Asunción, Paraguay

We arrived in Asunción on Thursday morning. I read in our Lonely Planet that Paraguay is actually the poorest country in South America after Bolivia. Although this is hard to tell when you walk past the opulent colonial buildings of downtown Asunción, it is easy to see while driving through the countryside - there are chickens roaming free everywhere. Perhaps this sounds like an odd comment, but during these travels I have come to find that in poorer countries farm animals appear to live much better lives than in affluent countries, which is something that I find more than a little ironic. Just as when we traveled through Uruguay, I am surprised to find how much I like it here. Paraguay is very green and covered with palm trees, which kind of reminds me of Bali. The earth is a dusty red, which kind of reminds me of the Outback. It is beautiful, yet so few tourists ever come here. I guess that´s why I like it as well.

We only stayed in Asunción for two days and besides walking around we also visited a museum commemorating the Stroessner dictatorship and saw the movie The Descendants at the mall. But we spent most of our time enjoying Paraguay´s amazing cuisine.

We first came upon it in the small town of Coronel Bogado, also known as the Capital de Chipa. Chipa is a type of bread made with manioc flower, eggs and cheese. Our bus from Montevideo made a quick stop in Coronel Bogado on the way to Asunción. A local lady come on board with a straw basket, covered with a white blanket - inside, she had hidden fresh, warm chipa. We were dying to buy some but didn´t have any Paraguayan money yet, but an older Paraguayan gentleman bought two pieces for us. I can´t even begin to tell you about this chipa. It has an actual crispy crust (our friends can attest that South Americans appear to prefer their bread soft) and on the inside is a lovely yellow filling - something between the inside of a French baguette and cookie dough. The bread is sprinkled with just a few fennel seeds to give it that extra flavor. It´s the best bread I´ve had in 7 months.



In Asunción, then, we would usually hang around the Plaza de los Héroes to sample local street food, which was really good and very cheap. We would usually start off with a slice of potato tortilla and a slice of sopa paraguaya, which is cornbread with cheese and onion. Then we would get churros for dessert. You might know churros, which is basically fried sweet dough, but in Paraguay they like to stuff their churros with dulce de leche.





To round off the meal, we would get a pitcher of tereré, which is iced maté. Maté is very common in Argentina, more so in Uruguay, but in Paraguay it is an obsession. I can best describe maté as grassy green tea. When you order maté, you will receive one cup, to share, stuffed to the brim with what looks like dried grass cut up into little pieces. You will also receive a metal straw to suck the maté, since they don´t bother to deal with tea bags in these parts. In Argentina and Uruguay you will see loads of people carrying such a cup and straw in one hand and a thermos with hot water in the other - sipping maté all day. But in Paraguay it is almost always warm and sunny (yet another reason to love it here), so here the people drink iced maté. Instead of a thermos with hot water, then, you will get a pitcher with water, ice and crushed yuyos (medicinal herbs), which gives your maté extra flavor. Some say it is an acquired taste, but I loved it immediately.





For snacks we would buy fruit, like these grapes - the biggest grapes I have ever seen.



To summ up: Paraguay is great! The weather is nice, the people are friendly, the food is amazing, there are hardly any tourists and it is cheap. I might stay longer than I had planned.

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!