Move by Yourself

It’s a Christmas miracle! I am finally finishing the last blog post on my family’s visit to Paraguay … back in August. Oops. Better later than never.

To wrap things up we spent a couple of days in Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay. Doing touristy things. I honestly really like Asuncion, it is definitely not a city that is on the top of every one’s must see list; but, it is growing, just like Paraguay, and I think that there are some pretty cool things to see.

First stop was the Peace Corps office. (Surprisingly, there are no photos) Got to show the family where I spend a decent amount of time. I gave them a tour and they got to meet a lot of the PC staff, including the country director.

Then later that night we took a walk on the newly finished Asuncion Costanera, very similar to the one in Encarnacion, the big difference being you can’t swim in this river. (Pollution, yuck.) But, it is a great place to take a walk, you can rent bikes, fly kites and eat popcorn and churros. What more could you want?! To get to the Costanera you pass the “Palacio Mariscal Lopez” (the former ‘White House’ … but the president no longer lives there.) Our visit to Asuncion was only days before the Presidental Inuaguration of the current President Horacio Cartes, because of this there was an insanely long line to get in to take a tour, like insanely long.

The next day we ate lunch with another volunteer friend of mine, Alex, and then we went to visit a barrio called San Jeronimo. The people of this neighborhood have worked together to make this a fun and inviting tourist destination in Asuncion. It is bright and colorful with an abundance of great recycled art. There are lots of places to eat and on Saturday and Sundays (the best days to go) lots of vendors set up tables with a myriad of crafts to sell.