Paraguay….

Yesterday I was looking at a map of South America with a friend and we noticed that Paraguay has a department called Presidente Hayes… we thought that was pretty cool however my hopes that the Presidente in question was a particularly dastardly character were dashed when a little bit (a very little bit) of research revealed that the area was named after namesake US president Rutherford B Hayes who mediated in a border dispute between Paraguay and Argentina… presumably it worked out in Paraguay’s favour as I imagine you’d have to be pretty grateful to name a large chunk of countryside after some foreign guy… and it’s only fair I think seeing as how Paraguay is tiny compared to it’s enormous Argentine neighbour. I have no idea if my US president namesake shares any of my family tree in the dim and distant past, I’ll have to ask my brother about that one… (‘we’ did make it to Mafeking tho :-)

Anyway, back to Paraguay – I think it definitely warrants a visit in the near future now, especially as the capital of the department is called Villa Hayes… I may even change my middle name to Rutherford and see if it gets me any special privileges on arrival… Mike Rutherford Hayes, has a nice ring… It’s a pretty flat country  - very much fixed gear cyclocross bike territory for touring I think :-)  Also attractive in that it’s a particularly fascinating country in terms of history… bloodthirsty dictators, odd wars and so on. A good read for some insight into Paraguay is At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig by John Gimlette… I read it a couple of years ago and I can’t for the life of me remember what the inflatable pig was about… I’ll have to read it again. I did pick up an inflatable cow for this years Christmas party but typically for this blog that has no relevance whatsoever :-)