The day before flying out of Paraguay, I decided to squeeze in a short nature outing. I set my sights on Cerro Akat\u00ed, one of the few prominent hills in a country otherwise known for its flatlands.<\/p>\n\n
I set off by car from my lodging near the village of Melgarejo, where the access road to the summit begins. As usual, Ibo came along for this one too.<\/p>\n\n
An unpaved road leads up to Cerro Akat\u00ed and, in dry weather, it\u2019s drivable in a regular car. In my case, the weather had other ideas. It poured the day before, and the final stretch turned into deep mud.<\/p>\n\n
Pushing on by car would have been more luck than sense, so I parked and walked the rest.<\/p>\n\n
From where I left the car, it was about 2 kilometers to the top. The route follows the road, with some fairly steep sections. Dense tropical forest closes in on both sides, blocking almost all views, so you see very little of the surroundings until the very end.<\/p>\n\n
After rain, expect mud and slick footing, but technically it\u2019s not a difficult hike.<\/p>\n\n
The payoff comes right on the summit: a transmitter tower and a viewpoint with panoramic views of the valley and the surrounding hills.<\/p>\n\n
Entry to the viewpoint is ticketed: about 60,000 PYG, cash only, paid to the local caretaker.<\/p>\n\n
Because most of Paraguay is almost completely flat, looking out over rolling terrain from above feels unusual.<\/p>\n\n
The route is easy to do with a dog. Just know that on rainy days neither your dog nor your car will stay clean. In warm weather, pack water\u2014for you and your dog\u2014and be prepared for the occasional encounter with local dogs.<\/p>\n\n
Cerro Akat\u00ed makes an easy, worthwhile outing if you\u2019re around Melgarejo or want a short hike with good views. It isn\u2019t a high mountain by any means, but for Paraguay the vistas are striking. As a farewell to the country the day before my flight, it was exactly the right choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The day before flying out of Paraguay, I decided to squeeze in a short nature outing. I set my sights on Cerro Akat\u00ed, one of the few prominent hills in a country otherwise known for its flatlands. I set off … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"Cerro Akat\u00ed Hike, Paraguay: Short Summit Walk with Panoramic Views \u2022 IBO GUIDE","_seopress_titles_desc":"A quick hike up Cerro Akat\u00ed near Melgarejo: drive the dirt access road, walk 2 km to the summit, cash-only viewpoint, muddy after rain. Dog-friendly.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[92,88,100,134,132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-americas","category-hiking","category-paraguay","category-through-forests-and-mountains","category-with-a-dog","latest_post"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibo.guide\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibo.guide\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibo.guide\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibo.guide\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibo.guide\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2239"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibo.guide\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3126,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibo.guide\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions\/3126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibo.guide\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibo.guide\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibo.guide\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibo.guide\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}