Travel Guide La Colmena

La Colmena is a small town lost in the middle of beautiful landscapes of fruit and vegetable fields. Colmena means "beehive" in Spanish. The locality produces quality honey, but in fact takes its name from its first inhabitants, 123 Japanese families who arrived in 1936 to found an agricultural colony. The Paraguayans impressed by such lively work, like bees in a hive, would have nicknamed the colony "la colmena" and the name stuck. There are still 65 Japanese families in La Colmena today. They make a pretty good living from farming and petty trade. These Paraguayans of Japanese origin and the Paraguayan-Japanese mestizos converse in Guarani as well as in Japanese, and now know how to take the time to drink tereré on their silla cable. The main attraction of La Colmena is the Salto Cristal, one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the country. But the region also abounds in rivers and sandy beaches, accessible by red dirt tracks through the countryside, which the locals will be happy to show you.