The priest faltered a bit as he climbed the stairs to the museum, housed in an attic above a church in Itapé, Paraguay, a town founded as a Franciscan mission in 1672. My guide and I had roused him from his siesta by clapping our hands repeatedly — the Paraguayan equivalent of a knock on the door. Fumbling with multiple locks and a ring of too many keys, he finally got the doors open and led us through the neatly displayed, modest treasures. I had to read the signs; his eyesight wasn't up to the task: A 1752 wooden figure of St. Bonaventure, arms outstretched. Nineteenth-century baptismal documents. Metal meal containers from the Chaco War against Bolivia in the 1930s. Then he stopped before a simple black frock hanging from a wooden beam. "First cassock of Father Severiano Nelson Vega," I read, "blessed by the Monsignor on March 19, 1958."
"Do you know him?" he asked me in Spanish, with a sudden sparkle in his eyes. Of course I did: he was standing in front of me, 55 years later.
Finding religious artifacts here was not a surprise; if Itapé is known for anything, it's the pretty riverside shrine to the Virgen del Paso. But the village is also a perfect example of the modest, eclectic (and frugal) charms to be found in its home province of Guairá (pronounced gwa-ee-RAH), a relatively small area of about 1,500 square miles in the south of Paraguay, a landlocked country that is poor and mostly ignored by the outside world — but spirited and fascinating all the same.
"Paraguayans see themselves as the ultimate underdogs," said Romy Natalia Goldberg, the half-Paraguayan, half-American author of the Other Places Travel Guide to Paraguay, a rare guidebook to the country. "They take pride in their country's and culture's survival in the face of constant conflict and isolation."
Ms. Goldberg's assessment resonated repeatedly over the seven days I traveled around the country in April. Wars and dictatorships have shrunk the country's size by a third, thinned the population and slowed progress. Even its return to democracy has been difficult — the recent presidential election was marred by reports of vote buying — but its culture has very much survived, including the Guaraní language, spoken to some extent by nearly everyone regardless of their ethnic ties to the indigenous Guaraní people.
That rich and complex cultural heritage popped up all around the region: In addition to the Franciscan history in Itapé, there's Yataity, a village famed nationally for its handmade embroidering called ao po'i; and Colonia Independencia, a municipality where German is as commonly spoken as Spanish. They all surround the regional capital of Villarrica, population 55,000, the intellectual and commercial hub of the province, where I stayed.
The morning after my museum tour in Itapé, I headed to Yataity, 10 miles by hourly bus from Villarrica. The ao po'i tradition started when, a few years after Paraguay's independence in 1811, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, the country's dictatorial leader, imposed an isolationist policy, forcing Paraguay to produce its own clothing. And Yataity became the center of the industry. Today it is an idyllic little town: many craftspeople sell ao po'i from their thatched-roof houses; cars share the road with horses; a pretty church and green plaza are at the center of it all.
But this is Paraguay, and there was no real signage or tourism map to be found, so I did what I always do when a bit lost: ask people where to get something to eat. A woman directed me to a pretty brick home with a thatched roof and an old carriage wheel for a window, where Isabel Casco recently decided to establish a little general store and serve meals. There was no sign, but she was open for business. For lunch I had two chicken cutlets gently fried to order in lemony breading and served with yuca for a whopping 6,000 guaraníes ($1.50 at 3,975 guaraníes to the dollar).
Ms. Casco's daughter Alicia Narvaja eagerly interrupted studying for her college classes in Villarrica to take me around town to the homes of some of the finest artisans, including perhaps the most famous: her 87-year-old great-aunt, Digna López, who has been at it for 72 years. Ms. López showed us the loom where she makes her cloth — rare these days since most ao po'i is now embroidered by hand on factory-made fabric. Her product is thus more expensive than most sold in town , but also more celebrated; in fact it is sold at the Museo del Barro in the capital, Asunción. Ms. Narvaja's tour also included a stop at the Instituto Paraguayo de Artesania, where younger residents learn ao po'i; we found a friend of hers using a bowlike tool to clean cotton and make thread for cloth. (Blouses start at about 80,000 guaraníes.)
The next day, in order to fit in several destinations nearly inaccessible by bus, I sprang for an all-day taxi — 10 hours for 300,000 guaraníes. The driver, Julio César Galeano, picked me up at my hotel and we jolted over rust-colored dirt roads, past farms and pastoral countryside, toward Cerro Tres Kandú, at about 2,760 feet the highest peak in Paraguay, a country otherwise mostly flat. Mr. Galeano must have asked at least five locals for directions in Guaraní before we finally found it.
The well-maintained trail to the peak runs about 1.8 miles, with only a 1,450-foot rise in elevation from base to summit, but it was surprisingly challenging. There was lots of clambering up slopes while hanging on to roots, and a bit of hopping across streams on slippery rocks. (I was glad I hired a local guide to come with me, via the tourist office in Villarrica, for 50,000 guaraníes, in case I needed help, but those going in groups probably don't need one.) From the top, the view turned out to be worth the exhausting climb: green fields and red-dirt roads stretching out to the horizon.
Our next stop was Colonia Independencia, which, since receiving its big influx of Germans, Austrians and Swiss between the two World Wars, has been a largely German-speaking community. We passed several German-run countryside hotels, and stopped for lunch in German-owned El Mangal, which has lovely outdoor tables set under enormous mango trees and features a menu (in German and Spanish) heavy with schnitzel and spaetzle. Mr. Galeano and I split the huge house special for two (95,000 guaraníes): a tasty breaded pork chop, tender beef fillets with herb butter, beef kebabs, cold potato salad, hot spaetzle and French fries. (Our Paraguayan waitress wrote "Danke" on our bill.)
We drove past a German school and checked out the rye and flaxseed breads on sale in the local supermarket before stopping for some grape tart (5,000 guaraníes a slice) at the Confitería Dulce Arte, a shop where Lucía Portman, the descendant of Swiss-Germans, sells European-style baked goods and locally made sausage.
My hotel, just outside Villarrica, was also German-run. It was cheap and wonderfully quirky. Inside the restaurant and reception area, where German rock and '80s hits like "Too Shy" played, every wall is covered with functioning cuckoo clocks and photos of zeppelins — and, more surprisingly, tributes to Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, the Rat Pack and John F. Kennedy.
The couple that owns the place, Magalie Steinfatt and Steffen Karl, arrived eight years ago to escape what they called Germany's crippling taxes and workaholic lifestyle. My room was bare-boned but pleasant, and Ms. Steinfatt was very helpful in planning my days; Mr. Karl, having found out I was American, was more interested in discussing conspiracy theories of the Kennedy assassination.
I did spend some time in Villarrica itself — and it's not without its charms. There are a couple of nice churches, a rather haphazardly organized museum inside a beautiful old schoolhouse, a central park that's home to three rather lazy capybaras (adorable rodents the size of small pigs), and a number of decent restaurants serving Paraguayan standards: steaks, lomito (beef) sandwiches and dishes made with the catfish known locally as surubí.
The town is big enough that you never know what you'll run into — I attended a tallarinada, or spaghetti fund-raiser, for a Boy Scout troop planning a trip to Chile — and small enough that strangers will be curious about what you're doing there, perhaps offering to share a cup of tereré, the traditional Paraguayan tea-like beverage served ice-cold. In other words, it's a good place to hang out if your bus doesn't come, the mountain proves too tough or the small-town priest doesn't respond to your clapping.
If You Go
American Airlines has nonstop flights from Miami to Asunción, the Paraguayan capital — but I recommend making the country part of a longer South America trip. From Asunción, I took the Guaireña bus company to Villarrica (buses leave approximately every hour during the day) for 40,000 guaraníes, about $10 at 3,975 guaraníes to the dollar. But after totaling up my taxi costs once I got there, I wish I had rented a car in Asunción and driven there instead. (Villarrica has no car rental agencies.)
I stayed at the perfectly acceptable Ybytyruzú Hotel in central Villarrica one night (hotelybytyruzu.com; single for 135,000 guaraníes) and then moved to the more interesting German-run Hotel Paraíso (hotel-paraiso.de; single for 120,000 guaraníes in the off-season).
The English-speaking staff members at the local "turista roga," or tourism information office, are very helpful; turismoguaira@gmail.com; facebook.com/turistarogavillarrica.guaira.
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