¿Paraguay? ¿Por que?

A mom and her fam hang out at the Plaza Independencia in Asunción.

OK, the play on words doesn´t snap, crackle or pop -- it would have been better could one say, para que, or for what? -- but it gets the message across. There is absolutely no reason to go to Paraguay.

Yes, the women here are on the whole the best looking women amongst those in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Peru. But that´s about it.

Took this pic of a shanty town and its football field about 40 yards from the Palacio Legislativo, the Congress -- the actual building, not the grounds.

Poverty is apparent everywhere here, and to the worst degree I saw among the aforementioned countries.

There were small tent cities on the outskirts of small towns on the bus ride from Brazil to Asunción. Many of the tents were made of black plastic bags.

Vendors popped on and off a 30-minute city bus ride. The kid in the front is selling tickets to a concert and the guy behind him, in blue, is selling packs of sewing needles.

People jumped on the bus and sold pineapples, other fruit, drinks, juice, gum and phone chargers for cars.

Things are dirt cheap here. So they make up for it by using Guaranies. 100,000 guaranies are worth $20. A pack of smokes goes for 4,000 guaranies. About 90 cents. The half hour city bus ride from my hotel to the bus terminal was 2,300 guaranies -- 47 cents.

Of course, they had the obligatory protest march over something or other.

The protests here are a little weird. Numerous small groups hold their own rallies in various spots, and each march independently to a central location.

Once all together, there are angry speeches and a bizarrely high number of vendors selling food, drinks and whatnot. But they seem to enjoy having their say and I have yet to see any violence.

In any case, there certainly is no there there in Paraguay.