Spring Break in the Chaco

Arianna and John both happened to have a few days off from school and work at the same time so we decided we wanted to get away for a couple of days.  One area of Paraguay that John and I have wanted to see is called the Chaco.  Wikipedia refers to this area as " semi-arid and with a very low population density".  In addition to the different climate/terrain, we were intrigued by the fact that this area has a proportionately large German speaking Mennonite population.  Until recently, this group has been autonomous, having made an agreement with the Paraguayan government before arriving here that they could function in this way.

It is hard to describe the sensation of seeing the colony (as they are called) of Filadelfia for myself.  We stayed in a hotel where almost ALL the guests were speaking in German.  Before our trip to the Chaco, I thought these people had migrated to Paraguay from Germany.  But it turns out that many of them came from Russia, Ukraine and Canada.  BEFORE that they came from Germany and had maintained their low German language.  They are very focused on education and the students are also taught high German in school.  And as a group, they began arriving in Paraguay in the 1920's, but have clearly maintained their cultural heritage and a cooperative economic system.

This whole opportunity for the Mennonites is closely linked to Paraguayan history.  Between 1864-1870 there was the War of the Triple Alliance which pretty much decimated the male population in Paraguay.  I think that Paraguay's regionally low population can still be traced back to that time.  So the government here was eager to welcome immigrants (and the Mennonites were not the only ones they welcomed).  Soon after their arrival in the Chaco there was another major war here - the Chaco War which was basically a territorial dispute with Bolivia. The fact that the Mennonites had arrived was a contributing factor to that war - although the Mennonites are pacifists and as far as I know did not fight.

Anyway, by the time we arrived on Thursday of Semana Santa (Holy Week), the place was pretty much shut down.  Between the holiday and the closing of a local zoo we had a few disappointing moments on Friday.  But by Saturday morning things were a bit more up and running so we were able to visit a museum with stuffed animals of the Chaco and a salt lagoon where we saw a great variety of birds.  In fact, the birds that we saw all during our time driving there (it was a four and a half hour trip) were amazing.  One of these days I'm going to post a lot of photos to my Shutterfly sight, but in the meantime here are a couple of videos:

It was quite windy and VERY sandy on Friday, as hopefully you can see from those videos.