calvisson-leblon

This is a quote from Augusto Roa Bastos, a Paraguayan writer.   I could add surrounded by unfriendly lands. I thought of an alternative title for this blog: “Paraguay, the land of hard soup”.   The famed hard soup resulted from a kitchen misstep: the cook put too much corn flour, and the soup hardened into a cake.   It conveys the country’s toils and struggles. A friend and I, decided to escape the rowdy Carnival of Rio de Janeiro and travel to Paraguay, Brazil’s most unassuming and little-known neighbor.   We spent five days in the capital Asunción sweating under temperature hovering round 40º, hot even by Asunción summer standards.   Less than 7 million people live in the land-lock country about the size of California.   95% are of mixed European and Guarani Indian descent.   We stayed in the Palmaroga Hilton, the House of Palm hotel in Guarani, the second official language with Spanish.   80% of the population speaks Guarani according to Helm...