Holy Week in Paraguay

In the days leading up to Holy Week, families knead and bake chipa—a ring-shaped cheese bread made with cassava starch—in a tatakua, the traditional domed clay oven, and on Good Friday everyone eats chipa, sopa paraguaya (a savory corn and cheese bread, despite the name “soup”) and chipa guasu (a moist corn-and-cheese bake), all without meat. There are Stations of the Cross on hilltops, processions with traditional chanters, living tableaux in towns such as Valenzuela, and the candlelit night of Tañarandy in Misiones. With two public holidays back to back, many Paraguayans travel to the countryside: highways are packed and the chipa bakeries of Eusebio Ayala and Coronel Bogado are in full swing.