Agriculture and stockbreeding make up the main economic activities of Paraguay. The most important crops include soybeans, wheat, sugarcane, cotton, corn, tobacco and the yerba mate herb, in addition to a large variety of tropical fruits and vegetables.
On the livestock ranches, a variety of cattle breeds are raised, such as Brahma, Nelore and St. Gertrude, as well as exemplary specimens of sheep, horses and other bovine.
The country’s industry, still in the stages of development, is mainly dedicated to producing lumber, oils, yerba mate, tobacco, yucca derivatives, sugar, textiles, fresh meat, cement and lime.
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Climate
Located on the Tropic of Capricorn, Paraguay enjoys a climate that varies from temperate to hot during the majority of the year, with an average temperature of 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The Eastern Region enjoys a more humid and rainy climate;
the Western Region is arid and dry.
Summers are long, with temperatures that reach 105 degrees on peak days; winters are mild and short, albeit in the months of July and August,
some days the temperature can dip down to 0 degrees centigrade.
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Culture
The different cultural aspects that bloom in Paraguay have their roots in the diversification of the different cultural backgrounds, like the traditional indigenous culture, and the popular culture, which was brought here by the Spanish during colonization periods.
Paraguayan sweet mate
Sugar 4 tablespoons
1Lt of milk
Sugar to taste
Ground coconut or grated coconut
Heat the milk and in another container put the 4 tablespoons of sugar burning them as if to make a caramel and when it starts to take on a reddish color, the milk is added let it heat up to a point before boiling. It is sweetened to taste.
READING
In the spring of 1854 in Paris, Francisco Solano López came to the house of Eliza Lynch to improve his French, or so he said. Eliza was nineteen, already with an ex-husband, and he was the young son of Paraguay’s dictator in Europe recruiting engineers for South America’s first railroad. By the time he returned to Asunción in 1855, Eliza was pregnant with his child.
In less than a decade, López plunged Paraguay into a conflict that would kill over half its population. By then Eliza was notorious—as both the angel of the battlefield inspiring the troops, and the demon whose rapacious appetites drove López’s fatal ambition. This is her story, in which “Enright artfully explores the power of beauty and the beauty of power, and finds them remarkably similar as neither leads to a good end”
So far the most fascinating thing I’ve learned is some recipes and all about Eliza Lynch, whose story I am now fascinated by and in awe of! Yet another wrongly vilified woman in history……………
Eliza Alice Lynch (Cork, Ireland, 19 November 1833 – Paris, France, 25 July 1886) was the Irish mistress-wife of Francisco Solano López, president of Paraguay.
Slandered as the most vilified woman in Latin-American history, she was dubbed as “an ambitious courtesan” who seduced the heir apparent of the Government of Paraguay, Francisco Solano López, turning him into “a bloodthirsty dictator.” However, all those accusations were part of the propaganda-warfare during the Paraguayan War, by the allies and are disproven. Nowadays, she is considered as a “National Heroine”…….
Paraguay unexpected find…………
