First Days in Asuncion

We spent the last three days exploring Asuncion.  There is a lot to tell but I’ll soon get into that. 

First, on our UBER trip from the airport on Tuesday, the driver told us that Paraguay is not in a drought condition, unlike many countries worldwide.  He said, it rains quite regularly here and when it does, disasters often occur as the storm drain infrastructure is highly inadequate.  People die. 

It has been raining for two days here; our driver did not exaggerate.  When it rains, it pours, and the streets run like rivers. 

Back to the story . . . so that we could find our walking tour meeting spot on time on Friday, we made a dry-run into old town Asuncion on Thursday.  Online searches indicated we could buy a bus pass at a supermarket or Farmacia chain store so we headed to Biggies, a souped-up convenience store just a block from us.  Sure enough, they sold bus passes along with a bit of everything else.  The bus e-pass cost 25,000 PY Guaranies or about three US dollars.  I was happy and proud that I could communicate with the Spanish-speaking clerks well enough to buy the pass.  But I was unable to communicate that we’d like to add money to the card at the same time. Sure enough, we rode the bus just one time and had to refill. 

We walked a few blocks to the bus stop and within a moment or two, a flurry of buses came by.  The Movit app said we could take any of them.  We hopped on the Number 12, scanned our card two times, once for me and once for Stan, and took off barreling down the boulevard.  We are not in Spain any longer.  We were jostled and slung here and there.  When approaching their stop, riders stand by the door because the bus does not dally. The door opens and one must get off pronto! We rode 14 momentary stops, and with a little help from a fellow passenger, got off at the correct stop in the old town. Whew! 

“This place is sad,” we thought as we walked around, “and it is small.”  We walked first to the Panteon Nacional de los Heroes, where we were to meet our guide for our walking tour scheduled for the next day.  Check!  Got that part done.  Then we explored.  We found government buildings, the old defunct train station, the Iglesia La Encarnacion, and watched a high school marching band in a parade for Chaco Armistice Day celebrating the 1935 end of Paraguay’s three-year war with Bolivia.   

We spotted several multi-story buildings that once were under construction but stand today abandoned and unfinished.  Puzzled, we wondered why.  Ending up near the Rio Paraguay we entered the pink Cultural Center of the Republic or the Cabildo (colonial town council building).  This site has been important in Paraguay since the 1500s and the current building, now a museum, served as the National Congress in the 1800s.  It was easy to see that the museum site formerly sat at the foot of a beautiful stone-floored plaza, a grand public place.   Today, the plaza is no more. What is left is dirty, broken and decrepit.  Again, why? How can a city let these beautiful public places go to waste? 

Like many other buildings in old town Asuncion, the Cabilo building could use an injection of funds.  Stan and I had a ball there, though.  We were the only patrons in the museum when we visited.  We hardly walked through the small first floor when we began asking questions.  The young lady on duty struggled with the language barrier and brought in another attendant who took over our visit. She pointed out the exhibit of the indigenous Guarani culture and was busily sharing other historical information when somehow the conversation deteriorated into a hilarious Spanish/English conversation.  How many times has this happened to us?? Stan Weeks often has this transforming effect on well-meaning, very focused museum attendants, grocery store clerks and security guards . . .  to name just a few.   

We stayed until we felt we might be wearing out our welcome.  As we gave our thanks and said goodbye, the ladies recommended the best restaurant in town, the Lido Bar, for lunch and we promised we’d return to tour the rest of the museum and to share a glass of vino or cerveza together. 

To get a bit of exercise and also get a better feel for the city, we walked the two miles to our home.   Along the way, we discovered that the boulevard might have once been the place for the wealthy and their palatial mansions.  Several of those grand mansions on Av. Mariscal Lopez are foreign embassies today.  But while one property might hold a well-kept, elaborate mansion and manicured gardens, the property next door might be falling apart.  Why?  What happened?   

In our walking tour the next day we were given a plausible explanation to some of these questions. 

Following independence from Spain in the early 19th century, Paraguay was ruled by a series of authoritarian governments. This period ended with the disastrous Paraguayan War (1864–1870), also known as the War of the Triple Alliance (Argentina, Brazil and Uraguay). Paraguay lost half of its pre-war population who were all men and boys in this war making it the deadliest and bloodiest inter-state war in Latin American history.  Following the Chaco War (1932–1935) against Bolivia, the country came under a succession of military dictators.  

Dictators are known to rule with an iron fist. People either comply or disappear, but order is in place. The 35-year regime of Alfredo Stroessner’s rule brought more stability than most of the country’s people had previously known. He poured funds into the military and built up the country and its cities. However, that stability came at a high cost. Corruption was rampant and Paraguay’s human rights record was considered one of the poorest in South America. During Stroessner’s regime, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people were murdered, 400 to 500 more “disappeared,” and thousands more were imprisoned and tortured.  

Pope John Paul visited Paraguay in 1988 and spoke directly about injustice and the affront to human rights here. Maybe this started a movement. In 1989 an internal military coup ended the dictatorship and marked the beginning of democracy in Paraguay. 

While the end of dictatorship was good for the country and its people, it also marked the end of strict order and sadly, support for public services like parks, museums, roads, sidewalks, and more. Today although Paraguay has one of the strongest currencies in the world and a thriving economy driven largely by agriculture and one of the largest hydroelectric power stations in the world, its government is still riddled with corruption.   It is no secret that government officials routinely enrich themselves and their cronies by neglecting public services and instead funneling funds into their own pockets. Thus the old town of Asuncion and its historical points are decaying before the world’s very eyes. 

And, oh yes, those vacant partially constructed high-rise buildings I mentioned earlier? “Oh,” we heard, “that is an example of money laundering.”  

What a way to start this visit. 

But I remind myself, we’ve only seen the old town. In this district of 3.5 million people, there is so much more to see and learn about. Let’s not judge yet.