Yerba Maté

Yerba Maté is tea consumed on a daily basis by almost all Paraguayans. The yerba maté plant is native to Paraguay. I like to compare it to a cross between Green tea and Oolong or Lapsang Souchong. It has certain smokiness about it, but also maintains a very herbal freshness at the same time. Depending on the time of year, Paraguayans travel with a thermos of hot or cold water, a maté(cup) and a bombilla (silver straw). The tea can be served hot (maté) or cold (tereré). It can blended with lemon and herbs like mint or served sweetened with milk (maté cocido).

Drinking maté is often a communal activity. When you are with friends a communal maté vessel is passed around and shared. 

 La Bombilla - a straw made from silver with a strainer attached to the tip to separate out the maté pulp as you sip.

I keep my yerba maté in a glass jar. It takes anywhere from a 1/2 cup to full cup of ground mate leaves to fill your vessel. The bombilla is then pushed into the mate leaves. Water is then poured into the vessel. The water is left to stand for a minute or two. The first sip of mate is really bitter. You pour off the water the first and second times you fill the vessel, but by the third filling your maté is ready!

My maté cup (called a maté) is made from fragrant palo santo wood. Palo Santo wood is one of the hardest woods found in the world. The maté can be found in many forms including the guampa (bull's horn) or calabaza (gourd). They are often accented with leather.

Frutas y Otro Comida de Paraguay

Banana Flower

Ani harvesting mangoes from the tree in his backyard.

Mangoes are so abundant in Paraguay the are not sold in the supermarket / grocery. Almost every home has at least one mango tree. They are popular not only for the fruit they produce, but the cool dense shade they provide as the tree matures. An adult mango tree can produce hundreds of mangoes.

The sap that bleeds out of the stem of a freshly picked mango has the most delicious smell. It is very sticky and mildly toxic.

The blossom of a papaya and a baby papaya.

 Ani harvesting papayas from the tree in his backyard. Shaking the trunk is the most effective way to harvest a papaya.

 You can buy eight pineapples for the roughly US$5 in Ciudad del Este.

 Fresh papaya for breakfast and two types of mango juice.

The yerba mate aisle in the supermarket. Yerba is consumed on daily basis by everyone in Paraguay, especially in the summer. I will have a later post devoted to Yerba:)

 I rarely drink soft drinks in the States, however I couldn't resist the urge to taste something familiar after day eight while in the airport. Paraguyan Coca-Cola is made with cane sugar and is super tasty.

 Yeyi told me a tale she heard about someone giving beet juice to an alcoholic to trick them out of their alcoholism. If they ask for a drink you give them beet juice and tell them it is wine, they are too drunk to know the difference:)

 Jesus making pan like a pro.

Jesus and Yeyi                           The pan before it is baked.

All Paraguayan homes have a parilla (an outdoor wood burning grill encased in brick on three sides) The parilla  has a rack that is attached to a frame with a built in cranking mechanism. If your fire is too strong you can raise the meat filled rack away from the flame.

 Once the fire slows down, you lower the rack to bring the meat closer to the flame.

Leg of lamb, pork ribs and an assortment of paraguayan sausages.

Tres Fronterras

Iguazu Falls/ La Cataratas

 We went to the Argentine side of Iguazú Falls. The park is very large. You could spend several days exploring both sides of the falls. The day we were able to go was very stormy. We arrived at the park late in the day and had to choose which part of the falls we would most like to see. We opted to go to the very top of the falls called the Devil's Throat. The Devil's Throat forms the most powerful part of the falls. The falls are amazing and were definitely well worth the trek. I look forward to my next trip to Paraguay to see more of the falls:)

                                        

Ciudad Del Este, Paraguay

 Ciudad Del Este is located where the Rio Paraná and Rio Iguazu merge and the borders of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet. The population is roughly 330,000.

El Centro at dusk.

El Lago

The crossing at the Friendship Bridge between Paraguay and Brazil.

The entire city is lined with a type of jacaranda tree that have either yellow or red blooms.

The outskirts of Ciudad del Este have red dirt roads.

Ciudad Del Este is a town of many contrasts. The city is filled with bright unrelenting light in its open space and deep dark shadows in the shade of its billowing trees and alleyways. Merchants come from all over the world to set up shop in downtown CDE, from places like Lebanon, Taiwan and Korea. The merging of the three borders as well as the many cultures present in CDE influence and shape it.There are those who have so much and those who have so little. There is tension pared with general lawlessness that give Ciudad Del Este its frenetic life.

Traffic in El Centro. Taxes in Paraguay are much lower than in neighboring Argentina and Brazil.


An assortment of air conditioners.

A counterfit version of anything you can imagine can be found in El Centro, not to mention firearms and narcotics. These booths line the streets. You must pass by the booths in order to entire the shopping malls.

El Centro is comprised of a roughly a dozen malls many of which house electronic stores.

The alleyways of El Centro are filled with recyclable goods dumped by the malls. Entire families come to pick through the different recyclable materials. At the end of the day you see horse drawn carts piled high with cardboard and styrofoam. 

Planes and things

¡Viva Paraguay!

Holiday Travels

I was so happy to get out of New York:)