Two years ago, Steven and I toured through a good chunk of South America for 3.5 months but we never made it to Paraguay. When we decided to return to the continent to visit Antarctica and Patagonia, we made sure to add enough time to see the capital, Asuncion, and tour the Mission area in the southern part of the country as part of our six-week trip to the continent. We were extremely fortunate having hired an excellent driver and guide, Jose Acosta, for six days after reading recommendations on the Trip Advisor Paraguay forum. For those of you unsure about your geography of South America as I was, Paraguay is a landlocked country bordered by Bolivia to the north, Brazil to the east, and Argentina to the south and west. Asuncion, situated on the Rio de la Plata upriver from what is now Buenos Aires, was so named as it was founded on the feast of the Assumption of Mary on August 15th, 1537.
On our way into town from the airport along the Costanera or waterfront, Jose gave us a few facts about his country. The indigenous language, Guarani, was spoken by 60% of the people with the other language being Spanish; the money was also Guarani; 90% of the population is Christian with 80% Catholic and the rest are evangelicals; and there have been more than 40 coups in Paraguay!
It was sad seeing the hovels by the water. Jose explained that Asuncion is beset by floods and drought. This part of the city experienced such severe flooding until May the city should be known not as Venice but as Atlantis as the water level rose more than eight meters or about 25 feet! The driest month is normally August.
On our way into town from the airport along the Costanera or waterfront, Jose gave us a few facts about his country. The indigenous language, Guarani, was spoken by 60% of the people with the other language being Spanish; the money was also Guarani; 90% of the population is Christian with 80% Catholic and the rest are evangelicals; and there have been more than 40 coups in Paraguay!
It was sad seeing the hovels by the water. Jose explained that Asuncion is beset by floods and drought. This part of the city experienced such severe flooding until May the city should be known not as Venice but as Atlantis as the water level rose more than eight meters or about 25 feet! The driest month is normally August.
I was astonished to learn that Paraguay had the third highest number of barges in the world after the US and China even though it's a landlocked country. There was a massive rebuilding project going on along the Costanera with trees planted and brand new benches every few feet.
Just as we'd seen in Buenos Aires at the beginning of our trip, Asuncion's Costanera had a large nature reserve with 625 different species of birds. If we were there in the morning, we'd see lots of cormorants, Jose told us.
Did you know Paraguay is the only country that has a different coat-of-arms on each side of their flag? More of that in future posts!
After settling in at our historic hotel in the center of the capital and making arrangements to meet Jose in three days to begin our tour, Steven and I walked around the city for a couple of hours. Our first impressions of Asuncion were anything but positive with its streets and sidewalks in generally lousy condition, trash littering the roads everywhere, masses of overhead wires like in a third world nation, and parks that were hard to describe as attractive.
Two views of the Panteon or Pantheon: more on that in the next post.
Items for sale made walking on sidewalks difficult.
Just behind the Panteon was the Plaza de los Heroes, one large square divided into four quarters by a road, so it was technically four adjoining squares.
In one of the squares was a bronze statue called Reason and Force which depicted two struggling figures.
In the same square a few vendors were still open and selling typical Paraguayan crafts that I had read about and was anxious to see in the week ahead while we toured the southern part of the country.
Images like this are unfortunately my takeaway of Asuncion even after spending a couple more days in the capital city. Steven and I both wondered how so much of a capital city could be so depressing and run down with poorly maintained streets and sidewalks, electrical wires hanging down and onto the sidewalks, graffiti commonplace, etc. It seemed that there was precious little evidence of any civic pride from what we saw that evening and that was also largely reinforced the next two days. It certainly made us hope that the other parts of Paraguay we'd be viewing would be far more attractive than the capital.
Old but colorful buses were the norm in Asuncion. We realized the next day how very cheap they were, so that was one advantage!
An upscale restaurant across from a swanky hotel were a big surprise as they looked so out of whack with the rest of the poor city.
Boarded up buildings were not uncommon in the city center.
Our hotel, the 19th century Asuncion Palace, was certainly a find and had been lovingly restored after being the home of the president's brother.
Eating out anywhere in Paraguay could only be described as a complete steal if visiting from North America or Europe. The prices were absurdly low and the food we had everywhere was good, for us non foodies at least! We smiled initially when Steven's beer or pop was served in an ice bucket but then realized that was the norm all over Paraguay!
Next post: Looking for the bright side about Asuncion: some history, some charm but also another slice of life.
Posted on January 28th, 2020, from Denver, a day after we received the first drops of precipitation all month.
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