Mariscal Estigarribia

The town began as a Bolivian fort. In June 1931, as Bolivia pushed roads and outposts into the disputed Chaco, its army founded Fortín General Eliodoro Camacho here, and in 1932 expeditions set out from it towards the lagoon of Pitiantuta, part of the clashes that led to the Chaco War. After the encirclement at Campo Vía, Bolivian troops abandoned the fort, and Paraguay took it in January 1934, renaming it Fortín López de Filippis. On 31 July 1934 General José Félix Estigarribia moved his main headquarters here for the last stage of the war, turning the post into a military town.

The 1938 peace treaty confirmed the site as Paraguayan territory. In December 1944 it was renamed Mariscal José Félix Estigarribia, honouring the commander who had been made a national hero and promoted to marshal after his death in a plane crash in 1940. A large army base was kept here to guard against another conflict with Bolivia, and the soldiers' families formed the first town. The army ran it alone until 1973.

Only in the early 1980s was land surveyed for civilian settlers. In the same years military engineers built a giant airport, completed in 1986 as part of a planned free-trade zone, whose real purpose has long been debated. In 2005–06 US troops took part in joint exercises with Paraguay's army, fuelling rumours of a foreign base. In 2006 Filadelfia and Loma Plata split off as districts of their own, yet Mariscal Estigarribia remains the largest municipality in Paraguay.

Mariscal Estigarribia is known as "the military city" and "the heart of the Chaco". The army's Third Corps and an infantry division are based here, and the town's memorials, field guns and old fort names keep the Chaco War present in daily life. The town anniversary has only been celebrated since 1998, when the documents creating the municipality were rediscovered.

The Indigenous community of Santa Teresita, on the southern edge of town, gives the place another identity. Its Guaraní Occidental, Guaraní Ñandeva, Nivaclé and Manjui people built a round church with a round altar to suit their own traditions, visited by Pope John Paul II in 1988, and run an Indigenous public high school. At carnival the Guaraní hold the Areté Guazú, a three-day "big celebration" with masks of jaguars, pigs and ancestors, flutes and drums, considered one of the most authentic in the country.

The Catholic Church has deep roots here through the Oblate priest Pedro Shaw, Pa'í Pukú, who travelled the Chaco on horseback and founded a pioneering Indigenous school; he is buried in the old cathedral. Each spring the town is taken over by the Transchaco Rally, Paraguay's biggest motor race.

About 13,200 people lived in the municipality at the 2022 census, spread across a vast area that includes border posts and small settlements; the town itself has only a few thousand residents, and growth is slow because of the harsh climate and limited services.

Unlike the Mennonite towns to the south-east, Mariscal is not an industrial colony. Its economy is that of a frontier town: most people depend on state institutions — the army, the regional hospital, the municipality — and on businesses serving soldiers, truck drivers on the Transchaco and travellers heading to or from Bolivia. In 2025 the government announced plans for a large new general hospital for the Chaco here.

Life follows the heat. The air is often hot, windy, dusty and dry, rain comes in short, violent summer storms, and in November 2023 the town recorded South America's highest-ever minimum temperature. Days start early, the highway is the main street, and supplies, water and fuel are the constant concerns of anyone heading further into the Chaco.

Mariscal Estigarribia eats like the rest of the Chaco, with beef at the centre. Asado, beef grilled over charcoal, is the social meal, and Paraguayan staples — sopa paraguaya, a cornbread with cheese and onion; chipa, cheese bread made with cassava starch; and mandioca, boiled cassava — fill the plates of the snack bars and family kitchens.

Tereré, cold yerba mate shared from one cup through a metal straw, is drunk through the hot days; it has been declared the national drink of Paraguay, with its own day on the last Saturday of February. Asado has been the Paraguayan favourite for Sundays and celebrations since the first cattle arrived in Asunción in 1556. The supermarkets and petrol-station stores on the highway are where travellers buy food and water before driving on, and the Mennonite colonies to the south-east contribute heavily to Paraguay's dairy output.

The Indigenous communities ferment the fruit of the algarrobo, a tree of the Chaco, into chicha, which is drunk at the Areté Guazú at carnival.