The Colours of Paraguay

Paraguay is the only country in the Americas where an indigenous language isn't a minority language, it's THE language. Around ninety percent of Paraguayans speak Guaraní, most alongside Spanish, and the constitution makes both official. Poems, jokes, football commentary, love songs: Guaraní carries them all. The conquest came and went; the language stayed and won.

Where it all began

Asunción, founded 1537, is the Mother of Cities, expeditions left from here to found half the region, including a certain Buenos Aires (twice; the first attempt failed). In the 1600s the Jesuit missions built something history students still argue about: self-governing Guaraní communities with orchestras, printing presses and no private property, the "republic" that inspired European philosophers; the ruins at Trinidad are UNESCO-listed and hauntingly beautiful. Independence came without a battle in May 1811, overnight, by candlelight. Then tragedy on a scale few nations have known: the Triple Alliance War of 1864 to 1870 killed most of the male population. That Paraguay exists at all, tranquil, warm, humming its polkas, is one of South America's quiet miracles of resilience.

The minds

Augusto Roa Bastos, exiled son of Asunción, wrote I, the Supreme, one of Latin America's greatest novels, and took the Cervantes Prize in 1989, Spanish literature's highest honour. Agustín Barrios Mangoré, the Guaraní guitar poet of the early 1900s, toured the world in concert dress and is ranked among the finest guitarist-composers ever; classical guitarists everywhere still play his Cátedra. And Paraguay's harp, the arpa paraguaya, became the national instrument, cascading like the waterfalls it imitates; hear Pajarito Campana once and you'll never forget it. Add José Luis Chilavert, the goalkeeper who scored more than 60 goals, free kicks and penalties, and you have a nation that specialises in the unexpected.

Made in Paraguay

Paraguay shares, with Brazil, the Itaipú dam, for decades the largest hydroelectric plant on Earth, and it still holds the record for most energy ever generated by a single dam. The result: Paraguay's own grid runs on virtually 100 percent renewable hydropower, and it exports huge amounts, one of the world's largest net exporters of clean electricity. Add soy (a top-five global exporter), beef the Argentines respectfully eat, stevia, the sweet leaf ka'a he'ẽ, which the Guaraní were using centuries before your diet cola, and ñandutí lace, spiderweb weaving, from Itauguá, each round mandala a family heirloom.

Where to go

Asunción moves at siesta speed: the pink Palacio de López, the costanera at sunset, and lomito arabe joints from the big Levantine community. Areguá and San Bernardino on Lake Ypacaraí for weekend languor, strawberries and craft pottery.

Then the deep country. The Jesuit ruins of Trinidad and Jesús near Encarnación, golden stone, carved angels, almost no tourists, you'll have a UNESCO site nearly to yourself. Encarnación's beach and carnival, Paraguay's liveliest party. The Chaco, one of the last great wildernesses of South America, jaguar country, with Mennonite colonies improbably farming the thorn forest. Ybycuí national parks of Atlantic forest with howler monkeys for an alarm clock. And everywhere, red-dirt roads to villages where someone will hand you a guampa of ice-cold tereré within ten minutes.

Culture, on a plate and in the ear

Tereré is the ritual to learn first: yerba mate with iced water and medicinal herbs, passed around a circle, UNESCO-listed, and the actual social network of Paraguay. Eat chipa, cheese bread rings sold warm on every bus, sopa paraguaya, the famous "soup" that is actually solid cornbread, don't ask, just eat, and vorí vorí on a cold day. Dance the polka paraguaya, then watch the galopera dancers balancing bottles on their heads, the record holders manage dozens. And absorb the national temperament: tranquilopa. Everything's fine. It usually is.

Every colour is someone's home. I print it the way memory keeps it: vintage-washed, distressed, made to order.

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P.S. Red, white and blue, but flip it over: Paraguay's is the only national flag on Earth with different emblems on each side. Two faces, one heart. Find your flag.