Most visitors to Paraguay's capital pass through quickly, but a new first-person dispatch from Asunción makes a case for lingering in a city that is rough around the edges in fascinating ways.
The writer, an Irish retiree living large on a budget, rented a tenth-floor apartment overlooking the Palacio de López, the redbrick seat of government named for the country's 19th-century dictators, with the Bay of Asunción carved out of the Paraguay River spread out beyond. His verdict on the city itself is refreshingly unsentimental: sidewalks cracked and blocked by construction, half-built towers next to decaying concrete shells, police in pairs on the corners and soldiers with rifles outside the palace. Cheap as the rent is, it captures a particular moment for long-stay travellers — Asunción remains one of South America's most affordable capitals, still visibly pre-gentrification.
The centrepiece of the piece is La Recoleta cemetery, across from a new shopping centre and sweltering in midday heat. Its crypts read like miniature houses on crooked, unsigned lanes, many open to reveal tumbled coffins and sun-bleached angel statues. It is, by design, a place in decay — and that's part of the appeal.
Its most famous resident ties Asunción straight back to Ireland: Elisa Alicia Lynch, born in Charleville, County Cork in 1833. A courtesan in Parisian high society, she met Francisco Solano López, heir to the Paraguayan dictatorship, and followed him for life. As de facto first lady she amassed staggering wealth — one estimate put her property holdings at one and a half times the size of Ireland — before the catastrophic Paraguayan War, which killed an estimated 90% of the country's adult males. She was at López's side when he and their son died in battle. Her remains were later repatriated, and her tomb is now the cemetery's most visited spot; the gravediggers happily point the way, and locals are often surprised to learn she was Irish.
The other essential stop is the Panteón Nacional de los Héroes, a squat Baroque mausoleum where the country's dictators lie in a sunken central pit, watched over — fittingly, from above — by the coffin of the Unknown Soldier. Guards in white uniforms are famously relaxed, and café tables line the street outside, where conversation runs more to football than politics.
For travellers, Asunción works best for those who like their cities unpolished: walkable in stretches, cheap, heavy with history that most of the continent keeps behind museum glass. Pair the cemetery and the Panteón with a riverside stroll, and give the capital a couple of days before heading on to the rest of Paraguay.
Story via Cuenca High Life.
