Today was always going to be a bit of a nothing day as we were shipping out in the evening, so after wandering into town to get my first dvd burned I found an acai for breakfast and wandered back to the hotel; 7 of us had elected to go to Paraguay for a couple of hours - an illicit border raid, if you will as we didn't get the passport stamps. Customs was just a chap sitting under a tree.. The contrast to brazil was striking - yes it was still scorching hot, but unlike the reserved streets of Foz [View Full Entry]

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Steve's words: Another great border crossing into Paraguay, the locals just catch the boat, non locals catch a series of local buses to a bridge with big rusty holes in it, then wade through some mud, dodge our way past hundreds of people exchanging money, passport stamped then onto a tiny bus with far too many people on, and we're in. Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, the words of the lonely planet ringing in our ears "you could get mugged anytime" or something like that. We entered a quiet city of mostly low rise colonial design, with a few grand plazas, [View Full Entry]

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Itaipu Dam - Second largest in the world [View Full Entry]

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Nous avons fait une visite rapide aux frontieres de trois pays: Paraguay, Argentine et Bresil en allant admirer les deuxiemes plus grandes chutes d'eau du monde apres celle de Victoria en Afrique: Les Foz d'Iguazu. Les photos parlent d'elles meme...Lorsqu'on arrive sur le site, on est un peu decu...enfin, je fut un peu decu car je m'attendais a quelque chose de plus grandiose, mais en fait, c'est simplement du au fait que l'on est super loin. Au fur et a mesure que l'on s'approche, on est mouille et emerveille car c'est vraiment baleze. On est cependant pas reste des heures car [View Full Entry]

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Cuidad del Este - 12th to the 15th of June 2009 Cuidad del Este is a strange place, coming to terms with a strange past - it was previously named after a Paraguayan dictator and has a history of black market activities. It's full of electronic shops and Asian food, casinos and market stalls. It also borders Brazil and Argentina. It was dark when the bus arrived in Cuidad del Este so we got ourselves a taxi to a place recommended by the Lonely Planet. It was full however, as were the next five places the taxi driver took us too. [View Full Entry]

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The supposed Express bus to Ciudad from Asuncion was anything but, it stopped almost every 5 minutes to pick some passengers, that is when we were able to get out of the city proper which took about an hour. The 5 hour trip took 7 hours and we were relieved to arrive finally in Ciudad del Este. We got dropped off at the front of the bus terminal not inside, this we could not understand either, all the small towns we stopped we went to the terminal proper while the main destination is in the outskirt, it was dark and drizzly, [View Full Entry]

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Well Paraguay was pretty nuts. We got off just before the Brazilian border, then walked along the bridge into Ciudad del Este. Full of markets and stalls and shopping centres selling cheap electrical goods. We got a few little bits and pieces, then busted everyone´s chops trying to obtain nice crisp banknotes as we been collecting them from each country we been to so far. Getting back into Brazil was quite interesting as we were only granted 40 days on our new entry stamp. After some negotiating with the border police, they were able to change it to 60 days. Ideally [View Full Entry]

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A very blessed and merry Christmas to all of you from Villeta, Paraguay. After what has seemed like weeks of almost triple digit temperatures, I am enjoying a coolish day of 77 oF as I write this post (it is supposed to get up to about 90 oF later, but that’s really nothing). It is rather different for me as I have spent 21 of my first 22 Christmases in cold weather climates with snow, the exception being the Christmas I spent in South Africa. I never thought I would say this and all of you dealing with northern hemisphere winter [View Full Entry]

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am nachmittag gingen wir dann nach paraguay (cuidad del este) wo man billig elektronikzeugs kaufen koennte, wenn man nicht in der siesta dort waere. zudem sassen wir den ganzen nachmittag in einem restaurant fest weil es gestuermt hat als ginge die welt unter. Aber bei einem bierchen liess es sich aushalten . [View Full Entry]

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The next morning we say goodbye to Evelina and Foz and take a taxi to the Paraguay border (R$40). The driver sees us through border control and helps us exchange our money from Realis to Paraguayan Guaranis. Suddenly we are confronted with 100,000 notes and calculations become very confused. Ciudad del Este is a haven for cheap electrical goods but we have no time to stop as we must get a coach to the capital Asuncion. Despite a barrage of ticket sellers when we arrive at the station we head to the recommended company (RYSA) and buy our tickets for the [View Full Entry]

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