WEIRDEST BORDER CROSSING
The border crossing from Brazil to Paraguay at Ponta Porá was one the weirdest crossings so far; we had to exit Brazil at the Policia Federal at the airport, ‘enter’ Paraguay at a shady, abandoned-looking building and get our Temporary Vehicle Import at another giant building in which we had to find one little, messy room to get our papers.
SHOPPING CHINA – ATTRACTING THOUSANDS OF BRAZILIANS
After some quick, cheap shopping at Shopping China (which attracts thousands of Brazilian customers for cosmetics, perfumes, luxury brands, electronics, clothes and so on at discount prices) right after the (invisible) border, we continued our way to Concepción; a beautiful drive, with many colourful houses and villages along the way.
CERRO CORA NATIONAL PARK
The drive through Parque Nacional Cerro Corá was absolutely stunning. During our world trip, we hardly ever regret or remorse anything, but this was one of them; we remorse not having stopped here and stayed the night, to enjoy a full day (or more) in this park! We thought the border area was unsafe, we didn’t know it’s a National Park and we were rushing to be in Concepción before dark. Nevertheless, we should definitely have stopped! Anyhow, we are so glad we saw this beautiful, immense piece of nature; with ‘table mountains’ everywhere, from nearby unto the far distance. It reminded us of Uluru (Ayers Rock) in Australia, but than many of them together. We might go back there to explore it!
CONCEPCIÓN – THE PEARL OF THE NORTH
With 70,000 inhabitants ‘La Perla del Norte’ Concepción has some nice early-20th-century buildings. Along Mcal. Estigarribia are several stunning colonial mansions, now municipal buildings. With its many colourful houses, streets, beautiful skies, trees and little surprises everywhere Concepción is a great place for photographers.
MATE FACTORY
A few blocks from the Puerto, on Presidente Franco No. 1256 is a nice mate factory (iced mate is called tereré): Yerba Mate Fortuna (since 1975). We asked the friendly owner if we could check out the factory and got a tour and a pack of ‘mate con menta y limon’.
See our photo gallery of the mate factory:
A TOUCH OF GHOST TOWN
Some parts of Concepción start looking like a beautiful ghost town; with some abandoned buildings, factories, and a giant hotel with a big, empty pool along the Rio Paraguay (on Mcal. López). If you like this kind of settings, you would love the rough, rusty, fantastic ghost towns in Chile.
We sneeked through the closed gates of the abandoned La Española and explored the area, see our photo report:
SOPA DE PARAGUAY
Concepción is a great starting point to explore the Paraguayan Pantanal. It is not a very touristic city though. It was a challenge to find some local food, which we were keen to try on our first day in Paraguay. Our menu for the day consisted of four times ‘Sopa de Paraguay’; from four different sellers. This ‘Paraguayan soup’ is similar to corn bread. Corn flour, onion, cheese and milk or whey are common ingredients. Click here for a delicious recipe, which a friend wrote down for us after we tasted her delicious home-made Sopa de Paraguay.
Sopa de Paraguay is not actually a soup. It is a very dense, spongy cake rich in proteins and in calories. A Brazilian man told us that the recipe used to be an actual soup, but that during the Paraguayan war, soldiers were eating this good meal in condensed form with way less liquid, so it wasn’t as heavy to carry.
WHY PARAGUAYAN WOMEN ARE SO TOUGH
Paraguayan women are not only good at making Sopa de Paraguay, they are very good at taking care of and providing for the whole family. Multiple jobs aren’t uncommon, beside their role as a mother.
The Paraguayan War (1864 to 1870), also known as the Great War in Paraguay or War of Triple Alliance (formed by Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay), was the deadliest and bloodiest in Latin America’s history. Catastrophically, almost 70% of Paraguay’s adult male population died, according to some estimates, and Paraguay was forced to cede territory to Argentina and Brazil. According to some counts, Paraguay’s pre-war population of 525,000 was reduced to 221,000, of which only 28,000 were men. Besides this horrifying loss, women had to take care of their families all by their selves, resulting in very strong, independent women.
Nowadays, luckily, the amount of men and women in the country is pretty equal.
ENTREPRENEURS ON THE MARKET
Though it was hard to find other Paraguayan specialties, we also found our first chipa from one of the entrepreneurs on the market. Chipa is a (often donut-shaped) manioc and cheese bread.
Presidente Franco street does have several restaurants selling tasty rotisserie chicken; very popular with the locals.
PALETA POP – PARAGUAYAN ICE-LOLLIES
On this same street (Presidente Franco) we found a hip Paraguayan ice-lolly shop with great artesian lollies: Paleta Pop. They don’t only look amazing, they taste amazing too! There are many South American flavours and types are innovative, too many types to choose from… Since there are not that many Paraguayan specialties, in our opinion it was important to try as much Paraguayan food as possible, so we chose 10 different lollies. Still, we are curious about the others!
See our ranking:
