We ended up at a service station nearby where I obliged in what I understood to be Marcus' suggestion to pick up some more beers. I grabbed half a dozen, earning me the comparison from Jose that I was like Homer Simpson ' he rubbed both his stomach and head. Being called a 'gortido' is one thing, but being called 'Homer Simpson'?! When all this is over, I'm really going to have to do something about this (growing and not so) little issue.

I wanted to reciprocate our new friends' gracious hospitality somehow and so invited them to sit inside the hotel with us for a drink. It was probably a silly suggestion. I felt embarrassed by what I thought may have been perceived as lavish surrounds. I stumbled out an explanation about the place being nicer than anywhere we would normally stay, but it was pointless really. They had already found out that I work as a lawyer.

We sat in the front lounge for a short time drinking beer until Marcus announced it was time to leave. I stood up, knocked over my drink, and wished them goodbye.

What had been a dry day had turned into a delightful night. Thank you to Marcus and Leticia and daughter to be, Jose and Pedro and all the others for our time in Paraguay. I do hope you will join us on our side of the border to support Australia in the upcoming match with Brazil. But first, we need to scoot over a different border to watch Argentina again.