Paraguay: Where The Warmth Of The Climate Is Matched By The Warmth Of Its People
March 18th, 2010Paraguay is not on the itinerary of most travelers to South America. The reasons are various: it was for example ruled by a ruthless dictator for many years. But those days are long gone and today Paraguay is one of the best kept travel secrets of this continent. The more you get to know it, the longer you will want to stay.
The Asuncion bus terminal is a beehive of activity. There are buses coming and going to all parts of the city and to every single city and town in Paraguay until late at night, seven days a week. There is a restaurant which serves quite good food and you can buy everything a traveler needs from one of the many small shops inside the terminal building.
The decaying old city center of Asuncion is an atmospheric, charming place. Walking down Avenida Palma (the main street) you are likely to hear the sweet sounds of harp music floating out of more than one shop. Or the melancholy sound of a Paraguayan folk singer singing about the wide open plains of the Chaco…
There are numerous shops offering the renowned spiderweb lace that Paraguay is famous for. The stall owners are not as pushy as their counterparts in many other South American countries. The numerous money changers will, however, accost you quite aggressively with their calls of ‘cambio, cambio!’.
Paraguay’s second biggest city, and also the trading capital, is Ciudad del Este in the east near the border with Brazil. In many ways this city is not a typically Paraguayan city - it actually more resembles a place like Bangkok or Jakarta. It’s virtually one big shopping mall, where you can buy the latest version of Windows before its been released in the US! Everything is for sale, from ebook readers to laptops, from an antiquated black helmet to the latest motorbike.
The beautiful little towns around Asuncion, like Aregua and San Bernardino, are all special in their own kind of way. Many of these towns have become widely known for the products of their artists. Whether it’s spiderweb lace, ceramic chickens, beautiful ceramic pots or paintings, you are sure to find something that will become a prized possession back home and that will forever remind you of a great country with wonderful, warm people.
Make sure you have enough scrapbooking paper: Paraguay will make you want to remember every single moment. From the wide open spaces of the Chaco, to the cool breezes beside the Paraguay river, from the many vendors shouting ‘pan, pan!’ (bread) to the flashy shopping malls of eastern Asuncion, it’s a country that will never allow you to forget it.