Travel Guide Mariscal Estigarribia

This city of a thousand inhabitants lost in the middle of nowhere, 530 km from Asunción and 80 km from Filadelfia, is the obligatory passage for travellers coming and going from Bolivia, whose border post of Infante Rivarola is 230 km away. The locality is not a Mennonite colony. Founded in 1944, on the territory of the former Bolivian fort Fortín Camacho, taken over by Paraguay in 1933, it is home to an important military base. The city is named after the commander-in-chief of the Paraguayan infantry, a shrewd strategist who later became president of the Republic (1939), before disappearing the following year in a plane crash. Speaking of airplanes, Mariscal Estigarribia is home to the longest airstrip in South America: 3.8 km! It was built in 1988, by the United States, for possible interventions in the heart of South America. Fortunately, it was only useful for the visit of Pope John Paul II, who came in 1988 to meet the indigenous communities of Santa Teresa, a small village 3 km from Mariscal. The Indians celebrate the "Areté Guazú" ("Great Feast") every year in February to honour the ancestors. Dances, masks and chicha, in a style quite different from the carnivals that took place elsewhere at the same time.