Que guay, el Paraguay

So, as I was saying, we arrived in Foz de Iguacu, the town just next to the Iguacu falls. The falls are split between three countries, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. They are really trully impressive, in fact they are one of the seven new wonders of the world. Having said that, the whole experience of visiting the falls, is overwhelmingly touristy, and, at risk of sounding like a pretentious prick, that kinda made them less stunning. Still they were well worth visiting, and here are some pictures to prove it,

 A pretty spaniard I picked up at the falls.

 Weirdly intelligent little creatures, that gave u the cute face in exchange for food.

 Later on we were told they had rabies.

 A couple of tourists posing.

 Little boy mesmerised by butterfly.

 So many pretty butterflies

THE FALLS

The next day after seeing the falls, and after an eventful night during which our tent flooded due to rain, we set off for Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, just a 20 minute bus ride away, over the bridge that separates Brazil and Paraguay. 

Ciudad del Este is... well... an interesting place, to put it mildly. We had left the peaceful, suburban town of Foz, and entered hell. Traffic jam upon traffic jam, cabs being robbed while in the traffic jam, the most fierce rainstorm I've witnessed since being in South America, and me and Javi, two little gringos with our backpacks, soaked to the bone, trying to bargain for a decent taxi fare to the nearest hotel (hostels do not exist in Ciudad del Este.) Anyway, after the rain died down, we went for a walk around the city, and discovered that once you left the busy market area at the border, it's not really all that bad. Apart from a vast amount of people (we assumed they were security guards) with shotguns. Anywho, we had a nice big dinner, decided that we'd seen all we wanted to see from Ciudad del Este, and the next day we set off for Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay.

Asuncion seems quite an uninteresting place when you first arrive there, the main squares aren't really squares,  (more like roads that form a square, in the middle of which there is a little bit of grass...) at least not like the ones I was used to from Europe. However we spent a few days there, and had the good fortune of meeting some really lovely people from Asuncion, as well as two Catalans and a Philipino-American-practicallyParaguayan, who showed us all the nice places around town, and also took us to Aregua, a little village outside Asuncion populated mostly by local and foreign artists. We were sad to leave the lovely little group of people we met, but it was time to move on down south,  and so here we are, in Encarnacion, a city of approx 100 thousand, close to the border with Argentina. Here, we have yet again been enjoying the slow Paraguayan rythm of life, while also visiting the Jesuit Ruins (ruins built by missionaries back in the day cerca 1700AD.) Encarnacion is a quiet little town, and we've already seen most of it, and trust me that only takes about an hour, and seeing as how we are lacking a group of lovely Paraguayans to show us all the ins and outs, we have decided to move on. Tomorrow we head to Argentina. I leave you with some photos of Asuncion and Aregua. And some ruins.

 Cathedral of Asuncion.

 Me being a dick at the old Parlament of Asuncion.

 Some lovely peeps.

 This cracked me up. It's Javi and Fran! Mainly, it's Javi cause it makes him feel good, and Fran because look, she's touching her eyebrows! point made...

 Mark and Elmer at Elmer's house in Aregua.

 Sapus Maximus.

 Aregua

 It's raining in Aregua but we have hammocks.

 Elmer's

 Typical Paraguayan bus.

 some cows

 Toads on LSD. There's entire roads full of little sculptures of random things in Aregua, toads on LSD seems to be a favourite.

Jesuit ruins in Encarnacion.

Comments are welcome peeps, will write again soon x