Paraguay: Villages Part 2 (Atyra, Tobati, Caacupe, Villarrica)

The next morning we continued our journey towards Atyra. The town is known as a center for leather handicrafts. However, we only found a small market in Paseo Peatonal Indio Jose, which didn't offer much. But we actually found a new leather belt in Jorg's size here, as his old one was slowly falling apart. So the trip was already worth it for that alone.
The town is also known as the cleanest city in Paraguay, and it was indeed very clean. Otherwise, it is a quiet, peaceful, and very green place with not much to do and see. We briefly stopped by the Franciscan Church with its massive wooden altar and took a cigarette break in the pretty park. We skipped the local museum of religious art, as we had seen enough religious art already.

Next, we continued to Tobati. The town is known for its clay workshops where bricks and roof tiles are produced. Most of these workshops are located right by the road. The range of factories varies from simple, manual production supported by horse power to larger, semi-automatic factory-like enterprises. However, since it was Sunday, no work was being done and it was accordingly empty. But the old brick kilns provided some nice photo opportunities. Our visit to Tobati was therefore quite short, we simply drove through.

Our next stop was in Caacupe, which is 'famous' for its Basilica de la Virgen de Caacupe. The church is particularly impressive because of its size, which seems a bit out of place in the small town. However, we have seen more beautiful churches in terms of design. Nevertheless, this seems to be one of the tourist highlights of Paraguay, as we encountered a lot of local tourists here, including a German. We even had to buy a parking ticket from a nice old gentleman in the park, whereas in the rest of Paraguay you simply park your car wherever there is space.
For Catholics, the Virgin Mary is particularly important, a 60 cm tall, splendidly dressed statue on an oversized pyramid-shaped stone pedestal adorned with numerous handprints. And indeed, the believers lined up to touch the pedestal and say a prayer. The dome of the church can be climbed, offering a beautiful view of the interior of the church and the town of Caacupe from the inside. The walls of the staircase are painted and tell the legend of the Virgin, which was made by a Guarani Indian converted to Christianity and found its place in Caacupe only after a long odyssey. As an interesting side note, it should be mentioned that the Guarani were the original inhabitants of the area of Paraguay. In fact, 95% of Paraguayans still speak the Guarani language. The Guarani Indians were also found in present-day Bolivia and Uruguay, although the language is hardly represented there anymore.
Jorg generally finds it amusing to imitate exaggerated "preacher poses" in churches and justifies this right with the high church taxes he pays to the Catholic Church. However, when he once again swung his arms in the air on the balcony of the dome, pretending to be the Prophet himself, the other churchgoers, who could see him perfectly from below, did not find it quite as funny.
I particularly liked the beautiful stained glass windows in the basilica.

Afterwards, we continued our journey, which was a longer stretch to Villarrica. Road trips, especially in countries like this, always offer amusing anecdotes. In fact, I can't even count how many times I would have had to hand in my driver's license on this trip if it had been according to Swiss law.
What I remember most from Paraguay is when we once again left a village and suddenly found ourselves in a seemingly endless queue of cars, driving at a speed limit of 30 km/h. It took a while for us to realize that the "culprit" of the whole mess was a hearse, followed by the funeral procession in their cars with hazard lights on. However, there was a lot of oncoming traffic, making it difficult to pass the many cars. So we drove in a long line for a while until the other Paraguayans slowly started to get fed up with it. One after the other, they swerved to the right and overtook on the shoulder. Eventually, following the motto "when in Rome, do as the Romans do," I did the same. I waited for a gap, pulled onto the shoulder and overtook the funeral procession. Or rather, part of it. Because suddenly there was a bridge and the shoulder ended. Oops. Honestly, I don't remember exactly what I was thinking when I just followed the car in front of me, which squeezed back to the left between the hearse and the car behind it, then turned left onto the oncoming lane, pushed the oncoming traffic aside, and overtook the hearse on the median between the oncoming traffic and the hearse. Before I fully realized what I had just done, the whole thing was over and my pulse was pretty high. No, I definitely wouldn't have my driver's license anymore after such an action in Switzerland.

In the evening, we arrived in Villarrica and drove to our accommodation, which belonged to an old, pot-bellied man who was constantly sitting outside on the veranda, sipping his terere. The driveway to the square was so steep and narrow that, tired as I was after the long drive, I couldn't manage to maneuver the Hyundai through the entrance gate anymore, so Jorg had to take over for once. According to his amused expression when we swapped seats, the old man probably thought the usual: oh well, women just can't park. But I didn't care, I'd rather have that than damage the car.

After unloading our luggage, we took a stroll through the town. We had read that you can take horse-drawn taxi rides here, but we didn't come across any. We passed by the market, where there were truckloads of watermelons and other fruits and vegetables to buy. After the heavy rain finally stopped, we sat down in Parque Manuel Ortiz Guerrero, where there was a large pond and 3 capybaras lived. Just adorable. Just as we were about to cross the small bridge, they came towards us and trotted past us. There was also a little kitten sitting on the stairs, and it was impossible to tell who was more startled by this encounter: the cat, which immediately jumped up a meter high, or the capybaras, as they were loudly hissed at by the cat. For all the people around, the whole thing was quite funny to watch.