Christmas Vacation of a Lifetime: Stop 1: Asuncion, Paraguay

Government building and statue. You want details? It's been over two decades

Everybody has a different dream vacation. Ever since my youth, my dream vacation was to spend Christmas on a beach in Brazil. It's the reason I studied Portuguese for a year in college. In 1997, I decided to make the dream into a reality. After several months of planning ... remember this is pre-internet so I had to hire a professional travel agent to make all the arrangements ... after several months of boning up on my Portuguese ... I decided to do it.

So here I am. December 1997. In Asuncion, Paraguay. Close enough!

I had about two and a half weeks set aside. The one essential was Christmas Day ... beach ... Brazil. Logistically, I needed to be back in Las Vegas a few days before New Year's Eve because airfares to Las Vegas skyrocketed close to New Year's. I had thought if I was going to travel all that distance, maybe for the only time this lifetime, I also wanted to see Paraguay. So, given the tight scheduling at the end, the trip started in Asuncion, Paraguay, which numerically made it the fifth country I visited (counting the long layover in Sao Paulo airport en route to Asuncion).

I do recognize and remember the above building. The National Pantheon of Heroes. Or, if you prefer, Panteón Nacional de los Héroes y Oratorio de la Virgen Nuestra Señora Santa María de la Asunción. This is to honor the war dead of Paraguay. And Paraguay has fought A LOT of wars, including ones against its significantly larger neighbors (e.g., the War of Triple Alliance, where Little Paraguay took on the combined forces of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay).

And, across the plaza, you can the triangular-shaped hotel in which I stayed, the Hotel Guarani.

Church:

English was not common in Asuncion. I met one person in Paraguay who spoke English. He was the day shift clerk at my hotel.

I met one person at the casino of my hotel who was in town on business and who offered to show me around Asuncion.

I believe his name was Javier, but, again, it's been 23 years. I do remember he was Peruano. He spoke no English. Still, he was a pretty good guide.

Government building:

Same government building, in landscape instead of profile.

I'm guessing the water in this photo is Bahia de Asuncion and not the Paraguay River. I remember thinking at the time this was the Paraguay River and that the other shore, visible in this photo, was Argentina. But I now think I was mistaken.

Government building flying the Paraguayo red white and blue:

Public art, with symbolism.

At the time of my visit, Paraguay was in the early stages of throwing off the lingering effects of nearly two centuries of military dictatorship. Alfredo Stroessner had governed Paraguay as its military dictator for nearly half a century. In turn, in 1989, he was deposed in a coup d'etat. A new military dictatorship governed for the next four years before turning the country over to democratically-elected civilian leadership in 1993.  Four years before my visit. After nearly two centuries.

I really enjoyed my three days in Asuncion and I do hope to go back at some point.

Same Pantheon of Heroes, different day:

This is a column honoring or symbolizing whatever you want it to. I can't remember. It's been 23 years ... 

One change that I would expect to see in the current Asuncion compared to Asuncion 1997 would be far fewer soldiers with automatic weapons on the street:

They were everywhere.

Usually they were happy and smiling. Until I asked to take their pictures. Then they adopted a more stern, more militaristic look.

Except this guy:

These were the guards at the National Pantheon of Heroes.

It seems like I took a lot of photos of the National Pantheon of Heroes. And this is in the day of film photography, when each photo was precious. If they had had TripAdvisor back in 1997 (and maybe they did, I didn't have the internet back then, since this was the technological dark ages), the National Pantheon of Heroes would have rated #1 Thing To See in Asuncion.

We will conclude with the woman and girl in a flea market stall in Plaza Uruguayo on my last day in Paraguay. As background, please note that Paraguay has two official languages: Spanish and Guarani. Guarani is an indigenous language spoken by absolutely no one outside of Paraguay.

I bought my souvenir Ñandutí lace from them. Ñandutí lace is THE souvenir to bring home from Paraguay. What I remember about them is this funny little vignette. I'm struggling to speak Spanish with them and I'm apologizing for my atrocious language skills, and they tell me, in Spanish, yet I understood, "Then speak in Guarani." And we all laughed hysterically.

I guess you had to be there. And you should.