36 Hours in Asunción, Paraguay

The Paraguay River is the lifeblood of this landlocked nation, used for commerce and providing food and recreation. Stroll La Costanera, a riverside esplanade with joggers, popcorn vendors and pedal-powered go-karts for rent. Swimming isn’t advised — the water is polluted — but short speedboat rides run from the small, sandy beach (15,000 guaraníes, or about $2). Behind the waterfront lies La Chacarita, a friendly and historic barrio that gets a bad rap for drugs and crime, but has more to it. Explore it with ChacaTours, launched by locals in 2022 to offer a fresh perspective of the neighborhood. Learn about the canoe-borne Indigenous warriors who settled here in the 1700s, try sopa paraguaya — a spongy yellow “soup” eaten with fork or fingers — and chat with residents. Two-hour tour in English, 150,000 guaraníes per person.

On the porch at Óga, an intimate restaurant in a traditional house with wooden beams and a central fireplace, stands a waist-height wooden mortar and pestle. It is a family heirloom belonging to the restaurant’s co-owner Beto Giubi, who, with his partner Romi Roura, is at the vanguard of a new movement that lovingly revitalizes traditional Paraguayan fare with modern touches. The menu changes regularly, but fixtures include a pan-crispy chipa guasu, a kind of cheesy cornbread, and gnocchi made with manioc, or cassava. The yerba mate ice cream is alone worth the visit to the quiet San José neighborhood, a 10-minute taxi ride from the center. Three-course dinner for two, around 300,000 guaraníes.

To see how Asunción is changing, take the elevator up to Negroni Rooftop, a cocktail bar in the ritzier, eastern part of town, where the view is the main draw. Few of these skyscrapers existed 20 years ago. Beef and soybean exports have bankrolled a construction boom, transforming the capital’s skyline, but destroying swaths of Paraguay’s biodiverse forests. For a cozier ambience, ring the buzzer at Garage Sónico (entry, 50,000 guaraníes; includes two drinks), a bar in a covered garden with traditional painted floor tiles and a small terrace, back toward the city center. Try the bramble cocktail with a housemade liqueur of yvapurũ, a sweet, purplish fruit. The bar is only open some Friday and Saturday nights: Check its Instagram before going. You may have to share the sofa with the cat.

See Asunción’s main sights, clustered downtown, in a morning. Start at La Estación Central del Ferrocarril, a grand 19th-century train terminus whose museum (10,000 guaraníes) displays steam locomotives and rusty machinery (Paraguay’s rail network has sadly fallen into disuse). Continue along Calle Palma, a thoroughfare of crumbling neo-Classical palaces and Art Deco mansions, to see the 10 a.m. changing of the guard at El Panteón Nacional de los Héroes. This gorgeous domed chapel houses the remains of President and Grand Marshal Francisco Solano López, who led his country into the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance against its neighbors 160 years ago. Then take a free tour through the ornate Palacio de López, the bubblegum-pink presidential residence that was unfinished when the marshal was shot down in 1870. In the park to the left, a bust of the dictator Gen. Alfredo Stroessner has been cut to pieces and sandwiched between two concrete blocks: a powerful reworking by the Paraguayan artist Carlos Colombino. General Stroessner’s brutal, 34-year regime fell in 1989, but his ultraconservative party remains in power.

Downtown is dotted with traditional markets, their passageways lined with headless mannequins in imitation athleisure, Korean eateries, ducklings in cardboard boxes and bottles of liquefied capybara blubber (believed to cure lung complaints). El Mercadito is more sedate, and has a dozen diners ladling out nourishing soul food. Try the vori vori — a delicious broth with cornmeal balls and chicken — at Comedor Dynastia Irene, an eatery on the left as you enter (30,000 guaraníes). On Saturdays, La Red Agroecológica y Artesanal, a small-producer market with organic vegetables, yerba mate, fernet and more, takes over Plaza Italia, a leafy square a short walk from El Mercadito. Behind the Panteón, El Paseo Artesanal, a covered walkway of artisans’ stalls, offers souvenirs like the colorful lacework known as ñandutí, and garments made with the breathable embroidered fabric called ao po'i.

POpore, a shop championing Paraguayan handicrafts and popular art, is tucked away in a remote riverside suburb, but worth the detour. Its owner, Gustavo Gauto, opened the physical store in 2023 after years of operating online. Patterns woven in natural crimson dyes by artists from the Ayoreo tribe cover the walls; wooden tortoises and tapirs, carved by Aché artisans, feature mythological scenes carefully burned into the cedar. Sales are a lifeline for Indigenous artists and their communities. Pride of place in the store is given to voluptuous figurines of Adam and Eve, made by Ediltrudis Noguera in the small town of Tobatí, and the spiky, many-headed ceramic creatures of Julia Isidrez, shaped from the black clay of her hometown, Itá. Contact the shop via Instagram to book your free visit.

Paraguayans religiously eat four meals a day, the most sacred being the mid-afternoon merienda. There are three enticing options in the center. Casa Clari offers snacks like payagua mascada, a ground-beef-and-scallion fritter, on an elegant terrace with a palace view. Contacto Café Social Club has iced coffee and medialunas, miniature glazed croissants, in a tiny, characterful space. Café Consulado, a popular hangout, has craft beers, board games and a mean mbeju caprese, a crunchy manioc-flour pancake bulging with cheese, pesto and tomato. A little farther is Karu, which serves passion fruit macarons and guava jam tarts under towering mango trees in the fashionably bohemian Las Mercedes neighborhood. (If you get hit by falling fruit, you get a brownie on the house). At each, drinks and light bites for two range from 30,000 to 80,000 guaraníes.

Most Saturdays and Sundays, a usually deserted block in Asunción’s neglected historic core is illuminated by string lights and transformed into La Chispa, a punkish, effervescent outdoor party. In the early evening, it hosts political theater, a craft fair and stick-and-poke tattoo artists. After dark, rock groups and rappers perform on the street, liter-bottles of lager circulate and attendees sometimes pelt images of (allegedly) corrupt politicians with red paint. It can get rowdy, but it is always welcoming. Free entry; donations sometimes taken. A nearby nightlife alternative is Club Condesa (entry, 70,000 guaraníes), where international D.J.s and home-grown jazz acts play a packed courtyard. The club has an in-house shop and record label, Pampanam, stacked with classic Argentine rock, old-school Brazilian hip-hop and Paraguayan harp music.

Bolsi, a restaurant slap-bang in the middle of the old center, has doled out comfort food to city slickers, government officials and the odd tourist for more than 60 years. (Some of the amiable, aproned servers have been there almost as long.) The main menu has no discernable theme — pizzas, tacos, pasta, sushi — but the real stars glisten under heat lamps behind the horseshoe-shaped counter. Try the empanada de acelga, a pasty stuffed with chard and oozy catupiry cheese. Bolsi has also perfected the Brazilian coxinha: a fried dumpling of shredded chicken, bacon and cheddar. And it’s a great place to sample the local craft beers Sajonia and Herken: once the sun is over the yard-arm, of course. Breakfast for two, about 50,000 guaraníes.

Walk the calories off at El Jardín Botánico, a charmingly unkempt public park tucked behind a bypass. You might want to skip the zoo, which has seen better days. But outside it, capuchin monkeys swing free in the violet canopies of lapachos and the yellow-flowering yvyra pytãs. Ice-cream sellers trundle along the lanes, and there’s ample space to spread a blanket in the shade. There’s also a historic hacienda built by the López presidential dynasty, a free natural history museum and a miniature Japanese garden whose pond is prowled by carp and caimans. The park is free to enter on foot, or 7,000 guaraníes if a taxi drops you in the middle.