Paraguay

Landlocked between Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina, Paraguay is rarely visited by tourists. Asuncion, its capital was established in 1532 as Spain's gateway to the interior of South America long before Buenos Aires existed. It has a complex and secretive history...with crazy dictators, and strange groups of dissenting settlers in the 18 and 1900s coming to set up Utopian communities...including early German Nazis, Australian Communists, and Mennonites, whose faith is very like the Amish. And of course there were the post WW2 Nazi war criminals,including for a time, Mengele.
Paraguay has only very recently started to establish democratic reforms after a long and brutal dictatorship (Stroessner). I found it amazing...in the North is the vast wilderness of the Gran Chaco, with its bottle trees, giant anteaters, giant cacti, and fascinating Mennonite settlements with self-sustaining, co-operative communities.
Asuncion is like a relic from the 1950s...and is placid and charming.
In the South are the UNESCO sites of the 17th century Jesuit Missions (reducciones).
It was one of the most interesting little adventures of my travelling life to go to this place where almost no tourists go!

Landlocked between Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina, Paraguay is rarely visited by tourists. Asuncion, its capital was established in 1532 as Spain's gateway to the interior of South America long before Buenos Aires existed. It has a complex and secretive history...with crazy dictators, and strange groups of dissenting settlers in the 18 and 1900s coming to set up Utopian communities...including earl…  (read more)