No End to the Innocence in Magical Asuncion

ASUNCION, Paraguay —  We were dining under the stars one night in Asuncion, the beguiling, jasmine-scented old capital of Paraguay, when the lights suddenly went out across much of the city. Uh-oh, I thought, imagining mayhem. But the waiters seemed not at all perturbed, and they stopped serving only briefly to deliver candles to the tables.

The outage lasted much of the rest of the meal, and I have no idea what caused it, but in an odd way it was the decisive moment that sold me on Asuncion . . . for the second time.

The night breeze stirred the palm trees overhead, the song of a guitar floated from beyond the courtyard, and in the flickering glow of the candles I had no trouble imagining myself transported a century into the past. Actually, I was already halfway there.

Still something of a sleepy outpost, Asuncion is an older, slower-paced South America that is now all but buried beneath concrete in such bustling capitals as Buenos Aires and Caracas.

On Asuncion’s sidewalks, groups of workmen still break from their labors to sip the bitter green tea called yerba mate in the traditional manner, passing the cuplike mate gourd and metal straw from hand to hand. In the streets, wooden pony carts roll by, hauling produce from the countryside. And at night, young men serenade their sweethearts with languid love songs played on the small Paraguayan harp.

Asuncion? It’s hardly on anybody’s must-see list, and most of the standard tours of South America skip right past it, although its fine lace, colorful pottery and other traditional handicrafts alone would be worth a stop. And yet I’ve been there twice.

The first time, 27 years ago, was a teaser. I was intrigued, and the more so because back then I also experienced a magical moment when I suddenly realized I was witnessing something rare and unusual. The world was fast-changing, but little Asuncion had lagged well behind and I was glad for the chance to see the city before it caught up.

Well, after all these years, Asuncion really hasn’t yet caught up, although I could note much progress on my return earlier this year in the form of high-rise office buildings and hotels, a modern airport and good highways into the countryside. Yet despite Paraguay’s dismally repressive political history--perhaps now laid to rest--the city has retained a certain small-town naivete.

Set in lush tropical greenery along the broad Paraguay River, Asuncion is a steamy river port of modest, pastel-hued colonial architecture that could serve nicely as the locale of a 19th-Century romantic novel. Maybe this is what Buenos Aires or Rio de Janeiro looked like 50 or 100 years ago. For me, the city’s special attraction is the opportunity to observe an everyday life that still has many links to the past. Asuncion also serves as a very pleasant introduction to the rest of Paraguay, an impressively scenic country with a distinct culture and a dramatic history.

One afternoon, I searched out the Museum of Fine Arts, which displays a collection of paintings by local artists and other works important to the nation’s heritage. I stepped inside the museum’s imposing double doors and found myself alone in the midst of many presumably valuable artworks. Was the exhibit hall supposed to be closed? I don’t know. I made my tour in absolute privacy, and quietly shut the doors as I left. Imagine doing this at the Smithsonian.

One morning, I glanced up from my city map to see two young boys galloping a horse cart down the street. They stood in the empty cart holding the reins as if they were racing a chariot. Both tossed a friendly wave when they noticed my surprised attention. The scene could have been happening a hundred years in the past.

Actually, Asuncion’s vehicular traffic consists mostly of small, brightly painted buses. Each fancy color scheme represents a different company and route. Honking brusquely, they scoot past endlessly like a parade of noisy ants. The streets otherwise are mostly uncongested, which is another big plus for the city.

Street vendors are everywhere. A woman walks by toting a tall milk can atop her head, making deliveries at doorways along her path. An old man, hefting a large metal tray on his shoulder, loudly advertises his chipas , little cheese breads that are popular as midmorning snacks. Fruit peddlers display just-picked oranges, grapes and bunches of ripe bananas at curbside stands. And on every corner, youngsters hawk copies of the city’s three daily newspapers.

Mornings, incidently, are the best time to do any sightseeing or shopping. Unlike South America’s larger cities, Asuncion still takes its midday siesta seriously. The summer sun can be ferocious, and practically every office and business establishment--except cafes and restaurants--shuts down at noon. Nobody reopens before 3 or 4 p.m. Usually, we headed back to our hotel after lunch to relax beside the swimming pool. The first afternoon, however, I foolishly ignored the siesta break to go sightseeing. I accomplished absolutely nothing, but I got very hot and sweaty doing it.

In contrast to much of the continent, Paraguay remains rather lightly populated. About the size of California, it has only 3.5 million citizens, about 600,000 of whom live in Asuncion and adjacent villages.

Adorned with a profusion of tropical blooms, Asuncion is a very pretty city, with red-tiled, Mediterranean-style roofs and walled courtyards that owe much to its Spanish colonial heritage.

On a high bluff above the Paraguay River near the Legislative Palace is one of Asuncion’s loveliest parks, a formal garden celebrating the official city. But what intrigued me most on my first visit to the park and drew me back again is its magnificent view. For just across the river and stretching northwest as far as the eye can see is the Chaco, Paraguay’s vast and nearly empty grasslands. The river is an abrupt dividing line between the desolate Chaco and verdant southeastern Paraguay, where all but a few of the people live.

Meanwhile, clustered densely at the base of the same bluff are the shanty homes of some of the poor, a bleak reminder to a visitor that quaint charm and pretty panoramas have their downside.

Tree-shaded parks and plazas offer some respite from the sun. The parks proved to be very clean, as is the city as a whole, and they are surprisingly well-tended, given Paraguay’s ongoing economic woes. The country is one of South America’s poorest, although its prospects are improving, in part because the great hydroelectric potential of its rivers is being tapped at the new Itaipu Dam on the Rio Parana.

Founded in 1537, Asuncion is one of the Western Hemisphere’s oldest colonial cities, and for a time in its early history it was among the most important commercially and politically on this side of the Atlantic. During the 16th Century, Spanish adventurers ventured out from Asuncion to explore the southern half of South America.

Ultimately, however, the city was eclipsed by Buenos Aires to the south, and the whole country went into a long decline after losing a grievously costly four-year war with its neighbors--Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay--in the late 1860s.

Little is left architecturally of Asuncion’s earliest years. But one eloquent reminder of its colonial heritage is Independence House, the city’s oldest structure and the site where Paraguay secured its independence from Spain in 1811. Dating back to the 1690s, the building is simple but beautiful. Thick, white-washed walls enclose a quiet, stone-covered courtyard. I sat there for a while enjoying the interior coolness, as perhaps others have done over the centuries. I felt almost as if I were absorbing a bit of the country’s history while I was there.

Nearby is the Presidential Palace, which for 35 years housed the office of Alfredo Stroessner, who ruled Paraguay in a brutal dictatorship until he was deposed in a coup in 1989 by one of his generals, Andres Rodriguez. Rodriguez subsequently was elected president.

Although residents now feel freer about expressing political opinions, I was told, a strong military presence is still quite obvious in Asuncion. Ironically, so many armed soldiers and police officers are visible on the streets that the city has earned a reputation as one of the safest in South America.

On both visits, I have found the people of Paraguay wonderfully friendly and quick to help. Back in 1964, I stepped inside the Presidential Palace for a quick peek and was wandering through the hallways alone--imagine this at the White House--when an armed guard approached. I thought he was going to kick me out. Instead, he invited me on a brief tour of Stroessner’s private office in the general’s absence. Stroessner kept a photo of his family on his desk, I remember--the dictator as family man.

Unlike other South American countries, the majority of the people of Paraguay share a common racial heritage--a mixed descent from Spanish colonists and the Guarani-speaking Indian tribes of southeastern Paraguay. This gives Paraguay a cultural cohesiveness.

The nation has no aristocratic upper class--the terrible 1860s war eliminated them--and the people are proud of their Indian blood and cultivate their Guarani past. As a result, most educated Paraguayans are bilingual, speaking Guarani as the language of home and family and using Spanish, which they learn in the classroom, for formal occasions.

“I speak in Spanish,” one tour guide told me, “but I think in Guarani.”

For most Americans, Asuncion’s historical monuments are probably of minor interest. But Paraguay’s history has been awesomely tragic, and the country still suffers the impact of the continent’s most calamitous war, in which Paraguay was the big loser.

Our guide, whom we had hired for a short historical tour, gave us a glimpse of the awful consequences of the war as he showed us around the National Pantheon, where the country’s military and political heroes are buried. Set in the Plaza of Heroes, the building is patterned after Napoleon’s tomb in Paris. The honor guard is attired in 19th-Century-style uniforms.

In the mid-1800s, as our guide explained, Paraguay rivaled Argentina and Brazil in economic stature, and a power struggle erupted over a variety of issues, including landlocked Paraguay’s commercial access to the Atlantic Ocean. In 1864, the two nations united with Uruguay against Paraguay in what became known as the War of the Triple Alliance. When it finally ended four years later, more than half of Paraguay’s population had been killed.

Of the 221,000 survivors, only 29,000 were males, and most of them were boys or older men. For decades, the country survived on the strength of its women, who are honored in a soaring statue of a woman and child on the main road from the airport.

Because of the oppressive heat--we arrived in Asuncion at the end of the Paraguayan summer (spring in the United States)--we moved about slowly, devoting much of our sightseeing time to leisurely rambles and intensive people-watching. Fortunately, the city offers inviting cafes, where we could quench our thirst with good Paraguayan beer, and air-conditioned ice cream parlors serving yummy cones--called cucuruchos --of exotic tropical flavors such as mango and papaya.

One morning we hired a car and driver to visit several of the villages outside Asuncion that specialize in traditional crafts. Our guide was Pedro, a young family man who sometimes teaches Guarani to the U.S. Peace Corps in Paraguay. He is employed by Inter-Express, a large Asuncion tour company that schedules a variety of bus tours into the countryside. One of the most popular is a day trip to mammoth Iguacu Falls on Paraguay’s southeastern border with Brazil.

As we drove from Asuncion, each mile that we covered seemed to be taking us farther into the past. Our route wound through a ripe green landscape of rolling hills and obviously productive farms. Once we stopped to watch a young man making bricks by hand at an open-air brick factory. He deftly scraped a fistful of red clay into a mold and then emptied it into the sun to dry. Working quickly, he told us, he could make as many as 3,000 bricks a day. A team of oxen hauled the clay to the site, and a horse plodding in a circle mixed it. The animals obviously had the easiest of the jobs.

Not far from Asuncion, we visited a small factory where half a dozen craftsmen were working on guitars and Paraguayan harps. The harps are lap-size, and they are an integral part of any party or family celebration. Pedro gave us a little Guarani tune on one of the floor samples. In Luque, which has a charming 19th-Century town square, villagers were making filigree jewelry in several silver shops. A few miles farther along in the village of Aregua, we purchased a little pottery jar with a delightfully grotesque face.

But the principal destination on the crafts tour is Itaugua, which is famous for its fine, spider-web lace called nanduti . The lace, which can be pure white or a combination of brilliant colors, is made into doilies, hankies, napkins, tablecloths and dresses. The craft was introduced by the Spanish, but over the centuries the women of Itaugua have made it their own, creating more than 100 different patterns. A lace hankie, which might take two full days to make, sells for about $4.

After each day’s excursion, we gratefully returned to the shady sanctuary of our hotel, the hacienda-style Gran Hotel del Paraguay. To my mind, it represents old Asuncion still nurturing its links to the past. A century ago, the hotel was the mansion of a famous presidential mistress, and even today it remains elegant, though faded. The estate’s acres of gardens surround the rambling structure, and most rooms open onto an interior courtyard where hibiscus bloom and fountains splash.

No wonder, then, that I easily imagined myself in an earlier age. At the Gran Hotel it can happen at any time, but especially if the lights go out.

GUIDEBOOK: Asuncion, Paraguay

Getting there: Lineas Aereas Paraguayas (LAP), the Paraguayan airline, offers nonstop flights from Miami to Asuncion. LAP arranges for Los Angeles passengers to fly to Miami via USAir or Continental, then on to Paraguay. Service from LAX is offered Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Round-trip air fare is $962, through Nov. 30. Call (800) 677-7771. American Airlines (800-433-7300) flies from Los Angeles to Asuncion via Miami on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, with stops en route in Lima, Peru, and La Paz, Bolivia. Round-trip fare through Dec. 9, with 14-day advance purchase and 7-day minimum stay (30 days maximum), is $1,448.

When to go: The tropical heat abates in Paraguay in June, July and August, the South American winter.

Where to stay: Asuncion has several very good hotels where English is spoken. The finest is the luxury-class, 175-room Excelsior in the heart of the city. A room for two with breakfast begins at about $120. Other international-quality hotels are the Cecilia, on the edge of the city center, and the Guarani, right in the center.

But for real Paraguayan atmosphere, I recommend the 40-room Gran Hotel del Paraguay, about a mile ($2 taxi ride) from the city center in a prosperous residential area. The hotel occupies a historic two-story mansion that sprawls over acres of tropical gardens.

The place looks well worn, but it is undergoing extensive refurbishing. Rooms are Spartan but quite large, with 20-foot ceilings and modern baths, and they open onto Spanish courtyards. Facilities include a swimming pool and a tennis court. The rate for two, with continental breakfast and tax, is about $40 a night.

Where to eat: Asuncion’s major hotels have inviting dining rooms, and prices are reasonable. At the Gran Hotel del Paraguay, staples include barbecued beef, baked chicken and fresh fish, along with fresh fruit and vegetables. One night we ordered grilled filet mignon, accompanied by asparagus soup, hearts-of-palm salad, a basket of rolls, mashed potatoes, fresh papaya and a sweet pineapple tart.

With a huge bottle of Paraguayan beer each, bottled water and tip, the price for two came to about $27.

Lunch for two with beer in a good restaurant came to less than $10.

For more information: Contact the Embassy of Paraguay, Tourist Information, 2400 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008, (202) 483-6960.