Paraguay by www.born2travel.it

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20.01.2009 Hernandarias (PARAGUAY)

[Nick]: Quick breakfast and off at a run to catch the bus that will take us to Paraguay.

William is with us. This is the only border I know where you enter with no checks at all. The Paraguayan border town is called Ciudad del Este but we've barely arrived when we jump straight onto the first bus that comes along... destination: Who knows! We'll find out along the way. A little after the Itaipu dam, half an hour of walking later and after changing buses along the way, we stop at Hernandarias, a town famous for... we'll find out along the way!?!

[Nick]: With no goals or plans we decide to get off in a street that seems fairly lively (three dogs and a cat); an old woman comes up and tells us to be careful with the video camera and the camera... Welcome! A quick bite at "Tio Caye" and, just to give this day some meaning, we set off in search of the "oficina de correo". The beauty of it is that in a town of 100 inhabitants, 99 had no idea where this strange place (post office) was... Some send us one way, some the opposite way... We wander about like spinning tops for a while until we find the one person who knew it. A race against time because it was about to close — and we find it closed! At least we saw a bit of nothing, which is what we adore. We take the bus back to Ciudad del Este and go back on the attack, searching for our post office... After much wandering we finally manage it...

At this point we can enjoy the tax-free shopping that this free port offers!

It's the Parana river that separates Paraguay from Brazil. There's a long bridge connecting these two countries, and precisely the lack of customs checks gave me the idea of crossing the whole bridge on foot... "I went to Brazil on foot!!!!"

Final evening in Foz do Iguacu. Tonight we have the flight back to Sao Paulo. We have dinner, as usual, at "Moraschin", ice cream at the usual place from the lovely Cris... It's incredible how we've created our own habitat even in a place so far away...

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