John Gimlette - At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels Through Paraguay

Blends travelogue, history and flights of descriptive whimsy to highly tonic effect. For all his mastery of Paraguayan history, its Gimlettes extravagant prose and unhinged enthusiasm that make the book. You couldnt ask for a more entertaining guide.

The Seattle Times

Hilarious. What keeps you reading about Paraguay, maybe in spite of yourself, is Gimlettes marvelous wit and eye for character.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Reading the book is like watching a Komodo dragon eat a tethered goat. Paraguay, as Gimlette portrays it, is completely bizarre. Conquistadores and Nazis, whores and cannibals, all of themrather awful, all of them splendidly rendered. Graham Greene would have approved.

National Geographic Adventure

A glorious travel book in which the countrys craziness is portrayed with humor, insight and considerable deftness of touch. As a historian of the absurd [Gimlette] is superlative.

The Sunday Times (London)

A wildly entertaining read:a raucous blend of history, travelogue, and guide.

Cond Nast Traveler

At The Tomb of the Inflatable Pig should be ranked among the very best explorations of its kind: at once a history and a guide to one of the least hospitable nations on earth.

The Washington Times

Irreverent and rambunctious. [A] superior travel book.

Foreign Affairs

An extraordinary book, part history, part travelogue so vivid that nobody reading it is ever likely to forget the country. A book that sheds fascinating light on a forgotten corner of LatinAmerica

The Daily Telegraph (London)

A richly detailed catalog of oddities and horrors, the kind of eccentricities that flourish in isolation. [Gimlette] spills Paraguays cruelest, most shameful secrets, but his admiration forthe forlorn middle country is real on every page.

Outside

Howlingly entertaining. There [is] no resisting Gimlettes rollicking account.

The San Diego Union-Tribune

A truly wonderful exploration of one of the worlds most captivating countries. Brilliant.

Sunday Express

[A] wonderful, wacky book. Filled with the offbeat and the bizarre. Gimlettes narrative attempts to flesh out a country that is as difficult to define as nailing Jell-O to a wall. Vivid, riotous, fascinating and never dull, his book is wildly entertaining.

The Tucson Citizen

Compelling. Blackly comical. Spicy, exuberant prose.

Mail on Sunday (London)

Eccentric and richly descriptive. The best travel writers are those with both a sense of history and a sense of humor, and Gimlette qualifies on both counts.

Richmond Times-Dispatch

[Gimlette] has a firm grasp of the countrysintriguing past, and a watchful eye on its perplexing present.

Literary Review

Terrifically funny. A great book in the noble tradition of British travel writing.

Hartford Advocate

Perceptive and entertaining.

The Times Literary Supplement (London)

JOHN GIMLETTE

A T THE T OMB OF THE I NFLATABLE P IG

John Gimlette is a regular contributor of travel articles and photographs to Cond Nast Traveller, as well as numerous journals and newspapers in England. He is a practicing attorney in London, where he lives with his family. This is his first book.

FIRST VINTAGE DEPARTURES EDITION, MARCH 2005

Copyright 2003 by John Gimlette

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Hutchinson, London, in 2003, and subsequently in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2004.

Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Departures and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Gimlette, John, 1963
At the tomb of the inflatable pig : travels through Paraguay /John Gimlette.
London: Hutchinson, 2003.
Includes bibliographical references ().
1. Gimlette, John, 1963 TravelParaguay.
2. ParaguayDescription and travel.
F2676.G56 2003
918.920473dc22
2003430378

eISBN: 978-0-307-80652-9

Author photograph Michael Trevillion

www.vintagebooks.com

v3.1

To Jayne

Madame Eliza Lynch (South American Pictures)

Dr. Gaspar Francia (South American Pictures)

Carlos Antonio Lpez (South American Pictures)

Francisco Solano Lpez (South American Pictures)

Grave of Madame Lynchs daughter, Corinne

Captain Richard Burton (Hulton Archive)

Robert Cunninghame Graham (Hulton Archive)

Wilfrid Barbrooke Grubb

Graham Kerr with his rescuer, Chimaki, and Dr. William Stewart

Paraguayan soldiers during the Chaco War (Die Mennonitische Post)

Present-day Chilup Indians

Braun family(Die Mennonitische Post)

Swastika garden (Rex Features Ltd)

Dr. Josef Mengele(Bettmann/Corbis)

Martin Bormann (Popperfoto)

General Andrs Rodrguez (Popperfoto)

Pastor Coronel (ltima Hora)

General Alfredo Stroessner (Hulton Archive)

Monument to the Spanish conquista of 1537, Asuncin

Pantheon of Heroes, Asuncin

Government Palace, Asuncin

Stroessners statue encased in concrete, Asuncin

Lino Oviedo(Jakob Unger)

Empty plinth, Asuncin

Asuncin steam train

Lpezs navy, Vapor Cu

Cowboys on the battlefield at Humait

Ruins of Jesuit church, Humait

Micawbers Shop, Humait

Ach woman breast-feeding a monkey (Reportaje al Pas, Paraguay)

Ach chief

Nurse Baker

Maria and Hein Braun

Jorge Halke and family

Dr. Enrique Wood

Don Nigel Kennedy

Guarans being led into slavery

The Basilica, Trinidad

From the reduccin of Trinidad, views over the Jesuit Republic

The trencito, Puerto Casado

Train carrying soldiers to the front line during the Chaco War (South American Pictures)

Bolivian machine-gun nest in a bottle-tree

The revered battleground, Boquern

Paraguayan soldier, c. 1865 (University of Sydney Library)

Cepo Uruguayo torture (Luis Agero Wagner/Reportaje al Pas, Paraguay)

The death of Francisco Solano Lpez (Luis Agero Wagner/Reportaje al Pas, Paraguay)

Unless otherwise attributed, all the illustrations are from the authors collection.

I would like to thank the following for their help with this book.

In ParaguayJos and Virginia Franco, Diane and Antonio Espinoza, Robert Eaton, Rodrigo Wood, Dr. Enrique Wood, Margarita Kent, Ysanne Gayet, Stuart Duncan, Arminda Girala de Morales, Bishop Ellison, Beryl Baker, Frank Fragano, Peter and Midi Graham, Jakob and Maria Unger, Geraldo Cadogan, Oscar Centurion Frontanilla, Paula Brown, Eddie and Sonia Mueller, Gundolf Niebuhr, Hein and Maria Braun of Loma Plata, Alberto Yanosky, the Halke family of Nueva Germania, Nancy Cardozo, Ian and June Martin, Angus Martin, Carlos Yegros, Dr. Sergio Burgos, Lucy Yegros, Silvia Caballero, Cord Kelly, Federico Robinson, Dianny Elizeche of Paulas Tours, Brian Condon, Jos Luis Gadea Miguel (of Spain), Sergio Cceres Mercado, Guillermo Peroni, Father Feehan and Marcelino Godoy Vera of Nueva Londres.