Abierto del Paraguay

Our trip to Ciudad del Este would not have been possible without the Arza family. The mom, Veronica (Vero), teaches kindergarten at ACA with Brandon and their two daughters – Alejandra and Guliana (a.k.a. Ale and Guli) – attend school there, too. The purpose of the trip for them was the Abierto del Paraguay (Paraguayan Open), a tournament that their daughter Ale was competing in. She is an extremely talented golfer, who represented Paraguay in a South American tournament a few weeks back and placed first. The Paraguayan Open boasts itself as the biggest tournament in South America and Ale of course went to compete. In addition to the professional and amateur competition, Brandon also had the opportunity to golf for two of the three days with Osvaldo, the girls’ dad.

The course was set just outside Ciudad del Este, in the city of Parana. The Parana Golf Club was an extremely exclusive community with it’s own school and shops set inside the guarded gates of the club. Apparently it is where the “who’s who” of Ciudad del Este retreat to keep their wealth and family safe from city life.

Wednesday found all of us trekking to the course for Ale, Brandon and Osvaldo to warm up on the driving range and putting green. While they putzed around the course, Vero, Guli, Bailey and I went around to a few other touristy locations to check if they’d be open as usual during Holy Week. Many businesses downtown were closed, but the Itaipu Binacional Dam and Flora y Fauna would be open later in the week for us to visit. Yeah!

Thursday and Friday were the biggest of the golfing days since all three – Ale, Brandon and Osvaldo – were competing. Brandon and Osvaldo were partnered up with two other men from Asuncion, one who turned out to be the step-dad of a student of Brandon’s. Imagine that. And the step-dad was the one who won the event for the non-professionals.

The weather was decent enough, but the course was quite hill-y and the humidity took it’s toll on all the golfers. Friday found Brandon and Osvaldo going half-sies on a golf cart to see if that would help them golf any better. Not so much…

Saturday was the final day of competition for Ale and it was postponed for rain when she was about halfway through the course. The rain continued, but the committee decided that they had to finish golfing regardless; the other option was to postpone the games until the following day – Easter Sunday – and that wasn’t something they were willing to do. The whole family was soaked after trudging through the course in the rain, but had fun all the while.