The tourist trail largely bypasses this small subtropical country, landlocked in the heart of South America, and therein lies much of Paraguay’s charm. Travellers who visit with an open heart and mind are rewarded with unspoilt natural beauty, an abundance of wildlife and some of the friendliest and unaffected people in the world. Conversing in a bledn of Spanish and Guarani that epitomizes the country’s cultural interweaving, the Paraguayans are most certainly the highlights of this Paraiso Perdido (Paradise Lost).

May to September (winter)-or before 1865 when Paraguay lost over a quarter of its national territory in the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance

Surviving a squashed ride in one of Asuncion’s wooden-floored buses Catching a game of futbol (soccer) with all the accompanying hysteria Visiting the Jesuit Mission of Trinidad and Jesus-impressive colonial remains where missionaries and Guarani lndians once lived and learned harmoniously together Exploring the vast, thorny wilderness of the Chaco-host to exotic endangered animals and birds Heading up the Rio Paraguay on a local passenger boat

Read Augusto Roa Bastos’ Son of Man, which ties together several episodes of Paraguayan history, or for travel literature try At the Tomb of the lnflatable Pig;

Watch Hugo Gamarra’s The Gate of Dreams about Augusto Roa Basttos’ life and literature; Claudio MacDowell’s The Call of the Oboe, set in a forsaken Paraguayan village; Enrique Collar’s miramenometokei: Espinas del Alma (Thorns of the Soul), about a girl marked by family secrefs-one of Paraguay’s few national productions, set in modern-day Asuncion and its outskirts

Listen to harp guitar-based folk music and its interpretations by guitarists such as Agustin Barrios Mangore and Berta Rojas

Eat chipa (cheese-bread sold everywhere); sopa paraguaya (cornbread); freshly boiled mandioca (cassava); bori bori, sooyo and locro (typical stew-like soups that bear the brunt of many local jokes)

Drink terere (ice-cold yerba mate-herbal tea, best shared with the locals), Pilsen (the watery nation al beer), cana (sugarcane alcohol)

Mba’ eichapa? (how are you?)

Jaguars in the jungle; dictators; corruption and contraband; duty-free electronic goods; handicrafts; horse-drawn carts; red-dirt roads that turn into rivers in tropical rains

The German-speaking Mennonite community in dusty Filadelfia; Nueva Australia; named after a short-lived attempt by Australians to set up Utopia in Paraguay

Paraguay is South America’s ‘empty quarter,’ country little known even to its neighbours. PJ O’Rourake summed it up bluntly when he wrote ‘Paraguay is nowhere and famous for nothing’-and then, on a short visit to cover elections, promptly fell in love with the place. You might do the same.