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Published: October 11th 2012
Paraguay Border by Land
On the way back into ParaguayIt is funny how a day can start so full of hope and excitement and end in the sewer. Just about every trip we have ever had has had a day like we would experience today, and it always surprises us when our plans end in the sewer. The day started well with another great breakfast that included chocolate cake, which is the internationally recognised sign that we are near to Argentina. As we got ready Shelley discovered that the small tear in her cargo pants were getting larger but she figured today was going to be just a taxi ride across the bridge and when she gets to the next town she will throw them out. We packed our bags and headed to the foyer for our 10am check out where the woman on reception organised a taxi to take us into Brazil. This very unique corner of the world has three cities from three countries divided by rivers called “Tres Frontiers” (three borders), with the major road crossing from Paraguay to Brazil and then Brazil to Argentina, and no bridge between Paraguay to Argentina.
The cheap version of this journey is to
get a taxi to the Paraguayan immigration office get stamped out and then catch a bus across the bridge over the Paraguay River to Brazil to be stamped into Brazil and then continue onto the adjoining Brazilian town of Foz Do Iguacu. The buses that cross the bridge don’t have luggage storage and it had been a real hassle when we had crossed between Argentina to Brazil last time at this point so we organised with the hotel for a taxi that would take us across the border and drop us at the hotel for 70,000G or US$20. Lucky for us we had decided to go with this option because we had next to no Paraguayan currency (for once we had run down our local money perfectly before crossing the border) and the taxi would take $US.
The taxi turned up, we threw our bags in and got transported to the Paraguayan Immigration office where we got stamped out of Paraguay and then back to the taxi for the journey across the bridge to Brazil. This is an extremely busy border, and I reckon that it is perhaps the busiest we have ever seen but most are Brazilians crossing
Paraguay Border by Water
Shelley and the taxi driver on the car ferry over to Paraguay for the day to buy cheap goods and do not need to stop to be stamped in and out, and the whole thing looks like the Sydney Harbour Bridge at peak time. As we crossed the bridge Shelley got upset that we hadn’t taken photos of the Paraguayan immigration office and border……but never mind we would be back there again soon.
Got to the Brazilian Immigration office at the other end of the bridge and handed over our passports to the woman at the small office and after waiting about ten minutes there appeared to be a problem. She claimed our visas were not valid and we could not enter, and of course we argued and she took it to an immigration officer who backed her claim….Oh Shit.
Are we in the wrong or is Brazilian Immigration? Well we got our Brazilian Visas back in August 2011 and at the time we read the rules and figured we could get back into Brazil on the same visa providing it was within 12 months of our first entry. The week before we got to the border we triple checked the Brazilian internet site and all looked
okay. Below is an exact copy/paste from their site to emphasise our case
Duration of visa issued is generally 90 days. Extensions for a further 90 days may be requested at the Brazilian Federal Police before the visa expires and authorized at their discretion. Visitors can remain in Brazil up to a maximum of 180 days in any twelve-month (12) period counted from the day of first entry in Brazil.
The whole “maximum of 180 days in any twelve-month (12) period counted from the day of first entry in Brazil” gave us the impression that we could enter and re-enter Brazil as much as we wanted up to a maximum of 180 days over a 12 month period from the first day of our entry. We had first entered Brazil on the 4th February 2011, so no worries….wrong. The immigration officer came across as a nice enough guy who tried his best to communicate with us but I think all he could see was two gringos that were in the wrong and had no right to be in Brazil. I was (and still am) angry at being denied entry but I guess we weren’t some poor refugee from
Paraguay Border by Water
Our taxi on the car ferry Afghanistan trying to get a boat into Australia.
We were getting nowhere with the immigration officer and although he looked puzzled at the whole one year thing on the visa he was going to stick with “entry denied”. In the end he went for backup and we were directed across the road to the main office where we had to argue with three guys instead of one. They did however get the internet going so we had a proper translator to work with rather than relying on our very poor Spanglish and non-existent Portuguese. We soon discovered that one of the three guys agreed with us that our Visa was okay and was fine with us to enter Brazil but the first guy didn’t want to budge. Their solution was for us to go back to Paraguay and sort it out at the Brazilian embassy, which was fine if we had a multiple entry to Paraguay but we had a single entry and we had just been stamped out. Oh they just told us “don’t worry they never check those things”…great defence at our court case. So there we were for the second time in our travels stuck between
Puerto Iguazu
Our healthy breakfast two countries, with the last time being between Syria and Turkey, which was kind of more serious. (A longer story than I am not willing to inflict upon you today but please ask if you are keen on profanity on an epic level). Shelley (God bless her) persisted in trying to convince them that we were in the right, way beyond my patience till they finally wore her down and we resolved that we had to return to Paraguay to sort it out. As always in these positions you have to be persistent and keep your cool and try your hardest not to get too emotional (ie swearing). We were panicked a bit about going back to Paraguay where we would now be regarded as illegally entering but we had no choice and just hoped that we could get out today whilst our exit stamp was valid. We are unsure how serious our situation would be if we didn’t get out today but neither of us really wanted to find out what the Paraguayan Immigration laws were like. The guy who we think thought we were in the right escorted us back to the taxi and spoke to our driver
who then drove us through peak time traffic back across the bridge to Paraguay (where Shelley got her photos of the Paraguayan border) and then onto the Brazilian Embassy. As Shelley hopped out of the taxi she discovered her small tear in her cargoes had become huge and so she started to look like one of those poor feral backpackers with their arse hanging out of their pants. Just as well she always takes her Mums advice to wear clean underpants.
You know I really do not have a very high opinion of embassies and to this day I wonder what the hell they actually do other than being an employment agency for politician’s buddies. Anyway the guy at the Brazilian embassy at Ciudad del Este in Paraguay was more concerned at the fact that we had the wrong exit stamp for the last time we were in Brazil than our current problem. Once we convinced him that the exit stamp problem was a simple stamping problem at the airport it was like “whoooo, glad that problem is sorted, but NO you cannot enter Brazil on your Visa”. He then said we should not have got into Brazil the
Shelley's Pants
What Shelley pants looked like at the end of the day first time because we entered 90 days after the visa was issued and what had we been doing. So we explained the visa starts from date of first entry, I don’t know about legalities but why don’t they make the wording easier as now we have another view on what it means and it is complicating it further. Our Brazilian official went onto explain the only way we could enter Brazil was by applying for another Visa which would take 3 days….3 days more than we could have in Paraguay. It has been suggested to us that the Brazilian border police and the guy in the embassy were looking for a bribe but we really didn’t think so, and it all seemed completely above board.
By this stage we knew we were screwed and couldn’t enter Brazil but had to leave Paraguay as we were now technically illegal in a country we had been stamped out of. I guess millions of people worldwide are “illegal” and the situation we were in wasn’t critical but it potentially could turn into something really nasty i.e. a big fine. Our only option now was to get to Argentina where we knew we
Iguazu Falls
The hordes of tourists could enter without any hassles. When we asked him about the direct bus we had read about in the Lonely Planet that passed through Brazil and onto Argentina without stopping he just told us that the bus did not exist and that we could not hop on any bus that crossed the border into Brazil. He did tell us about how we could get a boat across to Argentina and avoid Brazil all together…sounds good to us.
Our ever faithful taxi driver then took us down to the boat ramp at the “Tres Fronteres” where we could get a car ferry across to Argentina. We got down there and negotiated a new fee for him to cover the time he had already spent with us and to take us to Argentina which was $60 but then he discovered we needed to wait 1 hour for the next ferry across….the poor bastard you could tell that he hadn’t anticipated the delay.
We sat on the ferry till 12.45 till we got underway and we sailed across to Argentina. Made it across the river to Argentina where we were stamped in without any hassle thank @$@#%@ and we noticed how
Iguazu Falls
The blue water in February 2012 much our driver was harassed. There seemed to be a level of harassment towards our driver because he was Paraguayan but he got us into Puerto Iguazu without any dramas and for that we gave him a good tip.
We got our driver to drop us at the bus terminal as there were plenty of Hotels and I had noticed on the Lonely Planet map that the Brazilian embassy was close by. We thought that maybe our problem stemmed from next to no Australians passing through from Paraguay to Brazil and that maybe heaps more would come through Argentina and so the Brazilian embassy in Argentina would know for sure if we could pass through. We said our goodbye to our taxi driver, hoisted our bags and walked the two blocks to the embassy where we discovered that it closed at 2pm…no worries we are here just in time as it is 1.24pm. Stood there at the front gate buzzing away to be let in with no result when Shelley remembered that because we are now in Argentina the time is actually 2.24pm…..the day just gets better. To compound the problem it is Friday and the embassy doesn’t open
Iguazu Falls
Muddy brown water in October 2012 on Saturday or Sunday and as an added bonus Monday is a public holiday. We really know how to time things perfectly. Last week Shelley had complained that my level of swearing has been increasing lately so I had been making a concerted effort to use less profanity…till this point when a week’s worth of corruption spat forth like an erupting volcano.
With this little disappointment we moved onto the next one…accommodation. As stated before we had timed our unplanned visit to Argentina well by getting here on a long weekend. We soon discovered the hotel we had stayed at last time, along with many others were booked out. Our choice came down to a dirty tiny grovel of a room for $50 a night or a large clean room in a massive hotel for $90 a night. After the day we had just had we opted for the more expensive but booked it for two nights only so it at least gave us time to get our bearings. The Liberator hotel is huge and completely over run by elderly Argentinians and international tour groups…I have seriously never seen so many walking sticks in my life. While we were
Iguazu Falls
People, people everywhere waiting in the foyer an old lady came over to us and started talking to us in Spanish, and wanted to know if we were German and we when we told her no she was really relieved and then went onto do an impersonation and said they all behaved like Hitler. It seemed so odd and politically incorrect coming from the lovely old dear that I just killed myself laughing which was exactly what I needed.
We dropped off our bags in the room, hit the streets and got some money before stopping at a café to get drunk and work out our options. Shelley being the good girl she is refrained from drinking but I ensured that I drank her portion as well. Whilst walking around Shelley discovered her sandals had busted completely so she could add them to the bin with her pants. We ended up getting an Asian stir fry for dinner whilst still trying to work out what other options we had and concluded that we should stay in town till Tuesday to see the Brazilian embassy, if our visa isn’t valid we will try for another. If this is too difficult or costly we
Iguazu Falls
Scott collecting butterflies will head to another country that is more inviting…Syria perhaps.
Day 361 Saturday 6th October Woke up feeling pretty crook from all the beer I had drunk last night…silly bugger. For breakfast we got our confirmation that we are back in Argentina when our selection of food consisted of an assortment of cakes and pastries with no healthy options. Sitting in the huge dining hall watching the other guests eat just gave us the feeling that we were staying in a nursing home with even the younger looking people shuffling, hobbling or using a walking stick. Shelley of course had to remind me about my ankle problems and how I just fitted in perfectly with my hobble…thanks Shelley.
Puerto Iguazu probably isn’t one of our more favourite towns in Argentina and to be stuck here for three days is almost as bad being in Bulladelah for an hour or two. The main attraction here is of course the waterfall but we had already spent three days there back in January and hadn’t made up our mind if we would return. Not a lot else to do in town other than walk the streets aimlessly which
Iguazu Falls
Waiting for the train filled in an hour or two yesterday so today we just opted to sit around the hotel pool, read and watch the geriatrics. Ended up having lunch at the hotel, which was a bad mistake and shall not repeat again. Dinner was downtown at a flash looking place on the corner of the main intersection. Food was pretty good for this town and it had the added bonus of being secure from the hordes of begging children, which is another reason we dislike this town. It is strange that the only two countries in South America that we have experienced hoards of roaming street kids begging are Argentina and Chile, which are regarded as the richest. There were lots of old women begging in Bolivia and parts of Peru but hardly any kids. As always it is a huge moralistic problem wether to give or not that I will avoid delving into here, as it is complicated, and prone to annoy some people and bore others, but I do like hearing others opinions on what they think is right.
When we got back to the hotel I wanted to watch the Bathurst car race and found I could watch
Iguazu Falls
The line up for the train it via You Tube but unfortunately there was no WiFi in our room so we had to sit out in the foyer. The funny thing was that when we booked in the guy at reception explained that we didn’t have WiFi in the rooms and that you could only expect that sort of thing from a 5 star hotel……another poor delusional fool. Anyway the connection as would be expected from this hotel was pretty crappy and we tended to see 10 seconds of race followed by a 10 second pause so it was really hard to watch. We did get to watch the poor old guests wandering around in circles lost in this vast hotel with bewildered looks on their faces, it truly is like staying in a nursing home. Around midnight at about the half way mark of the race the connection just kept getting worse so we gave up and went to bed.
Day 362 Sunday 7th October Again we had nothing planned today so we slept in before going downstairs for our lovely cake breakfast. A really annoying aspect of this hotel is that whilst having breakfast the staff come into your room,
Iguazu Falls
Scott & Shelley at Bosetti Falls make your bed and take all the towels, so if you want a shower after breakfast you are just out of luck. Later on in the day someone comes and cleans the room and replaces the towels, but that doesn’t happen till mid-afternoon.
Today was yet again just another boring day filling in time till Tuesday with us sitting around the pool reading. Because we are back in Argentina we should be readjusting our eating times to suit their 9pm to midnight dinner times but we are just hoping that we won’t be here long, so we went out for dinner at 7, and luckily in this town there were options at this early hour.
Day 363 Monday 8th October Today we had decided to head out to the waterfall again and wear the cost as opposed to just sitting around the hotel. We got up at 7 and went for our cake and pastry breakfast and discovered that they were running low on everything and before long people were starting to get angry. Thankfully before there was a sugar deprived geriatric assault on the kitchen, platters of sticky buns appeared and the crowd settled
Iguazu Falls
Shelley at Bosetti down again. When we got back to our room we once again discovered our bed made and our towels missing. Shelley chased the cleaning woman down the hall and when she asked for towels was dismissed and told they would come back later. Shelley stood her ground and after lots of stamping of her feet got fresh towels. We have noticed in a lot of hotels in South America how the staff run routines that only suit themselves and will not bend to the likes or dislikes of the guests. Yeah I know I am once again grumbling about nothing.
Walked up to the bus station at 9 and got return tickets to the Iguazu falls for 50 Pesos ($11) each, which seemed a bit dearer than last time we were here. When we got to the entrance of the national park we discovered that the entry fee had also gone up. Our Lonely Planet from 2010 stated the entry fee as 65 Pesos, last time we were here in February it cost us 100 Pesos but today it was now 130 Pesos…..I guess that’s inflation. We started our visit at 10.00 by going straight out to Garganta del
Iguazu Falls
OMG which way? Diablo “The Devils Throat” which involved a 30 minute wait for a train ride. The crowds seemed a lot worse this time around but I think it was just that we hadn’t been caught up with such a flood of people for a while and it took a bit of getting used to. The only thing more numerous than camera totting tourists like ourselves were the butterflies that were out in their millions. As we walked along they would land on your arms and body and appeared to be licking our skin….good thing we hadn’t used the rid. The water levels were a bit higher than last time and the water was more of a muddy red colour and not the blue green colour we had seen back in February. The mist generated by the 13,000m
3 of water per second that spills over these falls was a lot heavier today as well which blotted out some of the view. In the midst of this were hundreds of swallows who nest on the rock face next to the falls and would go swooping in and out of the mist….you just wonder how many swoop just a bit too close and end
Iguazu Falls
Top of the falls up getting a power bath. The spectacle of the Devil’s Throat was still as spectacular as ever and you can believe the hype, the waterfall is one of the great experiences of the world.
We had a great day walking around the trails to most of the waterfalls before heading back at 4. We weren’t sure about going back to the falls but in the end we were really glad we did and although expensive well worth the revisit.
Day 364 Tuesday 9th October We both woke up a bit nervous today as we weren’t sure if we would be heading into Brazil or moving onto Syria for the remainder of our trip. The Brazilian embassy opened at 9 so we wanted to get there shortly thereafter, but we had to book out of our room first. We got our hotel/nursing home to look after our bags whilst we tried to sort out our visa. Marched up to the Embassy where we were greeted by the most sour faced guy we have ever come across. I asked if he spoke English and he didn’t bother to answer so I tried to explain our situation and
Iguazu Falls
The maddening crowds asked if our Visa was still valid. He gave my passport a quick glance and then just handed me a piece of paper with all the information I needed to supply when applying for a Brazilian visa….I guess I could take that as “no”. He then went on to tell us in broken English that we could go into the hostel next door to fill out the online part of the application. Had been really hoping that we didn’t need to apply for another visa but I knew there was no point standing there arguing with someone that couldn’t speak English and I couldn’t understand Portuguese so we wandered outside and went next door to the hostel to start the process.
The Bambu Hostel has hit on the brilliant idea of letting you use their computer for the online part of the visa application. Of course this service isn’t free and cost us 20 Pesos ($4) each but it does save you going back down into town to an internet café which would probably charge the same. Manuel who ran the hostel was a great guy and helped us through the whole process and offered to come next door
to the embassy if we wanted a translator. We then raced downtown to get some money to pay for the visa and had to wait in line to the town’s only ATMs for 15 minutes. Started to panic a bit as the bank has 4 ATM’s and by the time we got to the front of the line 2 ran out of cash. Got our money and raced back up the hill to the embassy where thankfully we got a really lovely guy who was so much more friendlier and helpful than the first guy we hit. His English wasn’t very good but that was okay as he actually helped us through the process. When we handed over all our paperwork and our passport he had a good look at our existing visa and then started looking at our entry and exit stamp and questioning us about how long we had been in Brazil. I could be wrong and maybe snatching at straws but I got the distinct feeling he thought our current visa was okay. If his English was better I would have tried to find out if our old visa was okay but thought we would probably be
best to just continue with the new one. We have done a bit of searching on the net about problems with the Brazilian visa and have come across several similar stories where people have had their visa confirmed valid in Australia but refused entry on the border. The general consensus is that at each crossing you are left to the whim of the immigration officer and his/her understanding/lack of understanding of the visa regulations.
Our biggest hurdle was the requirement for an onward ticket, which we didn’t have, but luckily the guy was happy to photocopy our itinerary and accepted our story of a long trip. What shocked us was how the guy actually went out the back and photocopied stuff as opposed to sending us off to do that stuff ourselves, so my opinion of Embassy staff improved immensely. After being there for about thirty minutes we were given a tentative thumbs up and told to return tomorrow between 11 and 12. Had sort of hoped to get it sorted today but I guess one day was better than 3. Because we had checked out of our hotel we had no bed for the night we went back
Iguazu Falls
The tiny black speck is a swallow bird to the Bambu hostel next door where we got a room for 250 pesos ($52). It was a large well kept room and although it was expensive compared to other countries was fairly cheap for Puerto Iguazu. It was 11 by this time and we couldn’t check in till 1pm so we returned to our old hotel and sat in their foyer emailing and reading. At 1 we grabbed our bags and hauled our load up the hill to our new home for the night.
In the afternoon the weather started changing so that by the time we went out for dinner it looked like a storm was on the way.
All going well tomorrow we will be on our way to Brazil and tonight was perhaps our last night in Argentina, but you never know what’s around the corner, I mean we weren’t supposed to be here now.
Day 365 Wednesday 10th October It poured rain all night and was still raining this morning, we got up and had our breakfast which did not include any cakes only bread and jam it was a shock to our systems. We hung around till 10.50am
Iguazu Falls
Top of Gaganta del Diablo paid the bill and walked next door to the Brazilian Embassy. It was Mr. Grumpy on the desk and when we approached he shook his head and pointed to the clock which said two minutes to 11.00am. Oh well we had our books so just sat quietly reading while another man with a family who were waiting started getting annoyed and we think saying he was in a hurry to which he got a finger pointing to a chair. We remained quiet and kept reading the other man and his family were called to the counter and there was a problem with their paperwork which seemed to make Grumpy happier, he walked away from them and next he called us over and with a big smile he passed us our passports and gave us the thumbs up. We nearly fell over backwards but it was obvious he had a new target as he turned and gave the family a filthy look. We thanked him and said Ciao and ran out the door before he changed his mind. We grabbed our bags and walked across the road to the bus station. Yeah we are finally on our way, the buses are
Iguazu Falls
Some of the 275 falls in the park regular and cheap only $AUD1.60 each so we only had to wait about 15 minutes to get underway. Had a quick stop at the Argentina border to be stamped out, here the bus waits for you and takes you to the Brazilian border where it drops you off and the driver gives you a piece of paper so you can get the next bus. At the Brazilian border there were no problems this time and we were in and out pretty quick then we waited about 30 minutes for the next bus.
By 1.00pm we were at Foz Do Iguacu and at our hotel thank goodness we finally made it. Got shown to our room by the young “bellhop”, dropped our bags off and headed straight out for lunch at the same little restaurant we went to last time we were here. For $AUD3.00 I got grilled chicken, beans, rice, an egg and a bit of salad it is great and tasty and so cheap with friendly staff. Slowly walked back to the hotel and to our room, at this hotel you can keep the key when you go out so we walked straight to our door and it
Iguazu Falls
Top of the Bosetti Falls would not open. Then I realised the key was for room 417 and we were in 414 how do we explain this to the front desk with absolutely no Portuguese, we were lucky the man could speak English but was still slightly confused till he got upstairs and saw the problem. We had been shown to the wrong room lucky we had not unpacked so grabbed everything and moved, we hope that is our last Brazilian drama.
We checked with a tour office about trips to Itaipu Dam but the prices where on the high side so we have decided to give it a miss as it was not a high priority and we would prefer to put the money towards a tour in the Pantanal. About 7.30pm we went out for a walk and grabbed a small bite. It feels so good that after 5 days we have finally made it into Brazil.
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traudy
non-member comment
@#^*(^&^%#!@&*)^%$#@!!!!!!
Oh no! How awful for you both and quite frightening. You ever can be certain in such situations when in foriegn countries, who to believe, let alone trust. Thankgod you both got it sorted out, eventually and had a good cabbie.I completely understand your frustration ( had some of it with Emirates floor staff) and yeah, sounds like everything seemed to sewer from there. Hate that! The falls look just as amazing as they did before, love the butterfly effect and the stranded (probabaly not) turtie. Wardrobe malfunction big time Shelly...as for giving money to the kids/beggars, we do sometimes and other times we give sweets or pens. I enjoy to give. be safe xx