Girls, Girls, Girls

Once again, I've got no real agenda for the day. Caxton have fixed my debit card, so I head out to the market, in search of a mosquito net. On my first trip to Asuncion's Mercado Quatro, I thought I'd circled it and seen it all. This is my third visit and I'm still finding whole new areas. It's a huge labyrinth of fruit, vegetables, clothes, tools, toys - most things, in fact - and my random twists and turns mean I'm usually quite lost, but I've got no better place to be. I stop to watch a butcher carefully butterflying cuts of meat, then I'm drawn over to the pigs heads on hooks in the top corner of the stall. There's a little blood dribbling from the mouth of one head. It's a little unsettling, but I'm compelled to poke his snout. It's soft, cold and wet and a little unsettling. I have a little chat with the butchers son. As with all of my Spanish interactions, I roll through my stock phrases, and occasionally try some new material.

Having secured my mosquito net, I only need a little more reading material, in anticipation of long days on the boat. As I walk past a few magazine stands, featuring National Geographic and Spanish equivalents of the women's drivel that my mother insists to read, the choice becomes obvious - Spanish Playboy. I try to explain to the stand owner that I need it for the articles, but he's sure I'm simply after mujeres sin ropa - as he, I think, tastefully puts it - and offers me various less credible magazines and some outright smut. My previous attempt to learn Bulgarian, by way of Bulgarian Playboy, was unsuccessful, but I left that one on my old coffee table and greatly enjoyed to crack the 'it's for the articles' joke.

By the time the early evening rolls around, I'm not quite satisfied that today has had enough excitement and borders on being a rest day. To at least call it 'practical', I sit down and crank out a sailing CV, with hopes to be back on Santa Maria Australis for the September trip to South Georgia. It's only 2100, and there's only one thing for it. I kick start the beer flow, and am joined by a German biker.

It started innocently enough, but at one in the morning, we're at a rock bar and have joined a group of locals who are are fresh out of the Sepultura gig. At 0400, I'm comfortably drunk for the first time since leaving London. So, to those who suspected I was a dangerous alcoholic, simply because I like to drink every single day, and in the morning whenever possible, shows what you know. As I say my goodbyes to the Paraguayan rockers, one of the guys is so kind as to gift me a little clingfilm packet with a little lump in it. He won't take any money for it, so I thank him, stuff it into pocket and stumble off into the dark.