Welcome to Paraguay

Sorry for the long delay. Anyway I like to sub-title this: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
The good: Iguassu Falls. Three times as high as Niagara, 273 and separate falls, there are a few other assets. Like you can walk out along the very ridge of some falls. If you aren’t afraid of heights and shaking. You can hire a boat and shoot the rapids and end up getting a free shower under one of the highest falls. Most stunning is the Devil’s Throat; a small section of the main falls where more water comes over in a minute than over Niagara in an hour. When the rivers are at crest, you can feel the earth shaking beneath your feet as far as a mile away. GO!

Then get a bus; there are no first class buses, at least not as you envision them, and go north to “The Missions.” And before you leave home, rent the movie: Mission. It will help ready you for the beauty, awesome grandeur. The Jesuit order came here in the 16th century and founded mission sites for a group of Indians who were master carvers, builders, artists and whose popular culture included choral singing. So, being Jesuits, they built the largest churches in the world. They were beyond Papal control, so the ones you will see are longer and wider than St. Peters in Rome. Then decorations are stone carvings that rival anything you see in Europe. And just to add to the profits, the priests trained workers to produce wonderful musical instruments which were sold in Europe. And then they trained coral groups ranging from boy’s and girl’s choirs, to mixed adult choirs who toured Europe. And oh yes, since they converted, they could not be enslaved. (Oh . . the Missions are in ruins now, but such beautiful ruins. And, there’s virtually no tourists.) Of course everything changed when the Bad came into the area. Portugal took over the areas in a Papal Degree, deemed them all slaves and killed off lots of these ‘ignorant infidels.’ And one last bit, the Jesuits gathered up as many as they could took them down below Iguassu Falls and started new Missions in Brazil. The largest Mission in the world is there. GO!

The Bad. Paraguay was ruled by a dictator named Strossner for forty years. The country was totally corrupted. Ex-Nazis found refuge here . . .for a price. My first trip. . . there were long lines of kids three times a day in the capitol parks for free meals. The corruption still pervades, it’s like Indonesia. Don’t trust street vendor food and be careful that anything you drink is opened in front of you and fizzes. The main hotels are safe eating places. The towns around the falls are a harbors for pick pockets and beggars. Take a tour to the falls. It’s well worth it. So is the view from Brazil, because you can see all of it. And that’s just so damned cool! Whoops! Ice cream in Paraguay is OMG!!! and so’s the choc. Cake! And the Fudge! And . . . .food is good.