reverse engineering on a budget

I spend enough time along the margins of Ciudad del Este with people who are largely excluded from the commercial economy of the free trade zone (save for hawking homemade snack foods like empanadas and "chipa" biscuits to wealthier compra-turistas--buyer tourists--making purchases in the city center), that sometimes it is fun to remember why this place is notorious as a mecca for quasi-legal (and definitely illicit) transactions. In Ciudad del Este, the story commonly goes, anything can be had for the right price. But buyer-be-ware, since the excellent prices on "Nike" shoes and "LG DVD players" is quite probably because they are knockoffs. Sometimes the knockoffs are indistinguishable from the originals. Or sometimes (as Kristen and I found out when our $1 copy of GI Joe was filmed on a hand held camera pointed at the movie screen...and with some rather dire autofocus problems!), the original is best.

Yesterday I went to the city-center on the busiest shopping day of the week to buy a phone. In Paraguay there are three major cell phone carriers that offer pay-as-you-go plans. Essentially, you buy a cheap (often used) cell-phone that isn't locked to service with a particular carrier (a problem in the US when, for example, you buy an AT&T phone and then can't use it with any other service). Then you buy a SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card with a little chip in it that has unique user codes as well as storage space for contact phone numbers &c. SIM cards are great because you can pop them out of one phone and transfer the information from that phone to another phone. In Paraguay, in order to charge up minutes on your phone (since people rarely have a monthly plan), you buy saldo in order to pay for minutes...and you can buy as little as fifty cents at a time to charge your phone. It's a chronic problem in Paraguay to run out of saldo on your phone and be incommunicado until you buy more minutes (usually at little kiosks that sell either phone cards or call the phone company directly and charge minutes to your account). Soooo...right, three phone carriers. And each has discounts on call and text message rates if you call other phones that have the same carrier. Or bonus-minutes that you can use to call other phones in that network. So enterprising Paraguayans tend to have three cell phones with a Tigo number, a Personal number, and a Claro number...and use each phone depending on who they want to call (and what sort of phone carrier that person had). And of course depending on which phone has saldo at that particular moment.

So when I got to Paraguay I got a phone with a Claro phone number. Which turns out to be a poor choice because Claro has good data plans (which is why I went with that carrier) but Tigo and Personal are more common for poor people...while Claro is the "chichi" brand, as it were, ooops! Many of my contacts lament the fact that I didn't have a phone number that they could call for cheap/free...so finally thought it would be a good time to get a Tigo phone number. Ergo trip to the microcenter to get a second phone.

Christine had recently broken her phone and bought a new one at one of the little electronics stands that make the main streets downtown a maze of rickety tents and tables stacked with everything from cheap knockoff sunglasses, to used blenders, to off-brand cell phones ("just like a Sony-Ericsson, I swear"!). So she wanted to come with me to see what sort of deal I ended up with. I suspected that the shops inside the rabbit-warren of shopping galleries would have a better price than on the street (less markup), and was gratified to find the phone that Christine had just bought for $140 being sold by the charming Lebanese proprietor of "Wii Store Electronics" for $67. Yes! Communication was a bit rough since he spoke a hodge-podge of Portuguese (most of the compra-turistas are Brazilian) and Spanish...with a heavy Arabic accent...and I spoke in Spanish with a dose of Guarani-isms and a 'yankee' accent. But after some negotiation, I was set to buy the phone...until I tried my Tigo chip and it wouldn't interface with the phone. Darn! So he started pulling phones off the shelf and spouting prices, "this one is $75, this one of $78 but comes with a 2GB chip, this one is more but it is nicer, just like a Nokia"...and then he pulled down a box that looked like a tiny iPhone. I laughed and asked him how much for the iPhone and he said $90 and see it works just like an iPhone too see how it has the home screen and touchpad and everything! Much smaller than an iPhone ("yes! See here it says "Mini," just like iPhone but mini. More convenient, smaller!"), about the size of a credit card...the iPhone mini had some immediately apparent design flaws. Like a really junky touch-screen. And the addition of a TV antena (since no WiFi obviously meant analog...no streaming digital video). But it has a motion sensor to play games. And an MP3 player. And is a hillarious knock-off...down to white ear-bud headphones (á la apple products) and a boxy white iPod-esque charger. But all munchkin-size. So I obviously couldn't pass it up (if nothing else, because it is so comic!). After trying without success to use the touch-pad to write a text-message or enter caller-ID for some of my contacts...I've decided that the "Mini iPhone" is a few generations away from actually useful. Christine, a bit crestfallen that her $140 phone could be had for $67, seemed to take a bit more joy in my frustrations with using my new "iPhone." But it will be an excellent gag-gift for somebody in the states. White-elephant Christmas parties...watch out!

My agenda for Monday includes (1) bringing the last paperwork to ABN bank in the center to open a checking account here in Paraguay (not sure that relying on the banking system of a country with chronic macroeconomic instability and a history of hyperinflation is a great idea. But my bank in the US--Washington Mutual--was recently nationalized after failing...so maybe not as foolhardy as it might seem!); and (2) buying a more functional Tigo phone. Reverse-engineering of apple products lamentably still has a bit of a ways to go. Time to buy the $15 Nokia cockroach phone!

Dead bugs and a lot of walking...

So the main event of week 2 of Kristen's visit was PLAGUE!! We got back from Santiago feeling pretty lucky that we hadn't gotten food poisoning like poor Mary. And then on Tuesday afternoon, Kristen was afflicted with the pestilence. And I knew it was only a matter of time before my turn came. And sure enough, Thursday morning, I got the evil stomach bug as well. So we spent nearly an entire week quarantined in my apartment collapsed on the red couches and deliriously watching Season 1 of Heroes (probably for the best, since it isn't a terribly coherent show to begin with...so didn't miss much by watching it with frequent interruptions and while vaguely delirious). So we pretty much lost a week by the time we were both finally recuperated enough to get out of the house and keep down solid food.

So we had to compress a lot of sight-seeing on the tri-border into a single week before Kristen headed back to the USA. And we managed to leave the "Cataratas de Iguasu" (Iguasu Waterfalls) until nearly the last minute, which is pretty silly since it is the #1 tourist attraction in the tri-border, and indeed, pretty much the only reason why you would visit this area unless you
wanted to buy a boot-legged Susuki Keyboard, or other cheap consumer electronics. So we piled in the "fusca" on Friday morning, ready to head out to the waterfalls on the Argentine side of the border. Failure!! Poor bug wouldn't start! We had this problem earlier but luckily were on a hill and got the engine running by throwing it into first and popping the clutch as we rolled down the hill (first time I ever had to use that trick!). But no rolling start was possible from my backyard parking-space. So we had to find other means of getting there.

The solution was a *lot* of walking!
If you aren't in a car, crossing the border involves trekking from the immigration and customs office on the Paraguayan side (to get the exit stamp in the passport) to the Brazilian side (to get the entry stamp). The bridge is helpfully marked at the middle to notify you that you are leaving Paraguay and entering Brazil. But dealing with customs officials in Paraguay and Brazil, then a taxi to the local bus terminal in Foz do Iguaçu, then a bus from Foz to the Argentine town of Puerto Yguazu (with a stop at Argentine customs and immigration, of course), and then another bus to the waterfalls....and an hour time change coming from Paraguay to Brazil/Argentina, all meant that even though we left at 10:30am, we didn't make it to the waterfalls until 3:30. Which left us just over two hours to see the whole park, darn! But Kristen didn't seem too sad to have missed some of the other attractions that the park had to offer (viz, jungle tour, boat ride, and mini-train to the farthest part of the falls). So we got a hefty dose of waterfalls, which was what we came for anyway!

And it was an absolutely gorgeous day, which made exploring the park really wonderful! There is one *big* fall called "Garganta del Diablo" ('The Devil's Throat') but we missed the last mini-train out to the vista. But never mind, since we got to explore the nearly 3km of interconnected catwalks and walking paths that spanned nearly the whole cliff-face where the Iguazu river spills into a basin that drains into the Paraná. Lots of sunshine made the rainbows, and mist, and jungle seem all the more exotic. Kristen commented that all of the creeper vines and dense foliage would make this a perfect site to film a "Rambo" movie. I wasn't too worried about machete-wielding guerrillas lurking in the dense underbrush. But big spiders and other insect life always make me nervous, so I kept an eye on the plants, just to be sure!

We started on the catwalks that ran across the tops of the upper-falls. Which provided a beautiful view of the falls, as well as an intense sense of vertigo as
you saw the water rushing by
underneath the wire-mesh grate suspended above the river, with jungle on one side and a cliff on the other. Kristen kept eying the precipice nervously and didn't seem too keen on leaning against the railing. But despite the unsettling drop, the walkways provided an amazing panoramic view of the falls.

Here are a few photos of me and Kristen at the cataratas. The last photo I snapped on the lower-catwalks that ran along the drier part of the base of the falls. But one platform got pretty close to the bottom of one of the larger waterfalls. A park ranger told us that it "vale la pena"--it's definitely worth it!--so we decided to go check it out even though time was a bit tight and we were worried about making the last tram out before the park closed at 6pm. So we scurried down to the last platform...and it *was* totally worth it! We got completely drenched from the spray, but it was really impressive being that close to that much water hurtling over the side of the cliff. Kristen was a trooper and stood there while I snapped a quick photo. Very cool!

And then it was back on a bus to Foz do Iguaçu, which took us all the way to the "Friendship Bridge". Stamp out of Argentina, out of Brazil, walking across the bridge, and stamped back into Paraguay.....and home again! Too bad the VW Bug had temporarily given up the ghost. But three countries, one day...even the long commute in between didn't seem that bad!

So Kristen took off for home on Sunday afternoon. And I am back to the routine of fieldwork (and still waiting for news from the mechanic to see what's going on with the poor "fusca"). Kristen now has a *very* respectable looking passport (half-full of stamps from the same three
countries, but still....). And I get to go back to my work on finance in Ciudad del Este. I guess all good things must come to an end :(

p.s. Swinton says she misses you, Kristen!

Santiago de Chile, on vacation

So--the big news of the last week and a half (of no posts) is that my sister Kristen has arrived in Paraguay for a summer vacation. Not quite as picturesque as some vacation spots, but certainly gives you an interesting passport (being on the tri-border requires several visas and lots of passport stamps!) as well as some wild stories to take back home to the USA. So she loaded up with several pounds of excellent coffee as bribes for me (and to save us from the scourge of Nescafé), two seasons of Heroes for our entertainment, and 15 pairs of shoes (the child does not travel light)...and arrived last Sunday (August 2) at Iguassu Airport in Brazil. After several miscellaneous adventures including delicious food in Korea-town, purchasing a pirated copy of Harry Potter that was a grave disappointment since it was dubbed in Portuguese, and a trip to local waterfalls (I'll post pictures later)...we left for a weekend trip to Santiago, Chile. I had never been to Chile, and also thought that Kristen would get a rather skewed picture of Latin America if she only visited Paraguay. So I booked $130 round-trip tickets from Asunción to Santiago...and figured even with the $130 visa, it was worth the trip. And a real vacation--yay!!

Since we were flying out of Asunción, I thought that it would be nice to get there a day early and do some exploring in the capital before flying out on Friday. But on Wednesday night, Christine, who was on a State Department Fulbright fellowship (as opposed to my Fulbright, which is administered by the Dept. of Ed), got an invitation to the US Embassy for an invited performance/soiree. She notified the embassy folks that I was also on a Fulbright and in-country, so they sent me an invitation as well. So we headed out on Thursday morning to the shindig at the embassy--which is not a bad way to explore Asunción! The invited performers were a trio called Three 'Mo Tenors (a play on the Three Tenors...but rather than Italian, these guys were are black...and draw on Jazz/Mo-Town/Blues themes as well as Verdi). The performance was spectacular. And we got to hob-knob with the diplomatic mission in Paraguay...which made me feel very James Bond as I sipped wine and munched on canapés. And Kristen made friends with the Secretary of Cultural Affairs by commenting on his tie (which apparently is sold only at the gift-shop at the Met). In all a lovely evening.

p.s.: nearly everybody that we asked if we were sisters. Looking at some of the photos, I can see why!

So Friday morning we took off for Santiago de Chile. The trip started off a bit star-crossed. Kristen packed an apple in my purse to eat on the plane, which I promptly forgot about in the airport. But it turns out that Chile takes these things very seriously, which we soon found out...and which led to 45 minutes of very concerted scolding, a bio-hazard bag for the poor apple, and a $230 fine (ouch!!!! That was way more than our hotel budget for 3 nights!). And now we know. Oi! But after some the very tense encounter in customs, we got out of the airport and took a bus towards the downtown metro-stop. And the wonder and astonishment of having an actual working bus system, and a beautiful and efficient subway system, and clean paved streets...made it all worthwhile. Not to mention the Andes mountains in the background:
And after a bit of wandering after we got off at the subway stop that was supposed to be 2 blocks from out backpacking hostel (with a private 2-person room...I feel like I'm too old and grumpy to share a room with 5 bunk beds and three drunk Austrians blasting techno music until the wee hours, a taiwanese snowboarding bum, and three american college students....for example). We found our lodging and settled in for a glass of *real* beer...a luxury that should not be underestimated after many many months of Brahma beer in Paraguay. I guess the german immigrants in Chile were a bit more insistent about bringing their cultural habits (including brewing) with them than the german enclave in Paraguay. Which led to some pretty delicious german-style ales. Ah, perfection!

So...one of the reasons that I decided to visit Chile was because my classmate Mary Leighton, and archaeologist in my program, had started her fieldwork in Santiago a few weeks ago. So I thought that it would be a good opportunity to some guidance about where to go/what to see, as well as getting a chance to catch up with Mary. Which was great, because she had already done a bit of exploring...and on Friday night took us on a walking tour towards the center, where we ended up at an enchanting little french tea house/barber shop/restaurant/cocktail bar called Boulevard Levaud. And although Chile is known for excellent seafood (since it is pretty much one big long coastline), the cuisine was most definitely very french...which meant that Mary had the Duck l'orange and I had braised rabbit in a cream sauce, and Kristen has a crêpe with asparagus and artichoke hearts. Yum! Not to mention that the place was completely eccentric and adorable. Sometimes it is lovely to be in a big cosmopolitan city...where Man-House is not the only interesting epicurean option!


So...on Saturday it was my turn to play tour-guide, since I had looked into visiting a winery or two. Wine-country starts just at the outskirts of Santiago, which sometimes leads to rather paradoxical vistas of picturesque vines crowded in between big-box supermarkets and shopping malls. The up-side, however, is that many of the wineries are accessible by public transit. So a loooong metro ride later (and a 2,000 meter hike...which turns out to be quite a long way!), we arrived at Cousiño Macul winery for an 11am tour.



The old "hacienda" at Cousiño Macul was still owned by the Cousiño Macul family, though most of the actual wine production had been moved farther outside of the city because of problems with pollution. But the tour showed off how they had made wine up until the 1990s when steel tanks had revolutionized the wine industry, and given vintners much greater control over the winemaking process. But Cousiño Macul still had a lot of their old wine-making stuff hanging around--the old wood barrels that held a swimming-pool's worth of wine were pretty impressive! Although they were a comparatively small winery, it seemed like a pretty stunning quantity of wine! None of us had much to eat that morning (aside from the ritual morning coffee), plus lots and lots and lots of walking between the trek from the metro, and then the tour of the winery. So when we sat down to have two glasses of wine on an empty stomach, we were all pretty well tipsy! So we decided to have a quick lunch at the next winery--Concha y Toro--which was a much bigger winery and had a restaurant/tasting room attached. Fortified by a sandwich and a bottle of mineral water, we were ready for the next tour.

Which turned out to be the complete opposite of Cousiño Macul! The Concha y Toro family had dominated the wine industry in Chile since just after chilean independence, and now it is an enormous global brand. The family sold the company a few years ago, and now there is only one grandson who sits on the company board (and controls something like 3% of the shares). So the industrial mega-company tour was much more like a sales pitch than the homey low-key tour at Cousiño Macul...it started off with a dreadful infomercial about the different Concha y Toro wines, and about the business itself--it sounded a lot like a sales pitch. So the tour was a bit disappointing, but the winery itself was gorgeous!



Especially the cellar where they aged some of their wine. All french and california oak barrels, we were told. But it smelled deliciously of earth and wine and wood...which made up for it being a soulless mega-corporation! Very satisfied and a little drunk from another two glasses of wine, we got back on the bus-->metro and headed home. Yay!

Ok-almost done with tales of our adventures, I promise. Santiago is a really lovely city, so we wandered around a bit on Sunday and skipped from café, to museum, to café to pub/café...which was wonderfully low-key and relaxing.



More good chilean beer (Kristen seems quite pleased). But even better than the beer, for me at least, was chilean fashion...far more interesting than in Paraguay. Mary had passed a shop that she said made her think of me immediately...so when we came to visit she decided that it had to be one of our first stops. And it was great--a little tailor-shop that sold coats on the top floor and had the workshop in the basement...which is great if you want to have something custom-tailored. Since we were leaving the next day, decided that getting a custom-tailored coat was not in the cards, but was quite happy to discover that some of their samples fit perfectly! And immediately fell in love with an outrageous pink-plaid-asymmetrical jacket...and was quite happy to take it home for the very reasonable price of $60. Ah, crazy latin american clothes...
So that was that. And home again to Paraguay on Monday...with a long bus ride back from Asunción to Ciudad del Este. Sadly, our trip seemed to end on a similarly hexed note as it had begun...Mary spent all Monday morning terribly ill with food poisoning (yikes!!!) which Kristen got yesterday afternoon. We are blaming it on pub-food from Sunday night...it seemed like such a good idea at the time, but now we know better!! So far my stomach is ok, got my fingers crossed.

p.s. this is the view from the airplane window as we flew over the Andes. It seems to make our misadventures all worthwhile! AND makes me strongly consider spending two or three months in Santiago next summer working on dissertation write-up after my fieldwork in Paraguay is finished (and before my grant money is up). Cafés, and craft-beer, and beautiful mountains...oh my!


But for now, back in Paraguay and back to work. As soon as Kristen recovers, I'm sure that we will have more adventures to report. Exciting!