RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The platform, which highlights Paraguay’s tourist beauty, currently boasts over 133,000 followers on Instagram, where he describes the country as “the land of wonderful waterfalls, lakes, rivers, hills, incredible sunsets, rich history and happy people.”
However, Espinola, a labor attorney who spends his weekends reconnecting with his country, believes that these tourist attractions “are not being exploited as they should be.”
The inspiration to promote his country’s tourist sites came to him after his time on the other side of the world, on an exchange program in New Zealand to study English.
There he was surprised by the organization and promotion of tourism, where each city seeks to exploit its own attractions, and he realized that his classmates, “most of them from Japan, Korea, Switzerland and Germany, knew absolutely nothing about Paraguay.”
That is why Discover Paraguay’s mission for the past few years has been to “introduce Paraguay to the world.”
“Despite being a landlocked country, Paraguay has plenty of water because it is on one of the largest reserves in the world: the Guarani aquifer,” Espinola said. These lakes, rivers and waterfalls are treasures for ecotourism or adventure tourism, but tourists, whether local or foreign, can also enjoy hiking through various hills or learn a little more about Paraguay’s history.
For the developer of Discover Paraguay, the top 5 places to visit are:
- The mighty Monday Waterfalls
- Cerro Corá National Park and the sunsets from the mountain range
- The majestic Jesuit Missions
- Ybycuí National Park
- The beautiful Salto Cristal Waterfall
‘WHEREVER YOU GO, YOU SEE WATER’
“Many tourists come to the capital, but I always say that Paraguay is not just the capital, that its essence lies inland,” Espinola says.
The Paraguayan influencer says that the first thing many people see when they come to the country is Ciudad del Este, on the Triple Border with Brazil and Argentina, but he insists that foreign tourists should not settle for that first impression and instead venture deeper to see the “true essence of Paraguay.”
He says that this is due to the fact that “there isn’t much of the Hispanic-Guarani culture there, which is better perceived in the rest of the country.”
Espinola says that to go beyond the capital, Asunción, and Ciudad del Este, and see “something wild and plenty of nature, you have to go to Salto Cristal.”
Located in the district of Ybycuí, and with “a 45-meter waterfall in the middle of the jungle and a natural pool,” it is one of the places where one can reconnect with Paraguay’s nature.
With 5,000 hectares of ecological reserve, Ybycuí National Park is one of the must-see places according to the creator of Discover Paraguay, because “it features over 16 waterfalls, a virgin forest, a spring more beautiful than the other and streams throughout the park.”
In addition, there is also the La Rosada Museum, the old iron foundry that played a role in the modernization of Paraguay in the mid-1800s and that carries the history of the bombing during the Triple Alliance War (1865-1870) against Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.
In the Alto Paraná Department, waterfalls with powerful cascades can also be found, such as Salto Ñacunday, in the national park of the same name.
Likewise, although the Iguazu Falls in the tri-national region may be the best known, in the city of Presidente Franco, near Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil), one can find the Monday Falls.
“There are two complexes: a panoramic elevator from where one can see and feel the water flow and another complex that offers rafting on the Monday River, zip-lining and rappelling,” Carlos explains.
WEALTH OF THE HISPANIC-GUARANI CULTURE
The travel influencer highlights the linguistic and cultural wealth of Paraguay.
“Paraguay not only offers nature for tourism, we have a very rich Hispanic-Guarani culture and a gastronomy that is very different from the rest of Latin America,” Espinola says.
He recounts that he heard “some English-speaking foreigners or Europeans say that in Paraguay one can feel the essence of Latin America, because of the cultural clash we had, the fusion of the Spanish and the Guarani.”
“Between 80 and 90% [of the Paraguayan population] speaks or understands Guarani or Jopará, the mixture between Guarani and Spanish,” he adds.
And one of the tourist attractions that Discover Paraguay recommends showcases precisely that cultural wealth: the Jesuit Missions.
In the Jesuit Missions of Santísima Trinidad and Jesús de Tavarangüé, declared World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO, “one can appreciate the ornamental work done by the indigenous people, the Baroque-Guaraní style of their architecture,” Espinola says.
Both can also be visited at night, so visitors can enjoy a spectacle of lights and sounds in the buildings “that recreate the sound of the atmosphere of the time.”
“It takes us back in time: we can listen to the singing of the indigenous people, the animals, the birds in the middle of the jungle,” he says.
TRAVELING TO PARAGUAY
Paraguay has multiple agreements with countries worldwide so that its citizens may enter the country without the need for a visa.
Currently, Paraguayan authorities are advancing a bill to waive visas for citizens of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in order to encourage tourism and boost economic recovery.
On June 9, the Chamber of Deputies passed a bill to waive visas for tourists from these countries, which cost approximately US$160. On June 22, the Senate also passed the bill.
According to a press release from the Chamber, deputy Rodrigo Blanco stated that “some 60,000 tourists come to the border area, but only 1% cross into the country because of the visa requirement. We must offer this opportunity to the hospitality sector, so that they may be part of the economic recovery.”
Source: CNN Español