Chinatown on the Parana

There’s more to Paraguay than Ciudad Del Este.I know there is. It could be argued, that Ciudad Del Este isn’t even Paraguay. Technically you don’t need to get stamped to go in, but I did, just in case anything happened. For those without profound geographical knowledge of Paraguay, Ciudad Del Este is a town on the Paraguayan side of the border with Foz De Iguazu and Puerto Iguazu, the tripoint of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, where the Parana River meets the Iguazu river, that eventually flows into the Atlantic at the Rio de La Plata and Buenos Aires.

I took the bus over from Puerto Iguazu for the equivalent of 20cent, which involved crossing two land borders in 5 minutes. No bother at all crossing into Brazil from Argentina, as the bus was going direct to Paraguay we didn’t even get stamped. Iguazu river crossed. The bus continued to the bridge over the Parana. Ciudad Del Este was shimmering like a mirage across the bridge, with it being 35 degrees and 90% humidity. Not the ideal place to queue outside getting stamped into Paraguay, but sure look - if electronics are so cheap here all the buildings must have aircon, right? Right? The town looked so out of place in the jungle, large grey concrete blocks covered in advertisements, the giant billboards in Spanish and Portuguese, like a jungle given greyscale. Complete contrast to Foz De Iguazu across the river in Brazil, which was all two story detached buildings, with loads of greenery, and quite nice. Puerto Iguazu in Argentina is a little more built up but certainly not this. It looked very much like a capitalist hellhole.

While Foz de Iguazu and Puerto Iguazu both have access to the Iguazu falls, which makes them once in a lifetime must visit towns, Ciudad Del Este has cheap electronics from China. Border towns are weird twilight zones as it is, and Ciudad Del Este takes it to the next level. Having never been to the far east, it’s exactly how I imagine big shopping malls in China to be like. Grey, dirty apartment blocks turned to shops. Knock off clothes stacked high along the walls of the corridors, vendors shouting out their wares, piles of shoes on the ground, South America’s biggest bazaar. And it was busy in December, for crowds doing their preChristmas shopping.

I got in, followed the crowd, and bought a mouse, keyboard, electric razor, and it worked out the same price as I’d pay at home, if you include the conversion charges to Paraguayan guaraní’s. Thats despite the fact that Paraguay has much lower tax on electronics than Brazil or Argentina, hence why Ciudad Del Este is such a hub. Maybe you need to know someone? I’m sure if I was buying in bulk and going deep into the bazaar caverns I could find something, but the vast vast majority of stuff here was just tack. The Paraguayans working there were nice though, you could have a bit of a craic with them, more like Brazilians in attitude than Argentinians. Like most border towns, there’s definitely a seedy edge to it. There has to be if you’re planning on bringing goods to the other countries and want to avoid paying massive customs charges. I’d never been to a border town like it before - the ones in Europe don’t count, the ones in South East Asia are hectic and a bit mad but not like this. This was something of it’s own entirely.

Paraguayan town legally, China town in reality.