Paraguay, on the whole, is a funny place (or at least the little we saw of it). Blonde hair and blues eyes mixed in with people of local guarani origin. Strangely there's also quite a high Asian population, even a Japanese restaurant. The sushi was pretty good. The Yaki soba, however, tasted like instant noodles. Worth a try.
Paraguay feels a little neglected and the city of Encarnacion, where we've stayed the past couple of nights, feels more like a small town. There's not a lot to do here a part from visit the missions on the outskirts. The Jesuit ruins were completely deserted - especially the one at Jesus, where we were the only people there. It's great to come to a place where there are no other tourists!
Having seen the ruins we decided to head north through Paraguay rather than back to Argentina and onto Iguazu Falls and take the local bus. The 5-hour trip cost us a quarter what it would in Argentina (about £5). However, the checkpoint and bridge between Paraguay and Brazil was a bit of a nightmare. We started out getting a bus, but abandoned that about a mile from the checkpoint as the traffic was so bad and caught a taxi instead across the bridge into Brazil.
We had a brief 20-minute Brazilian introduction as we were driven through Foz do Iguacu at high speed and onto the border with Argentina and Puerto Iguazu - stamped in and out again within 30 minutes - 3 countries in 30 minutes.
Puerto Iguazu, as you might expect is quite touristy, but appears much nicer than Foz. Looking forward to the falls tomorrow.
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