It gets colorful at the carnival in Paraguay.

When researching what there is to experience in Paraguay, you don't come across a variety of highlights. However, we quickly stumbled upon the fact that in the south of the country, the 'capital of carnival' (apparently right after Rio de Janeiro) can be found. That was reason enough for us to visit the second largest city in Paraguay, Encarnacion, which is beautifully located on a river that also forms the border with Argentina. Due to the carnival season, accommodations were scarce, but we were lucky and secured an Airbnb apartment in a newly built building overlooking the river. We were only able to use the rooftop pool once due to the high temperatures, because...

... it stormed and poured rain continuously for the entire three days. That was a bit depressing. Our planned Valentine's Day dinner could only be reached by taxi due to the bad weather, and we were already fearing the worst for the following Saturday, when the carnival takes place every week in February. But miraculously, it actually cleared up on Saturday afternoon and we were overjoyed. After a walk on the beach and dinner, we went to the 'Sambadromo' - the venue for the weekly carnival parade. There are permanent stands installed along a closed street throughout the year, where the carnival parade takes place. It consists of various associations, each of which presents itself with elaborately decorated floats, dancers, and sometimes even its own band (alternatively, the music comes from a recording). There is even a jury that evaluates the performances of the associations - so it's not just for fun!

The whole thing was supposed to start at 9 p.m. according to the ticket, and we were there shortly after nine... however, that didn't apply to many other spectators. Until around 10:30 p.m., it was really shocking how empty it was, and even until shortly after midnight, new spectators were still arriving. However, the parade was in full swing from the beginning. I (Tabea) especially noticed the diversity of the participants: not only half-naked women, but also men - each with model proportions or average bodies - were represented. Children as young as 4 years old (obviously more dressed) were already part of the parade, and a few grandmothers also presented themselves on one or another float. The audience was also mixed from young to old, so it was an event for the whole family.

We had read beforehand that snow spray was in high demand at this carnival. We saw that right at the beginning and didn't want to miss out: we bought two cans of the sticky stuff and happily sprayed it in the crowd like many others. So if it 'snows' or 'rains' in the pictures, it's just spectators having fun with their sprays.

All in all, the Paraguayan carnival was an absolute cultural highlight of our trip so far. The atmosphere in the stands (or at least on our stand) was a bit disappointing, but the creativity and dancing skills of the participants in the parade were really impressive and great to watch. You could almost think that the weather god is a carnival enthusiast, because it was already storming heavily again the next morning. So we spent the last day in Encarnacion in our apartment and in the evening made our way to the bus station for our longest overnight journey so far. We will report on the destination of this journey in the next article.