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Paraguay as a whole is bigger than the UK and Ireland put together, but has a population smaller than London, of which a third lives in the Greater Asunción Area. The capital is surrounded by many smaller satellite cities and towns, many of which are nicely-preserved historic towns. It was quite easy to visit many of these towns, which form a loop known as “The Golden Circuit” around Ascunción, though I was only able to do a few of the towns on the circuit as you really need a car to get to some of the more isolated points. The first town I went to was Itaguá, known in Paraguay as the home to lace (known as ñanduti) and described in my guide book as a quaint colonial town. Most of it was, but with the main road from Ascunión to Ciudad del Este (one of the busiest roads in the country) going right through the centre, it wasn’t that pleasant a visit. On the same day, I also managed to visit the city of Caacupe, which is what Canterbury is to the UK, being the spiritual and religious centre. The enormous copper-domed cathedral dominates the small city centre, and is
surrounded on all sides by shops and stalls selling all sorts of bizarre religious relics and souvenirs. In December the cathedral plays hosts to 300,000 pilgrims for the day of the Virgin Mary, who happens to be the national patron.
My second daytrip out of Asunción was to the lakeside city of Aregua, known as the strawberry capital of Paraguay, as it is surrounded by fields of the red berry (though unfortunately not in season at the moment). Even though Aregua is technically a city, and a departmental capital at that, it feels much more like a big village. It’s the nicest town I’ve been to so far in Paraguay, as it had a really pleasant laid-back feeling, without traffic, noise or pollution. Unlike Itaguá, it lies 7km off of the main road, so whilst still enjoying easy access to Asunción, it doesn’t have the same problem of traffic. The upper part of the town is dominated by a lovely church, surrounded by a flower-filled plaza, which in turn is surrounded by picturesque colonial-style houses. Just a couple of blocks from the main square and I found the edge of a forest, so it really doesn’t feel like a
city. Unlike Asunción, the houses are all well-spaced out, with chickens and other farm animals running around, so it couldn’t be more different from the crowded capital. The main attraction of the city is Lake Ypacarai, a 20km long lake with lovely clear water and small, grainy beaches. It was certainly very picturesque walking around the lake-front, but you can’t access a large part of it as it is private property. The highlight of Aregua for me was something slightly different - 2 sandstone hills 1km out of the city. The 2 hills, Kói and Chororí, are one of only 3 sites in the whole world where a strange geological formation has occurred and the sandstone from which they are made is in the form of a honeycomb of hexagonal blocks. The hexagon stones reminded me a lot of Giants’ Causeway in Northern Ireland, though apparently it’s completely different to there. The other 2 sites in the world where the same phenomenon exist are in Canada and South Africa, and in both of these countries the sites are protected, whereas here the site was overgrown, with graffiti on some of the stones, and broken glass bottles littered absolutely everywhere, which
did put a minor downer on the hills. The views of Aregua and the lake from the top more than made up for this however.
My last trip out of Asunción was to the town of Villa Hayes, which was, in all honesty, not worth the visit. A small town 30km north of Asunción, Villa Hayes is the capital of an enormous department that stretches to the north of the country, but with hardly anything to see in the town itself. It’s changed its name 5 times in the last 150 years, and is now named after the US President Rutherford B Hayes, who supported Paraguay’s territorial claims and so is revered in the country. I was going to visit one more town before leaving the area - San Bernadino, which sits on the other side of Lake Ypacarai to Aregua, but all this week there has been a strike on public buses, and although I haven’t really been affected up until this point, there didn’t seem to be any buses going on the day I wanted to go.
I’m happy that for the first time in a long, long time, my blog is finally up to date.
I’m about to head into the Chaco, the sparsely-populated northern sector of the country, starting in the partly German-speaking town of Filadelfia.
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