Paraguay - Asunción

To enter Paraguay from Argentina, we drove from Corrientes to the crossing via Puente Internacional Falcón-Clorinda. This crossing is a very short distance from the center of Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. It is one of those convenient ones with everything done from the car and leaving and entering through one person.

We were both very ignorant and knew just about nothing about Paraguay. It turned out this is a common thing and that most people just don't even think about the country - or so the locals believe. To learn something about the country and Asunción we went on a city tour with a local guide who showed us around for a few hours. After that tour we felt like the country is different in so many respects that saying anything about it is very difficult. Reading about it made some of the history clearer, and for example we learned that the Spanish first settled in Paraguay and from there went on to establish a big number of cities in other parts of South America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Paraguay

Asunción itself is divided in two parts, the old historic part, and the new "Shopping" part. The historic part has many colonial houses and tree lined streets that are largely empty in the weekends. Nobody lives in the houses and they are quite in need of repair, but as everybody wants to live in the modern part, landlords don't spend money on fixing anything. There are also museums and the cathedral, along with a few hotels and restaurants. There is an unusual statue, made after the ousting of Paraguay's last dictator. It symbolizes the feeling that people are done with dictators and that the lid is on. Now the government is working to revive the historic part by moving the administration there to attract business and people back.

Zoom the photo, the dictator is not going to climb out!

Another thing from the past was the involvement of Britain in the introduction of the railway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_Paraguay#A_project_on_rails

The new part of the city is a modern area of high rise buildings and wide streets. There are a couple of fancy shopping malls and a lot of restaurants and other entertainment. We were taken to a Paraguayan café, El Café de Acá, which served really good coffee and typical local food and bakery products. It was there we agreed that we had the best coffee so far on the trip. (Later we learned that coffee is imported from Italy so it is Illy or Lavazza.)

Harold says that Asunción is reminding him of San Jose, Costa Rica. Not in it's entirety but in different areas. We are still discussing what we think about Paraguay, we like it a lot but it is hard to find a label or description that fits. Unusually, we ended up in the capital as the first introduction to the country, and by learning some if it's development we will now carry on to see the rest of the country. And one more thing, the Paraguay flag has an emblem, and if you look carefully you'll see that it is different on the two sides of the flag.