A day in Paraguay

I don't like to travel in a hurry. I like to enjoy the place I'm visiting, feel the atmosphere, do some sightseeing, eat the local food, have a chat with the locals... But this time I coudn't do it. It was a short trip to a place with lots to see, so I knew I'd not sleep much and would have to watch the clock in order to see as much as possible.

When I told my friends I was heading to Ciudad del Este to take a quick look, they all tried to convince me not to go. "It's dodgy, dirty, crowded, you'll get mugged" were some of the comments. But I'm very curious and like to see it all. And since we were so close to the border, we decided to cross it just for a quick visit.

And what was supposed to be an hour visit to Paraguay, turned out to be a whole day!

What a crazy place! The traffic is crazy: taxis, mototaxis, cars, horses, no traffic lights, traffic control made by some police man... You can find anything there. Loads of small stores and street vendors selling all kinds of eletronics, clothes, underwear, vodka, tequilla, whisky, toys, perfums, cosmetics, car stuff, cd's, dvd's, literally everything! Genuine or not! There are plenty of falsifications - including eletronics - but there are trusted places as well. And the prices are quite good.

Ciudad del Este is the second largest city of Paraguay and the third largest free-tax commerce zone in the world, after Miami and Hong Kong.

The amount of people carrying loads of huge bags filled with all kind of stuff to resell in Brazil is unbeliavable. It was one week before Christmas, so we picked up the busiest time of the year!

Some parts of the city are quite dodgy, it's really crowded and noisy. It's not a place for sightseeing! But it's a place to have some fun watching all the mess going on and buy stuff for a fairy price, specially eletronics.

If you're going there just to get a stamp on your passport, forget it. There is no border control at all! We entered it by a bus and headed back to Brazil walking through a bridge called "Ponte da Amizade" (Friendship bridge), that links both countries. And at no moment we were asked to show our passports.

At the end of our little adventure in Paraguay, we were both happy, sweaty and remembering all the crazy things we saw. And I was even happier with my new digital camera - original, of course - and looking forward to taking my first shots!

Again, the few pictures here are a courtesy of my travel buddy - thank you.

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