Paragray

The bus got into Iguazu late in the afternoon and being on the bus for that long basically even though I was sleeping very well it was tiring. In addition to that the weather when I got to Iguazu was pouring with rain. So I decided to go to sleep for the remainder of the day and enjoy the air-conditioning which was making a puddle on the floor next to my bed. I had a walk around the town in between the sleeping and dreaming which didn't end up being much really.. The town itself was like 2 streets that was about it. The city or town on the Argentine side called Puerto Iguazu isn't that big or that populated. But it had it's special charm I think being that small it had a small town feel even though it was actually on the border of the biggest country in South America.

Then next day upon hearing about the great shopping opportunity in Paraguay I went there to have a look for myself.. It was in my mind similar to that of China.. All the street vendors you can imagine selling all the electrical gadgets you can imagine heaps of cameras and cellphones.. But I was struggling to want to buy anything there, for the fear that it would break on me within 5 minutes of buying it.

Alas... There was a small shop with a nice well strange old lady selling steak spaghetti for a reasonable price which i decided to have lunch at. It was quite amazing lunch I have to admit for the price that it was somewhere in the realm of NZ$3 there was a huge plate of spaghetti and a hefty serving of steak with it.

Oh I almost forgot about the issues at the Paraguayan border. My god it was amazing how horrible that was. I went on the bus from Argentina to Paraguay right, which went through brazil without stopping at immigration which I found was quite strange but anyway... I got to Paraguay and thought i'd be a respectable individual and go to the border control to sort out the stamp and visa issue.. I had heard from everyone else that there would be no charge for the visa if you were staying for less than 1 day in the territory but the guy at immigration told me I had to pay him US$30 for a stamp to enter..

After a couple of the guys who were on the bus with me at the time, who could speak spanish talked to the guy and asked to speak to the supervisor and I refused to pay the amount. The supervisor told him to stamp my passport anyway with the visa and told me that I would not be allowed to go 100 km into the country but would be able to stay in the shopping area for 1 day.. This made me very weary of the Paraguayan immigration and their way of making money for themselves by tricking tourists into paying for a visa when they don't necessary need one.

Just another thing to keep in mind at border crossing around the world no matter where you are.