(Previous stop: Ghana)

On Wednesday, the next stop of our tour-around-the-world-without-actually-going-anywhere-game is Paraguay. Again: selected at random. Again: another country that I don't know anything about (didn't even know the capital city of Paraguay). I could tell you a little about all of the surrounding countries but nothing about Paraguay itself. So: a lucky pick, a good opportunity to learn about a place that I otherwise wouldn't think about.

I'm looking for information in the usual places I'd look if I were actually traveling somewhere (and I've also been trying to codify that approach, because someday we'll go somewhere: Travel approach). If you've got any knowledge or experience about Paraguay—food, music, places to go, etc.—let me know and we'll add it to our itinerary.

Things that have immediately caught my eye that seem worth looking up:

• 90% of the population can speak an indigenous language, Guarani
• The Gran Chaco is a dry, wild area in the northwest, consisting of 60% of the land area of Paraguay but 10% of the population
• Paraguay has 15 national parks and 1 World Heritage Site (and 6 others on the provisional list)
• Haven't found much yet about which dishes, etc., are essential to Paraguay, but Recetas de Paraguay seems promising so far. I have discovered sopa paraguayo, but I don't understand it because sopa is soup but sopa paraguaya is some kind of bread (?).
• ... and other notes here as I find them.