Yacht y Golf

yacht y golf

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Benjamin describes the structure of public spaces and tries to reason how people relate to those spaces.

De Botton describes the smells, colors, and ideas that all places carry with them so as to get a better idea of why he feels those spaces are significant and when are they significant.

“Yacht y Golf” is a lush hotel in Paraguay, about half an hour from Asuncion. This past weekend half of our group traveled out of Argentina to stay at this place and tour the area surrounding the city.

I am breaking a rule here. I know the assignment is to describe a place in the country where we are staying. But I have been here long enough for most every place I walk into to fit into a scheme of normalcy. I thought about what I could describe in Argentina. Cafes like Café Martinez, a chain that evokes Starbucks all over the city (or at least downtown). Museums like the malba which shows contemporary Latin American art which is fascinating yet it was the art that caught my attention when I visited—and somehow it was not the place. I could discuss the NYU building which used to be the embassy for an African country (I can’t find out which) until the university bought it. The building is beautiful where the rooms haven’t been redone to look like classrooms on 25 west fourth or that building across from Coles. Dull white ceilings and a lot of traffic. I like going there but for the people, not the place.

I think that I will remember my trip to Paraguay for two reasons: getting to hang out with people from the program who I haven’t talked to before and the strange, excessive, bizarre, yet not absurd place that was Yacht y Golf. I am writing about Yacht y Golf because it fits into the type of description and thought processes which Benjamin and De Botton evoke, namely the impressions given by structure (décor, architecture), common conceptions and themes.

The lobby of Yacht y Golf has light-colored walls and half drawn curtains and seems dark. On your left you can look through a wall of glass with glue marks on the edges of the panes where they attach to the wooden frames. Through that glass you can see a false waterfall issuing from jagged rocks and clusters of tropical-looking plants. In the lobby there is a table with a chessboard to the left, golden pelican statues on coffee tables and an enormous wooden carving of five indigenous-looking faces grimacing (what does this mean? More importantly, does that description alone give you an image?).

The most of the rooms are ample with one enormous bed and mirrors on the wall across from the headboard. The décor is straight from another era that I would call the seventies. A lot of gold-colored things (sinks, reading lights, ashtrays) and dark tones. You can still smoke in the rooms, that’s a time-warp in itself.

In the basement (also the beach-level) are the suits. Though each of these is different all have multiple rooms and beds, jacuzzis, and enormous mirrors above the master beds. While the Ambassador suite gives off a very official vibe with its early twentieth century furniture (lots of exposed wood) and frenetic blue paisley walls, the Presidential suite hides nothing with its design based on mirrors, red and black leather furniture, and paintings of mushroom clouds. As one of our program heads said, “these are rooms where rich old men take their mistresses far away to do things they don’t want to be remembered for”.

From what I have said here Yacht y Golf as a place tries to imitate the idea of the luxury hotel. Maybe if I mention the clay tennis courts open 24 hours, golf course, two pools, spa, multiple bars, and waterslide you better will understand this attempt at place. I don’t think the attempt was successful, at least not for many of the students who went on the trip. What I heard more than anything from them was that Yacht y Golf was bizarre, overdone, and phony. I agree with all these descriptions. But there is something else.

The blatant difference between the abject poverty that surrounded the resort made everyone hyper-aware of the inequality in Paraguay. We all felt a bit guilty staying there. We all felt like we weren’t experiencing the real Paraguay. It occurred to me though, that while Yacht y Golf may be bizarre it was not absurd. Absurdity connotes the absence of sense and Yacht y Golf makes a lot of sense. In a way it needs to exist as an indicator of the “harsh reality” of inequality in the world. We can’t escape rich and poor. We can not escape the gap between them. When I thought of this I didn’t only think of the resort as an addition to the image of the luxury hotel but as an appropriately luxurious response to quotidian life in Paraguay. But in this sense we were experiencing the real Paraguay—the reality and immensity of the resort; the reality and immensity of the gap. I tried not to think about it while I was there. I was a fun weekend.

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