South America's most underrated capital — where sopa paraguaya (it's a bread, not a soup) and tereré herbal ice drink define a country most travellers skip entirely
Asunción is the capital and largest city of Paraguay, a landlocked South American country wedged between Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia that almost no independent travellers visit — which is precisely what makes it interesting. The food is firmly Guaraní-inflected: sopa paraguaya (a dense cornbread with cheese, not a liquid soup despite the name), chipa (cheese bread rings baked in a tatakua clay oven and sold everywhere), mbejú (starch flatbread), and tereré, the ice-cold yerba mate drink that Paraguayans carry in a thermos and drink through a metal straw at every hour in every setting. The…
Asunción was founded in 1537, making it one of the oldest cities in South America — and for decades it was the most important Spanish city on the continent before Lima and Buenos Aires displaced it. The Jesuit missions of the Río de la Plata region were among the most successful colonial experiments in history, creating semi-autonomous Guaraní communities that maintained indigenous culture under Jesuit protection until the 1767 expulsion. Paraguay's 19th century ended catastrophically in the War of the Triple Alliance (1864–1870), in which Paraguay fought Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay simult…