Chasing Palo Santo in Paraguay

I wrote this in 2005, which you may remember was the age before smart phones. I'm quite sure it's easier to eat vegetarian/vegan in Ascunción now.

Up until my dotage, I always traveled rough: I loved to be free and out in the world. I have hitchhiked more miles/kilometres than I can remember and have hopped a freight train in Mexico. When I started looking for essential oils, it gave me a perfect reason to wander off and poke my nose into whatever I could find out there. 

In 2005, I met my friend in South America; she was open to wherever I wanted to go, and of course I said Paraguay, since no one I knew had gone there, and there was not much information on it. It seemed like a mystery, and had a rough recent history. So of course.

I had only a couple of weeks; 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 specialized in agarwood at that time. But here I was, so I figured 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 land in 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.

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 main restaurant was filled with solid farmers eating huge plates of solid food, in near silence around a green glowing swimming pool. 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.I should mention that here in 2024 we now offer Peruvian origin Palo Santo essential oil at Enfleurage.

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 often 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.

Note: if you want to read a bit more about this trip, try this link:

Paraguay Palo Santo on Medium

I should mention here that we now offer Peruvian-origin Palo Santo oil at Enfleurage.