Paraguay #3

It’s that little country in the middle of south America that no one every hears about. Until of course a fire breaks out in a shopping mall and to contain the fire the owners locked all the doors trapping over 1000 people inside to burn to death. Yup, that happened.

Mid-February 2019 – length of stay 9 days

Only a river was separating us from Paraguay, we thought we checked it out as we did not know anything about this mysterious country. We’ve asked a few Chileans & Argentinians about Paraguay. Two answers repeatedly came up: they drink terere (a cold herbal tea) and they speak Guarani. Not sure what we were going to find with that but at least, we knew we were going to decent altitude and warm weather and that made us happy!

On the river crossing on the barge, we met a lovely Paraguayan guy who advises us to be careful & watch out for corruption… Still not sure what he meant!

People

They all were very friendly with smiles. A barrier language due to their native language called Guarani made it difficult to communicate in remote places but they all were very nice.

From what we read about it being the poorest country in South America we were not expecting the cleanliness and the organisation we saw.

Highlights

Itaipu dam; they once had the world’s largest waterfall, bigger that Iguazu but in their wisdom, they decided to build the world’s biggest dam and power station which completely swallowed the only attraction the country had. The dam itself is pretty damn impressive, pardon the pun. They claim they could supply the entire worlds electricity needs for 45 days, which we still don’t really understand but it sounds impressive.

Overall, the country itself is a highlight as it is totally different from the rest of South America. It is cleaned, organised and silent!

Lowlight

Something is missing! Not sure what exactly. It could be the music, the lively streets, the hustlers, the characteristic Latin mess (a good mess)… Unfortunately, or fortunately for some, Paraguay was too wide for us at that time!

Food & booze

Let’s be completely honest, the food is utter shit with the exception of a Paraguayan style kebab (called lomito Arabic which actually came from the Arabic people), their food is greasy and fatty. Burgers and fried stuff is an everyday meal! That’s probably why they are not the healthiest looking people!

Camping scene

We haven’t explored enough to tell the overall scene for camping, but we didn’t struggle to find free camps and the paid ones were very good for the value.