Looking for Palo Santo in Paraguay
I wrote this in 2005, before smart phones were everywhere and I’m sure it is much easier to find vegan food in Ascuncion now.
It was late in the journey when I decided to look for Palo Santo. I was wandering around Paraguay in February 2005 with my old friend Regula, a Swiss woman I hitchhike with on occasion. Our half serious goal had been to find a boat going up the Paraguai river from Concepcion, up through the Pantanal, the huge swamp extending into Brazil and known for its abundance of wildlife. But this proved too much for my tight time line. I had only about 2 weeks to do whatever it was I was going to do in Paraguay.
Had always wanted to go there. Something about the remoteness and the reputation for intrigue. It was one of those countries spoken of in a certain tone of voice when my father would explain what Nazi hunters were doing in South America. And even friends who live or often visit South America seem to avoid Paraguay. Too dangerous. Nothing to see. A dump. A fascist dictatorship. Military coups. Stroessner. Money laundering. Drugs. Contraband. Terrorist haven.
Yes, okay, but on the other hand:
1. The entire country speaks a mix of Spanish and Guarani, the language of a group of tribes, the only country in the world to speak this.
2. Leaves from bitter orange trees are distilled in Paraguay, making it the world center of Petitgrain essential oil.
3. There is a tree that grows in the north, in the Chaco: the Palo Santo, in latin it’s Bulnesia Sarmientoi Lorentz or Bulnesia bonariensis. In Guarani: yvyra okai. It’s a hardwood tree that gives incense and also a hard (non mobile) essential oil. Here it is on the right.
4. The Chaco itself: inhospitable, harsh, completely wild, lawless, and nearly empty of people. The Chaco begins just north of Asuncion as the landscape gradually turns to a flooded palm savannah. This in turn becomes inpenetrable thorn forest. This forest is home to jaguar, puma, ocelot, and Geoffrey’s cat, as well as many other animals.
5. Just a little nugget of information I came across. Paraguay has 880 airfields. That’s nearly twice as many as France. That’s the 11th highest in the world, just after Columbia and Bolivia.
6. One of Paraguay’s departments is named Presidente Hayes, after the 19th American president, who was the arbitrator in a land dispute between Paraguay and Argentina after the disastorous War of The Triple Alliance. He is a national hero.
So when Regula asked if I wanted to meet her in South America I jumped at the chance and insisted on meeting her in Paraguay.
I had only a couple of weeks and the Pantanal trip wasn’t working. We both really wanted to see the Chaco and so decided to take a bus to Filadelfia and go from there. I decided to look for Palo Santo since we would be near where it grows. I didn’t know very much about this aromatic; I specialize in agarwood. But here I was so may as well have a look.
So we went north by nearly empty bus. Paraguay is not plagued by the endless hoards of people who seemingly inhabit every city everywhere on the globe these days. The landscape was refreshingly empty of humans.
On food: If you’re a vegetarian then just know that you will eat to survive here, and that’s all. The staples are chipas, a sort of pretzal looking thing made from maize flour with a little cheese and egg baked into it so it tastes a bit richer; Sopa paraguaya, a cornbread like wedge with cheese, milk and onions baked in, and empanadas (if you get to them while the cheese ones are still left.) That’s it. Vegans would not do well here. And the veg food is very limited. In fact, if you don’t eat meat and you are in Paraguay, you will probably spend much of your time with an eye open to see who’s selling food and what it is. Chipas get better the longer you’re there. And there’s always fruit.
We arrived in Filadelfia on a hot Sunday afternoon. The entire town was shut. Wide avenues, straight as can be, attractive little parks here and there, and German signed stores selling farm equipment and bales of barbed wire. Everything was decorated with barbed wire. Barbed wire lined the streets, protected the homes and kept one out of the park.
Most of the homes I had seen so far in Paraguay were Spanish style, Latin style, adobe, white or brightly painted pink, purple, orange with red tile roofs, flowers and cows in the front yard, very homey. But in Filadelfia I had to blink. Here we were in the Hamburg suburbs, with a side of barbed wire. These homes were angular, brick, tile, iron fencing topped with barbed wire coiled over the top. Did I mention there was lots of this? Several homes had German Shephards laying in front of the carport with a clean new car or suv. All of the homes had pleasant gardens and trees in the front as well.
We had managed to get ourselves into the heart of Paraguay’s mennonite community. The mennonites are an ultra hard working, semi reclusive sect, with their roots in Germany. The Paraguay Chaco colony though, was founded in 1927 by a group of Canadian immigrants. You can find mennonites all over the world, wherever there is a living to be scratched out from the land, wherever it is possible to homestead. If you’ve ever been wandering through Belize, for example, and suddenly come to a huge clearing in the middle of the jungle and there sits a working farm, silos, farmhouse, smell of freshly baking pie like a Norman Rockwell painting and you stop and blink and wonder if it’s real, then you’re probably looking at Mennonites. Not quite as old world as the Amish, they nontheless keep to themselves and honour their own ethical code, which has self sufficiency at its heart.
The bus dropped us off in the dust in front of a nice little hotel, Mennonite as well. This was excellent as a clean hotel was exactly what we needed….the Chaco is crawling with insects — mosquitos, beetles, giant moths, flying this, scuttling that…. But our hotel was spartan and spotless — we even had screens on the windows. Flowers covered the balconeys. The staff all spoke German. Spanish was no longer the lingua franca.
We spent the next couple of days hitchhiking around the area. There was no local transportation, so that was our only choice. The sun was ferocious, like knives. We walked down seemingly endless dusty roads, straight into the horizon. Difficult getting rides, although we always managed to, of course. But it went slower than I thought, considering that we were the only strangers around. The German speakers we got rides with weren’t particularly interested in talking either.
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After asking around for Palo Santo we found ourselves in the nearby town of Loma Plata, a kind of industrial farming center and the end of the paved road. You can continue north to Bolivia but the ride is several days long and dusty (or muddy.) This area is pretty remote.
Loma Plata was even more German than Filadelfia if that’s possible. It made the larger town look positively sophisticated. The restaurant was filled with solid farmers eating huge plates of solid food, in near silence, and around a green glowing swimming pool. As we walked through the empty afternoon streets, we noticed that a great majority of the visible people were quite unusual looking. I don’t know if it was just my imagination, fueled by all those stories my father told me about Nazis fleeing to South America, or if it’s just the intermarriage of the Mennonite families, but it seems to me that if one was fleeing to South America with the Simon Weisanthal Center on one’s heels, then an already existing German speaking colony would be a great place to disappear into. Especially a remote one. Just a thought. Maybe I’m being too dramatic. Regula wasn’t particularly disturbed by any of it. But I swear that I’d seen more than one pair of those ice blue eyes before: in the documentaries my father watched at every opportunity. And what about the love affair with barbed wire? But clearly most German speaking Paraguayans are just mennonite farmers so I tried not to make too big a deal of what was probably my paranoia.
After making pests of ourselves at the tourist office and the dairy, we found the local Palo Santo factory, where wood is brought in to make the essential oil. I think this trade is not altogether “legal” since the wood is old hardwood brought in from the Chaco, and as usual, the distillery people were paranoid and laconic. But distillery people are usually like this so it’s hard to tell.
When we get palo santo in the store it comes as soft white pieces of wood with all kinds of claims of the careful harvesting that’s been done to make the whole project green and responsible. But this wood was dark and blue-green when exposed to air. It was hard and mature wood. Some of the local Guarani people carve animals or implements out of this palo santo wood and they are exquisite. The wood itself is lovely, with beautiful grain, vivid colour, and delicious subtle fragrance.
This is what we were watching go into the chippers, and then on to the distillation units.
We were taken on a tour of the distillery, with the method somewhat explained, quite technically, but to my satisfaction.
It’s unfortunate that Guaiac wood oil (Palo Santo’s essential oil) holds the place that it does. It’s a smokey and balsamic woody note with a liquid hint of charcoal and animal. It’s very pleasant but it doesn’t have the addicitive quality of agarwood. Also, the oil is not mobile, meaning it doesn’t pour at room temperature and so is difficult to use. Guaiac oil is not expensive either so it has less a place than it deserves: It’s commonly used, undervalued, and not fully appreciated, but is still taken from the Chaco, chopped, ground and boiled. Guaiac wood is needed but not really appreciated, at least not with the reverence I see for other woods: agarwood, sandalwood, some cedars……I brought delightful little animal carvings back; tapirs and capybaras, armadillos and caimans.
After spending the afternoon at the distillery we had to get home to Filadelfia in the quickly darkening light. Dropped off at the edge of town, we had about 35 kilometres of Chaco wilderness to get through and were instantly attacked by mosquitos; huge, hungry, angry, competitive mosquitos. Clouds of them swarmed around us. It was horrifying and I started thinking about those malaria tablets I never take. Slapping, stamping and hopping only relieved the torment for an instant. So we ran, skipping and jumping, shouting and slapping, twisting and hopping down the road, hoping a car would come soon or we would be either killed by insects or die of exhaustion and then eaten by them. And soon enough, after a short eternity, a truck came along, driven by Spanish speaking workmen! So happy! We climbed in, still slapping, and the open windows and 4 cigarettes worth of smoke got rid of the bugs.
And that’s all that happened with Palo Santo. I looked around for petitgrain as well, but that is another story
If you’re interested in Paraguay and like to read, may I suggest the works of Augusto Roa Bastos? Son of Man; I, Supremeo; and The Prosecuter
