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Holly Morris discovers two South American countries that may share a similar name but couldn’t be more different.
Beginning her journey in Uruguay, Holly explores its beautiful coastline, often referred to as the Riviera of the Southern Hemisphere. But she doesn’t’t spend much time in chic beach resorts and instead opts to rough it in the primitive hippie hang out of Cabo Polonio where electricity is rare but tranquility abounds.
Holly then heads inland and north to the rarely visited heartland of Uruguay and tries her hand at ranching, the predominant industry of the country. After experiencing the largest gaucho festival in the world with its 19th century ranch recreations and gaucho busting rodeos, Holly boards a plane and heads northwest to the mysterious land locked nation of Paraguay. In contrast to Uruguay, Paraguay is one of the least visited countries on the South American continent.
Holly begins her Paraguayan adventure in its capital city Asuncion where she learns about the brutal dictatorship that gripped the country for some 30 years. She then heads out into the countryside and discovers a people of immense ethnic diversity.
Thanks to its remoteness Paraguay has long attracted experimental societies from across the globe who came to the country with extreme utopian visions. In the beautiful lake side village of San Bernardino Holly explores the remains of an old German community and uncovers an uncomfortable link with Nazism. Further south she visits the ruins of the 18th century Jesuit missions where music, art and a form of religious socialism once flourished.
In the final leg of her journey Holly heads to the northeast of the country and Paraguay’s Mbaracayu nature reserve where she hunts in the traditional way with the countries last surviving hunter gatherers, the indigenous Ache people.
From Mad Max style beach resorts and strange Utopian societies to mysterious jungles deep in the heart of the continent, Globe Trekker Uruguay and Paraguay uncovers an incredibly diverse and unexpected world that couldn’t fail to fascinate even the most jaded adventurer.
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