Paraguain adventure

The guidebook says that Paraguay is a great place to shop. It also says that we need a visa to enter. But the man in the information centre said that we don´t need one and that we should only go to customs on the Argentinian side. So that´s what we did. I´m still not sure if we were illegal immigrants again for a couple of hours.

Ciudad del Este - the city in Paraguay right by the border - is basically madness. Crossing symonds street all those years at University was good training - except in Paraguay there are also motorbikes everywhere weaving there way in and out of the traffic and playing chicken with oncoming traffic.

I think we only went about 500 metres into Paraguay, but that was enough. There are people everywhere trying to sell you stuff on the street. Apparently, I looked like I was in desparate need of socks as everyone tried to sell them to me. There are arcades full of shops with electronic goods. Debbie bought some cheap GHDs (hair straighteners) but we´re not sure if they´re the real thing or not.

We ended up in a fancy mall having a fancy lunch and then coming home. As we didn´t have clue where the bus stop was, we just stood on the edge of the main street and luckily a bus with ´Argentina´on it came along straight away.

I read a book once set in South America where it said that sitting in the middle of hte bus was safest. The main character made the mistake of sitting in the front and his girlfriend died. As popular fiction is the best source of tourist infomration (ha ha), I´ve been following this advice as much as possible. However, the bus was jam packed and I found myself resting my arms on the dashboard trying not to lean against the door and thinking about this book. But it meant that I had a great view of the road and I probably had a better ride than if I´d been crammed in the middle somewhere. And they bus ride was only about 45 minutes.