Thoughts on Asunción, Paraguay

There is a rather splendid travel book about the strange country that is Paraguay called 'At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels through Paraguay'. Part history, part travelogue. All weird. Probably only available second hand. I've never been there. Having read the above book, I'm not sure I want to.

IIRC Paraguay's economy is based in some part on smuggling stuff into other countries, duty free. Whisky in particular.

The long term dictator, Stroessner, is credibly accused of having abducted and raped vast numbers of underage girls. https://www.americasquarterly.org/fulltextarticle/how-paragu...

There's a Behind The Bastards two parter on Stroessner: very much worth listening to. They cover the underage girls issue, for which I'd say the accusations are more than credible, but he was an absolute scumbag for plenty of other reasons as well, including his Nazi associations. Paraguay provided a key hub and waypoint for Nazis escaping Europe in the aftermath of WWII.

I like 'Behind The Bastards' podcast (if 'like' is the right word for a podcast about awful people) and have listened to quite a few, including the Stroessner episodes. But some of the guests on the podcast seems a bit clueless and don't add much IMO.