Paraguay Border crossing

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A lot of people we met before and after our trip to Paraguay asked the same question "Why Paraguay?" After going there we were thinking the same. Once again it was the same reason why we went to Uruguay because it was so close and we are travelling South America and you can’t expect everywhere to be amazing! For me football reasons were also on the agenda as we tend to get drawn against them in the World Cup so for next time it will be nice to say, I’ve been there!

We started the day fairly early as we were trying to get to Encarnacion about 8 hours away and few different buses to get there! We got a local bus from Misiones for the 30 min trip across the border to Ciudad Del Este. It was easy enough apart from the bus driver not stopping at the border for us to get our passports stamped and we had to walk back a km to get that sorted! We then asked 3 different people the best way to the bus station and got 3 different answers one of them telling us it was best to get a taxi and it would cost 10 pound, they were having a laugh! We had no map for the town so thought we would just head in the general direction most of the buses were going, but then as with usual border town things started to look a bit dodgy so we jumped into a taxi for 1.50 and we were still ripped off as typically it was only 5 minutes away!

We finally arrived in Encarnacion and got a cheap room for 3 pound a night. The reason why we came here was for the ruins of a 300 year old Jesuit settlement near the close by town of Trinidad. The ruins were nothing special and we were starting to get the same feeling as Uruguay! We then headed back for a bus to the capital Asuncion. We stayed in a nice Colonial house but the room was a bit pricey for what we got at 9 pound a night but I suppose it is a capital city. The next day was sight seeing and shopping at a local market, a good thing about Paraguay is the place is cheap for souvenirs and food, which tasted really good. There were some nice buildings but once again nothing special.

A few of the things in the guide book which I thought were interesting was that it has a of population of Canadian Mennonites which came to Paraguay in 1927 when they were on route to Argentina by boat but the then president of Paraguay just happened to be on the same boat and offered them some land in the North. I liked this story as I bet they couldn’t believe how lucky they were. Since they arrived they have established a number of large communities and some of the products they make, especially dairy are very popular and sort after.

The other story is not so happy. Paraguay have shared a project with Brazil to help produce power for both of the countries and in 1984 they built one of the biggest dams in the world that produces 90% of electricity for Paraguay and 25% for Brazil. In all the project has worked very well for both countries and I suppose it is a green way of getting energy. The downside of this project is that to build this dam they had to destroy lots of forest, move thousands of people and submerge Sete Quedas falls, the Paraguayan equivalent of Iguazu falls, many of the people that have seen these falls before the tragedy said they were even more impressive. It’s scary to think they could destroy something so beautiful but I suppose you have to weigh up what’s more important, the energy it creates or the natural wonder? See pictures of Iguazu on the other blogs to get an idea of what the falls look like.

Paraguay does have a lot more to offer but the things to do are difficult to get to and due to lack of tourists also expensive to do so we decided to leave and head to Brazil. We didn’t know much about Paraguay and still don’t know that much more. Maybe if we had more time we could have explored a bit more.

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