Silvio Pettirossi International

Paraguay doesn't see a lot of tourism, but since I was in the area I thought I'd stop in. I was planning on visiting two cities while here, but after landing I just didn't feel like taking super long buses to get to another city that didn't seem that interesting, or was dangerous. Ciudad del Este sounds like the Tijuana of Paraguay. It borders Argentina and Brazil to the east. So I skipped it and I'm spending my whole time here in Ascuncion, the capital and largest city.

I spent five nights here which is probably two nights too many, but I like the heat and it's about 70 to 80° warmer than home.

The adventure started when the Bolt ride share from the airport took a roundabout way to get me to my hotel. I could see on the map he was driving in a big circle, about 5 miles or of the way. At the hotel, I immediately requested money back after he canceled my first trip and charged two and a half times more. These former taxi drivers have been ripping off tourists forever and they don't understand that a ride share company will just give my money back. That happened in Guayaquil Ecuador also.

When I landed I realized that the hotel I booked was not in the center of the city like it showed on the map on my Chase travel app. And it didn't have a pool like they advertised. Instead, I was halfway between the city and the airport in a residential neighborhood that was dark and didn't appear very safe. It was a nice enough place but I spent a half hour with Chase travel telling them that they had the wrong information on their site and I was canceling the room in the morning. There were no restaurants in the area but there was a grocery store nearby so I had oatmeal for dinner my first night in Paraguay! What an introduction.

So I booked a different hotel with a pool downtown on a different app and moved there in the morning. It's been great. I could see the major sites here in 2 days but it was nice to have 5 days to just take my time and see all the museums and sites in the area. Most of them are free. The ones that charge money are literally charging $1 and a half. Let's just say the dollar goes very far here.

The currency here is called the Guarani and it's also the second official language, named for the indigenous tribe that was here when the Spanish came up the Rio Paraguay. I was watching TV in the room and an education channel had a sign that came on and said "Now we're going to speak Guarani! " So I recorded a little bit of that and you can see it in the link to the album.

I'm averaging 7 or 8 mi of walking a day and it's been super hot, about 100° each day so far. There's a fair amount of homeless people and drug addicts in the center. I wasn't so sure about the neighborhood here. I'd been warned that it was dangerous. But there's a massive police presence and I feel totally safe. I'm taking rideshares to get home at night .

Last night on a Sunday night I saw a roll call of about 20 police officers in a park getting ready to go patrol the areas at sunset. A homeless encampment with 10 or so families has taken over a side street nearby and there's always police on the corner but these are just poor families who live under tarps and don't seem dangerous. They really remind me of the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath.

Paraguay has had a fair amount of foreign immigrants that settled here, mostly from Germany, Italy, Japan, and Mennonites from Canada, the US, and Russia. There's an interesting mixture of food on the menus. The meat here is really good.

Given all the time I have here, I've been to almost every museum they have to offer. Some were a little sad (the Fine Arts museum) and some are super cool, like the old train station museum or the automobile museum with an amazing collection of antique cars. There's a road rally here every year that brings in people from around the world who are car enthusiasts. It's called the trans Chaco Rally. The Chaco is a really arid area in Northwest Paraguay that is very remote and sparsely populated. Mennonites settled in an area of the Chaco and are doing very well at raising cattle and producing dairy.

The national drink here is Terere, which is iced yerba mate tea mixed with herbs, fruit juice or water. In the morning people will fill their huge thermoses with iced juice and then throughout the day pour it in their cup which is called a guampa and sip it through a metal filtered straw called a bombilla.

Almost everyone walks around with a huge thermos and drinks this throughout the day. There are people on every other corner in the center selling the herbs and yerba mate. It's a stimulant like tea or coffee and has caffeine in it and it's quite refreshing. I've had several people offer it to me and have tried it, but I have never found a place where I could actually buy it! It's so strange that everyone drinks it, but nobody has it prepared to sell. It's a very personal thing, but people share it with each other.

I finally left the old town and went out to a modern mall in a rich suburb. Wow! It's like night and day. On a Monday night the mall was packed with the beautiful people and the food court was full of families and teens eating. I went there because there was a casa de cambio that was still open and I realized I could convert US dollars to Argentine pesos at a better rate than when I'm in Argentina.

This afternoon I went to a military history museum on the first floor of the offices of the ministry of defense. I actually got a personalized tour from a soldier when they found out an American came in. He spoke slowly and I could understand most of his Spanish. What a great guide. At one point, an officer walked by and shook my hand and I saw three stars on his epaulets. I asked if he was a general and he said "No, I'm a Colonel." and smiled. My response was "Well, someday."

Paraguay fought a disastrous war when the US civil war was ending. It's called The War of the Triple Alliance which was Paraguay versus three of its four neighbors: Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Bad idea. Historians think they lost 60 to 70% of the population and 40% of their land. After the war there was a four to one female to male ratio.

At times I found myself wondering why I am here. And at other times I find it so interesting to be in a country that's not very much visited and has its own unique culture. I wouldn't go out of my way to come to Paraguay, but it's been interesting and the people are quite friendly.

More photos and videos are here.
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