Paraguay

In the voice of Richard Ayoarde, "We're here, but should we have come?" ...spoiler alert, no, no we shouldn't. 

There's a reason you never hear of anyone visiting Paraguay...

Crossing the border was a bit difficult as always. Nobody ever knows about the temporary import permit we need. After some persistence, we found a bloke and he took us to the right place to close our permit. The border was made more difficult as it was a Saturday morning and the border city in Paraguay, Ciudad del Este, is a free trade zone, so it was like Black Friday madness with everyone from Brazil heading over on foot or in their cars to buy some crap. 

Over the bridge, we opened a new permit in Paraguay and the official had a laugh looking through the stamps in our passport and asking about every country we've been to. We were pointed down another road just after the border where we entered an old warehouse full of confiscated fruit and had the van searched. Driving through Ciudad del Este wasn't enjoyable. It reminded us of a busy market street in India or Africa, but with men constantly trying to offer you parking and huge billboards promoting technology products (in USD bizarrely and they weren't even that cheap!). 

We drove out of town, found a sim card, and set off across the country to Asuncion. We had entered on the farthest easterly point of the country and we drove the entire width to the farthest westerly point. There are only really 2 cities, and the interior of the country is either farmland or jungle. 

There seemed to be a lot of people driving the wrong way down the highway, cows on the road, and loads of people riding motorbikes without helmets, all of which was a bit unnerving. 

We arrived at our very nice Airbnb in a posh part of town, Villa Morra, the perfect place to relax after the chaos. It was mainly residential streets and shiny shopping centres, where we indulged in some shopping and played in the arcades. We had booked this place for 4 nights and it had everything we needed and a bit of luxury: a big bed, washing machine, Netflix, a balcony, water filter tap, instant hot water tap, coffee machine, gym, and a rooftop pool! 

We had a well-deserved lie-in after a string of early starts and long days. We headed into the Central District of the city and ticked off all the touristy sites in half a day. It was quite rundown and dirty. Since we love street art, we went to find these colourful stairs down an alleyway, but they were very underwhelming. We had a really good lunch at a place called Bolsi then we headed back to the apartment to video call some friends and family, before collapsing in front of Netflix for the rest of the evening. 

We really leaned into the 'treat yourself' vibe the next day, did some shopping, worked out, chilled at the pool, and got a massage. In the evening, we met up with one of Justin's Uni friends, James, and his girlfriend Louise, who just happened to be in Asuncion at the same time as us. He had got in touch a few months ago to ask for some tips as he and his girlfriend were planning a similar trip to us, and now here they were! It was nice catching up and hearing about their stories so far. Louise had unfortunately been attacked by the coatis at Iguazu a few days prior and was covered in scratches! 

The next day, having exhausted all there was to do in Paraguay, we headed for the border and entered Argentina for the 3rd time this trip!