If you haven’t been to Paraguay in South America yet, you should definitely put this country at the top of you itinerary when you next travel to South America. It’s a country that has been compared to the Mona Liza by many travelers. You have to get to know it, you have to dig below the surface, to really discover the great spirit of this undiscovered jewel.
Should you arrive by bus, you will end up at the Asuncion bus terminal. Don’t be put off by the somewhat seedy appearance of the surrounding city blocks. The terminal itself is modern and from here you are able to get a bus to virtually anywhere in Paraguay. City buses also leave from here - bus no 8 goes to the city center. Inside the terminal you will find a restaurant and numerous small shops.
The city center is old and sometimes crumbling. But for some strange reason the gentle decay of many buildings just add to the charm of this old place. As you wander down the main street (called Avenida Palma), you will hear harp music streaming from many shop windows. The harp is after all Paraguay’s national instrument.
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.