Paraguay, seeing more of the place

From Asunción we drove south to make a round trip of the country. Our first stop south was Pilar, and then we drove east to Encarnacion, and from there back north to Ciudad del Este.

The landscape is shifting with farmland and forests, and there is large areas of wetland and swamps along the river on the way south and again going east. When turning north again, the soil turned red and there is huge fields of soybeans, miles of them as far as you can see. It is interesting to drive in Paraguay, there is a lot to look at.

Pilar

This place was nice with well looked-after houses and clean and tidy streets and footpaths. It was obvious that people cared about their city. It has some tourism, and we had no problem finding a nice hotel. The only difficulty we encountered was the temperature, at +36C it was difficult to walk around for too long.

Encarnacion

Arriving to Encarnacion, we had a look around and found a hotel with a view across the river to Posadas in Argentina. We could also see huge areas of lawns between the hotel and the river, and it seemed a little strange that they had such a large area that wasn't populated. It turned out they had moved all that part of the city to avoid having it flooded again, and it used to be the main part of the city center.

A taxi driver took us across the river to Posadas one day. He told us about Encarnacion and the moving of the center, and he was also of the opinion that the future of Paraguay and its industrial and commercial activities will be in Encarnacion.

Ciudad del Este

This was an entirely different city! Still Latin American of course, but new as it was established only about 100 years ago. There is a different flavour to this city compared to Asunción. Asunción is the largest city in Paraguay, with immigrants mainly from Europe, and Ciudad del Este the second largest with immigrants from Asia.

Its economy is based mainly on tax free retail, and many tourists, mostly from Brazil, come here to buy bargains. It is a messy, active and very busy city. It also offers trips across the border to Brazil and people take tours to go to the Iguazú Falls. We had been thinking about this too, but learning how long it would take us to cross the bridge we changed our minds and decided to go from the Brazilian side when we get there anyway as part of the drive.