I had no idea what to expect when landing in Asunción. I knew it was an old city, decades older than the founding of any European colonial city in Canada or the US. I learned it predates the founding of Quebec City by 60 years, when you look at where Asunción is on a map that fact becomes even more surprising. The city was also founded pretty much entirely on false pretenses, Spain thought Paraguay was full of gold, silver and gems, at some point after many missions through the country they realized Paraguay had nothing of value to Spain at all. To this day Paraguay has been severely handicapped by having no minerals, no metals, no precious resources, no oil, and no gas.
When I first arrived in Paraguay’s capital it was a ghost town and a huge number of the buildings I saw were boarded up and abandoned, so I made certain assumptions based on what I saw. There’s 4,000,000 people here but I couldn’t seem to find more than 20-30 of them.
Eventually I saw more of the city and also realized things appeared a ghost town because the capital pretty much shuts down for a week or two at Easter.
Asunción is definitely still the most beat up capital city I’ve been too, I’m certainly not going out alone at night, but I’m happy I got to see a more vibrant side of it over time. On average I found Paraguayans to be the friendliest people I’ve met this trip, really an enjoyable time.
I also developed an appreciation for the unique architecture of the capital, I don’t know if it has a name, I know nothing about architecture, I just liked how strange and unique the buildings are, I’ve never seen a collection of unique styles anything like this anywhere else in the world, like some sort of tropical Blade Runner-esque city.
A Bit Gone 