The swamp of Asunción

Following the aftershocks of Bolivar, Paraguay has recovered its tainted status quo, which is unlikely to be impacted even with a right-leaning vote.

Paraguay is many countries cobbled into one, a treasure trove of interesting and amazing stories. Given its current marginality, one would hardly expect to find that events that took place here between the 16th and 20th centuries had a major geopolitical and historical impact. The capital Asunción was the hub of the Spanish expeditions that built the cities along the Rio de la Plata, along a path that headed from the interior towards the sea: the opposite of what happened on the rest of the continent. That is because Paraguay is located at the intersection of the major rivers that explorers travelled upstream in search of the mythical City of Caesars, the equivalent (but in silver terms) of the Colombian El Dorado. Asunción was also the point of departure for the original form of evangelisation and colonisation of the American continent: the Jesuit reducciones.

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