A small dose of Paraguay

Paraguay was very much an unknown for us as it's off the beaten backpacker trail, therefore not as much information is readily available - either online or second-hand from others who've been there.  But that didn't stop us wanting to check it out.  And luckily it only took 2.5 hours (but $65 each) to secure our visas in Foz do Iguacu.

Crossing over the infamous Friendship Bridge from Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, into Paraguay (a well-known smuggling route) we were hit by the crazy wild-west town that is Ciudad del Este.  All we could gather from information online and the couple of people we met who'd been there, was that it's a good place to buy cheap electronics and you don't want to be out at night because it's dodgy as hell.  This fact was reinforced by the ridiculous number of security guards outside shops with big fuck-off shotguns.  And it wasn't just currency exchanges or banks, but even outside tyre shops.  Maybe they have something extra out the back... And we saw an armored cash van about every 15mins so there was obviously a lot of money going around in that little city.

As soon as we arrived we found a place to stay near the bus station and away from the centre of town, then headed out to Itaipu Dam which used to be the biggest dam in the world and is one of the Industrial Wonders of the World.  As dams go, its pretty impressive, especially the facts and figures.  The dam borders Paraguay and Brazil and has 20 turbines - 10 are owned by each country.  However, Paraguay only uses 2 of its 10 turbines and sells the remaining 8 to Brazil, while still getting 83% of the country's power from those 2 turbines.  On top of that, each of the 8 turbines they sell to Brazil earn up to US$500,000 per day - not a bad little earner.  And the remainder of Paraguay's power also comes from other dams, so they are 100% hydro-electric.  

After our brief tour we headed back into town and checked out a couple of electronics stores.  One guy took us to his mates store, but there was another guy following us the whole way with a taser I'm assuming he wanted to sell, and the crackling buzz every time he pushed the button was more than a little disturbing.  Needless to say, we got away from him quick smart before we had to buy one just to avoid getting tasered.  Most stores were closing so we ended up going back the next morning before our bus left and bought two powerful little portable speakers for our mp3 player for $21.  Pretty damn cheap.

Our next stop was Asuncion, the capital city, and it was on this trip that we noticed the significant change in bus quality - broken seats, no air-con and no toilet.  But it was also a lot cheaper.  We only stayed 2 nights in Asuncion, but met two cool English guys, Harry and Tom, and an American guy, Rob, at the hostel so we inevitably ended up out for a big night on the piss with them straight off.  After about an hour of 'sightseeing' (taking photos of buildings) the next arvo we had a BBQ at the hostel with the guys and checked out the local political rally going on in the street, complete with fireworks.  

We checked out the following morning to go to the bus station as we'd planned on going to a lake a few hours away then on to Concepcion.  We'd then planned on crossing into Bolivia from there.  However, after buying our tickets to the lake and asking a few questions, we discovered it wasn't possible to get a bus from Concepcion to Bolivia - we'd have to backtrack hours and hours to Asuncion and go from there.  So, after some consideration we decided to cancel our tickets to the lake and go straight to Bolivia that night.  It's great having the luxury to change plans spontaneously, but a shame we didn't get to see more of Paraguay.  We had the whole day to kill so we headed back to the hostel to chill out.  We also visited our first museum of the trip - the Police Museum - and it was unlike any other museum.  There were only 3 rooms - one with ancient computers, fax machines and telephone switchboards; one with photos of dead officers and various uniforms; and the final room contained a more eclectic variety of artefacts - taxidermied police dogs, guns and other weapons, drugs and their effects, photos of dead bodies at crime scenes, a dummy display of someone who'd shot themself...but the most disturbing item was an aborted baby foetus in a jar.  No shit.  And we got to see all of this for free.  

Apologies for the disturbing nature of this photo

So despite spending a LOT less time in Paraguay than we'd anticipated, it was a good few days and we met some good people along the way.