Why Does Nobody Go To Paraguay?

Paraguay is not somewhere you hear much about when travelling South America. Most people seem to skip it all together, or perhaps just go across for the day from Argentina or Brazil for a cursory country grab. Neither Lonely Planet or Rough Guide even bother to produce a guide for Paraguay - it gets a short mention in the Lonely Planet Shoestring guide that covers the whole continent, but that's it. So unlike most places we've been, we really didn't know anything about this country before we arrived, or have any idea what to expect of it.

Sunset in Encarnación

Paraguay is a landlocked country, bordering Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina. It is home to an amazing variety of different environments and habitats, including the Chaco, the Pantanal, and Atlantic rainforest. A lot of the country is still relatively untouched wilderness, and there are many conservation projects trying to limit deforestation and protect its rich biodiversity.

Street in Asunción

We had hoped to do more than the average tourist in Paraguay and get off the beaten track a little: we'd read that this is difficult to do, but dismissed this as hyperbole. However, once in the country we found that the reports were more accurate than we'd imagined! Paraguay really isn't particularly bothered about attracting tourists so there is very little tourist infrastructure and it is hard to find accurate information about anything other than the urban centres.

The Chaco region, a semi-arid area rich in wildlife, makes up more than 60% of Paraguay's land area, but less than 2% of the country's population lives there. We had wanted to explore this region, but as it so sparsely populated it is somewhat challenging to get around. The Pantanal, a wetland region on the border with Brazil, is also something of a mission to get to. We met an Australian at our hostel in Asuncion who was trying to go there - his journey would involve a 7 hour bus, a public boat for 3 days, and then having to hire another boat himself for the final section. Maybe earlier in our trip we'd have been up for this, but this late on we are trying to push on to see as much of the rest of the continent as we can in our last few weeks.

Lake view from Aregua, near Asunción

What we did think would be feasible was visiting one of the country's protected areas of Atlantic forest, the San Rafael National Park and Reserve. This is only a 3 or 4 hour journey from Encarnación, and we had already managed to get in touch with staff at the park and provisionally booked a cabin for a few days. However, when it came to our planned day of departure, circumstances conspired against us. The night before, the horrendously hot and humid weather (39 degrees!) finally broke - there was a big thunderstorm and it rained all night and was still pouring the next morning. The road to San Rafael is unpaved and often becomes impassable in bad weather. We managed to phone the park from our hostel, and were told it would be impossible to go that day. We stayed another night in Encarnación and hoped that the weather would brighten up enough to dry the road by tomorrow. Alas, the downpour continued all day, and park staff told us the next day that the road was still impassable. We really wanted to go, but the forecast wasn't good for the rest of the week either, so we reluctantly gave it up as a bad job and got on a bus to Asunción.

Ceramics for sale in Aregua, near Asunción

About an hour into the journey to Asunción, we went through the small town of Coronel Bogado. We remembered the name from something the friendly old lady at our hostel in Encarnación had said to us - that the best 'chipas' in the country are made there. Chipas are dense, baked rolls made from maize and flavoured with Paraguayan cheese. They are quite an institution in Paraguay and the neighbouring area of Argentina - street vendors carry baskets of them in all sorts of shapes and sizes. When the bus stopped in Coronel Bogado, a couple of sellers got on, and we knew this must indeed be the famous place as literally all the locals on the bus bought some! Obviously we did too, and they were the best we had anywhere. Yum. Another interesting part of Paraguayan culture is the tereré - like Argentinian maté tea, but served cold. Most locals constantly carry around large water flasks in special carry cases with a pocket for their tereré cup!

Palacio de Gobierno, Asunción

Despite being the Paraguayan capital, Asunción doesn't have a lot to see or do. We dutifully spent an afternoon wandering around the centre, but weren't very taken with any of the sites other than the Palacio de Gobierno, an impressive, large colonial building painted pale pink. We thought this was a lot prettier than the famous Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires! The city has bit of a feel of faded glory - there are quite a lot of old buildings but most are very dilapidated and little or no effort has been made to conserve them. Asunción is actually one of the oldest cities in South America, founded in 1537, and in colonial times it was also one of the most important. Since independence however, and after the Paraguayan war in the 1860s, the city lost its importance and the national economy has declined rapidly. The war, also known as the Triple Alliance war (Paraguay against the combined forces of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay) had a massive impact on Paraguay. It was one of the worst military defeats ever inflicted on a nation - more than 60% of the population died, and 90% of the country's men. Really, Paraguay is still struggling to recover from the effects of the war today.

Modern and old combined, in a courtyard in Asunción

Asunción is built on the Paraguay river, and  few months ago it was hit by some of the worst floods in decades, which you might have seen on the international news. Tens of thousands of people were displaced from their homes, and sadly it seems many of them still have nowhere to live. We walked past a huge, makeshift camp or shanty town, with hundreds of people living in wooden shacks or just tents made from bin bags with no sides. The camp was in one of the city's biggest plazas, right on the doorstep of the presidential buildings - maybe to make a point, as the government is apparently doing little to help. It was sad and quite shocking to see.

Riverfront and very cool sky in Corrientes

We met no other tourists in Encarnación, so were surprised to find a really excellent, sociable hostel in Asunción (El Nomada). We spent a lot of time just hanging out there and chatting. Most people travelling Paraguay are not your ordinary tourist, and we met some great people, including a couple of bikers who'd been travelling the world with their huge bike and sidecar for three years! We also went with another English guy we met to a nearby town, Areguá, which is famous for its ceramics. We reluctantly left this fantastic hostel after 3 nights and embarked on another long bus ride (8 hours) back over the border to Argentina and the cities of Corrientes and Resistencia. The weather had been fine for the previous two days, but a little like our last night in Encarnación, there was a big storm the night before we left Asunción. The temperature dropped literally 20 degrees in a day. After being at temperatures well above 30 degrees for several weeks, 10 degrees was quite a shock! We had to dig out our coats and jumpers again that we'd thought we'd not need for the rest of the trip.

Monastery in Corrientes

For the next couple of days, we stayed in the Argentinian city of Corrientes, the capital of the Corrientes province. It is only a 20 minute drive away from the neighbouring city of Resistencia, across a river which marks the border between provinces. So, strangely, Resistencia is also the capital of a province - the Chaco province! We liked both of these cities as they were just typical Argentinian cities, with no tourists. The locals were super friendly and whenever we sat down in a cafe we'd get engaged in conversation by people curious to see us there! Corrientes is the more historic of the two, while Resistencia is known as Argentina's 'Capital of Sculptures'. Every 2 years the city has a competition that sculptors come from all over the world to take part in - they have 7 days to produce a sculpture. The best ones are displayed either in the museum or on the streets - more than 200 line the streets in the centre already.

Sculptures in Resistencia

From Corrientes we took our first night bus since Colombia - 13 hours up to Salta in the north of Argentina. We had forgotten how expensive buses are in Argentina - £45 a person! We are looking forward to exploring more of this area now, and probably hiring a car.

A Mission to Paraguay

We reluctantly left the stunning waterfalls at Iguazú to head south through Argentina's Misiones province. We wanted to stop at a small town called San Ignacio on the way to Paraguay as it has the ruins of an old Jesuit mission there. The Jesuits were very active in this part of the world, with 30 missions in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. A few of them are now listed as world heritage sites so, obviously, we had to go.

The entrance to the church in San Ignacio in Argentina

The Jesuits started building missions in the Guaraní area in 1610, and continued up until they were expelled from South America by the Spanish empire in 1767. Their aim was to convert the native people to Christianity, but without imposing other European values on them. This was a significant difference from all of the other evangelising schemes of the time. We visited similar Jesuit missions in the east of Bolivia and on the island of Chiloé in Chile, although each location has distinct architecture. The churches in Bolivia and Chile are active to this day, but all that is left here are impressive red sandstone ruins.

The ruins in Trinidad in Paraguay

After we'd visited the ruin in San Ignacio, we went to withdraw some money before departing to Paraguay. This proved more difficult than we'd anticipated, however. The only two ATMs in town were empty of money, because it was a Sunday. No problem - we went on Monday morning instead. Where we found a looong queue of everybody else wanting money that couldn't get any at the weekend. Only one ATM was working now. When we got to the front of the line, the ATM ran out of money. Luckily, the hostel we stayed in let us pay in pounds, which we'd managed to not spend until now. This actually worked out okay for us - the ATMs in Argentina, after the fiasco of the Dolar Blue rate, now charge an 87 Peso (~£5) fee every time you use them, with a maximum withdrawal of 2000 Pesos (~£100). That's if you can find one that works and has money, of course.

Sunset over the Paraná River from Encarnación, Paraguay

We eventually escaped the fiscal peril of Argentina into Paraguay, where transactions are measured in thousands of Guaranis - there are 8000 Guaranis to £1. From the city of Encarnación, which is blessed with wonderful sunsets over the Paraná river, we went to visit the Paraguayan Jesuit ruins. These are very similar to the Argentine ones, but are bigger and better preserved. More importantly, they have a separate World Heritage Site listing, so we had to go there too.

Ornate Jesuit doorway in Trinidad, Paraguay

We're going to spend a bit more time in Paraguay, visiting a nature reserve and the capital Asunción. After that, we're returning to Argentina to explore the north of the country.

The Incredible Iguazú Falls

The Iguazú Falls - maybe one of the most famous sights in South America, and something we'd certainly heard of before we got to this continent! We'd both been looking forward to seeing this amazing set of waterfalls for the whole trip so far. Although we've had to skip most of Brazil in order to see everything else we want to see before June (we'll be returning one day!), Rio and Iguazú were the two places we really wanted to get to this time.

The Iguazú Falls from the Argentine side

The Iguazú Falls are on the Iguazú river, located right on the border between Brazil and Argentina. They are shared between the two countries - both sides have their own Iguazú National Park, and both of these are UNESCO World Heritage sites! The falls are not just one waterfall, but a huge set of 275 drops in total, ranging from 60 - 82m in height and extending for 2.7 km along the river. Two thirds of the falls are in Argentine territory, and the Argentine park is a lot bigger, but there are absolutely spectacular views from both sides. Eleanor Roosevelt is said to have remarked, on her first sight of the falls, 'Poor Niagara', and you can see why.

Panorama from the Brazilian side

When looking at places to stay near Iguazú, we remembered a recommendation we'd had a while ago. The English couple we did our crazy long Machu Picchu trek with, Ivonne and Robin, had mentioned a hotel that was located actually within the Brazilian national park itself, within 2 minutes walk from the falls and even with views of them from some of the rooms. We'd had this in the back of our mind for some time and couldn't resist looking into it. Even when we found it was way, way above our budget, we couldn't quite make ourselves relinquish our dream of staying there, and thus it was that we booked without doubt our biggest accommodation splurge of the trip so far - 3 nights in the 5 star Belmond Hotel Das Cataratas!

Champagne breakfast in front of our hotel

The hotel was amazing. We enjoyed all of its perks - the gym (after which we couldn't walk for days, haha), the beautiful pool, the bar (best pisco sour since Peru), the breakfast time champagne ... and even the room service (ironically because this was the cheapest way to eat - the two onsite restaurants were both quite unaffordable!). But without doubt the biggest perk of all was the proximity to the falls, and the exclusive access in the mornings and evenings when the park was closed to the public. We often had the falls completely to ourselves. We got our first view of the falls the evening we arrived, around sunset. The viewpoint was literally just opposite the hotel, and there were only a few other people around. WOW! I can't even attempt to describe the beauty of this moment - the photos will have to do the talking for me.

Our first view of the falls, from the viewpoint in front of our hotel

The next morning, we got up early and went to see the falls before the park opened to the public. While the day before we'd only seen the view from the first viewpoint, today we followed the path down towards Devil's Throat, the most famous waterfall. In a short 15 minute walk, we were greeted with one spectacular vista after another. It just got better and better! We hadn't really appreciated the sheer size and number of the waterfalls from the hotel viewpoint, and now could see them stretching much further than we'd realised. It was just avalanches of water in all directions. Unbelievable. Near the end of the path, there was a metal walkway out into the river around the top of some of the falls, from where we could look down and see the water suddenly just disappear over the edge of a cliff. We got totally soaked from all the mist! At the very end of the path, we arrived at a stunning view of the Devil's Throat, the biggest waterfall of them all. I could have stood there all day, watching the tons of water come hurtling down and hearing the incredible thundering noise. Again, WOW.

The misty walkway near the Devil's Throat

After three nights, we reluctantly left our nice hotel. We weren't done with the falls yet though and were headed next over the border to Argentina, to see them from the other side. En route, we visited Brazil's Parque das Aves (Bird Park), which is right next to the national park entrance. We'd read mixed reviews of this but loved it and were very glad we went! They have a huge collection of birds, mostly from the Amazon region. Yes, they were in captivity, but most had been rescued from much worse situations, and the enclosures seemed large and not too crowded. We saw so many weird and wonderful birds that we'd never have got to see otherwise. Among my favourites were the three or four different species of toucan, the harpy eagles, and the gigantic walk-in enclosure with eight different types of macaw flying / perching everywhere!

Green-billed toucan in Parque das Aves

We'd been quite looking forward to returning to Argentina. It's a country we feel we know fairly well by now, after spending quite a lot of time here previously. But unfortunately, on our first evening in the country, we had a bad experience that somewhat tarred our formerly positive feeling about returning. As we were walking back to our hostel after dinner, we passed a house with a dog behind a closed gate. It came running, barking, and threw itself at the gate. A lot of dogs here behave like this, so we were unperturbed, until another dog appeared from nowhere, ran at us and bit me on the leg! This dog turned out to belong to the same house, but had been left loose in the street.

Scarlet macaws, with one blue-and-yellow one, in the Parque das Aves

The bite wasn't too bad; it swelled up a bit and looked like a red weal but didn't properly break the skin (now, several days later, it is just a very impressive bruise). However, worse than the bite itself was the attitude of the owner. She would not admit the dog was dangerous, would not agree that it shouldn't be left to roam freely on the street, would not even apologise until the neighbours too, who had seen the whole thing and whose Spanish was obviously a lot better than ours, got involved. What a rude, unpleasant person! The neighbours did not seem to like her either - when she'd gone, they apologised on her behalf even though it was in no way their fault, and told us the same dog had bitten someone before. Fortunately most Argentinians we've met have been super friendly and nice; the opposite of this woman. It was a horrible thing to happen on our first day back in Argentina though.

View of the San Martín waterfall, on the Argentine side of the falls

This incident meant we changed our plans a little and stayed an extra night in Puerto Iguazú so I could get the bite checked by a doctor (various doctor friends at home had advised this just in case of any risk of rabies). It was very easy, and not too expensive, to see a doctor at the private clinic, and she reassured us the bite should be fine, and that rabies is controlled in Argentina. Rather than going to the national park after this, we decided it was too late and instead went to visit an animal rescue sanctuary nearby. All the animals here were from the jungle regions of Argentina and had been rescued from appalling conditions, often being kept as pets in tiny cages. So it was sad seeing some of the birds missing eyes or legs, or unable to fly, but also positive that they are now being looked after well.

Part of the Itaipú Dam in Brazil

On our second day in Argentina, we actually crossed back over the border to Brazil so that we could visit the Itaipu Dam there. The dam is on the river that divides Brazil and Paraguay, and is huge - 7km long and around 200m high. It was built as a joint venture between the two countries, and the hydroelectric power it produces supplies both Brazil and Paraguay with a significant proportion of their electricity. In fact, Brazil is so much bigger than Paraguay that it pays the latter around a million dollars a day to use more of the dam's turbines. So Brazil takes 90% of the power produced, and Paraguay 10%. Despite this, in 2013, the dam supplied 75% of Paraguay's electricity, and 17% of Brazil's. It was cool to see the dam, though I think we got more from reading about if afterwards than from the very touristy open top bus tour we did.

In front of the Devil's Throat, Argentine side

Finally, on our third day in Argentina, we made it to the Argentine side of the falls. We were glad we'd saved this till last, as it was even better than the Brazilian side! The national park is a lot bigger, and we spent the whole day there walking along several different trails. On this side, we could get a lot closer to most of the waterfalls, and see them both from above and below. As it was a sunny day, there were rainbows everywhere! We also got the best panoramic view yet, with the falls continuing as far as we could see. Argentina also seemed to win on the butterfly front. There'd been a few on the Brazilian side, but here was another level! We had to walk through literally clouds of them. It was impossible to escape; they were EVERYWHERE. All shapes, sizes and colours and all, it seemed, constantly wanting to land on human beings! This was a massive challenge for me but my desire to see the falls overcame my fear (mostly); I did spend a lot of time swearing, running through the biggest clouds and flapping my hat / bag at them though!

One of several big clumps of butterflies.These would fly up into the air all around us when we passed!

The highlight of the Argentine side was another view of the Devil's Throat. This time, we got much closer to it, and could hear its roar from several hundred metres away, increasing as we approached. Quite a large proportion of the total volume of water in the falls is funneled down this one narrow chasm, and the sheer force of it is astounding. I can't describe just how exhilarating it was to stand there, getting completely drenched, and marvelling at this gigantic torrent of water throwing itself down right next to us. No other waterfall I've ever seen comes anywhere near the magnificence of this spectacle! Once again, we felt utterly awed by the power of nature.

Panorama of the Devil's Throat and surrounding waterfalls, Argentine side

We've now (unwillingly) left the Iguazú area, and will spend a bit more time in Argentina before we move on to Paraguay. The take home message from this post though is - go to the Iguazú Falls! If it's not on your bucket list, it should be.