I got on the bus to Asuncion not knowing exactly what to expect since most of the information about crossing into Paraguay was about airport entries or entering from Iguazu (although that wasn’t much help either since the information was all over the place). I figured if worse came to worse, I could just turn around and stay in Argentina a little longer.
The good news is that I successfully made it into Paraguay and it was mostly uncomplicated. At the border, you get an exit stamp from Argentina then proceed to the Paraguayan officials and get an entry stamp. The only complicated part is that some nationalities, including Canadians, need to purchase a Visa (un visado) before entering and you can only do this in cash and there is no ATM at the border, and the officials speak less English than I speak Spanish. In part because the border officials were very friendly, I managed to get my stamp and proceed on. The full process is as follows:
– The bus official asks everyone their nationality and gives some of them forms to fill out. I got none.
– The bus waits for its turn at the border
– Everyone gets off the bus and proceeds to the Argentinian window to get an exit stamp
– After the exit stamp, you proceed to the Paraguayan immigration window and get an entrance stamp. The officials keep your passport or id.
– After everyone from the bus has gone through the process, the bus official receives all of the passports and ids and distributes them to people on the bus.
– The bus continues on
As we arrived in Asuncion, I was impressed to see many new malls, buildings, etc. which made it seem almost civilized until I took a taxi to my hotel and noticed it was similar to other large cities I’ve been to where the downtown is half decrepit and half beautiful buildings and parks. This was the first place I saw the police around with more than just sidearms, but I’d rather see police with big guns than none at all.
The hotel is quite nice, but the room smells like a chemical. I think I’ve smelled the same thing before, probably sprayed for bedbugs. I was trying to decide whether I’d rather have the bedbugs or the chemical smell. Probably the chemical. It didn’t stop the spider that got squished under my shoe though. Hopefully I don’t encounter too much fauna.
Now, back to the bus for a minute… the nice thing about the buses in South America is that they all have better classes of seats called camas (Spanish word for beds). They are bigger, recline more and have food service. They aren’t much more that the regular seats and cheap by Canadian bus standards. My 6 hour ride today cost about $20 and that included the ubiquitous medialuna (croissant that is found literally everywhere at breakfast time in Argentina including street corners) and two cookies.
The internet didn’t work when I first got to this hotel, so I was disappointed, but it is working now, so I’m going to look for something to do in Paraguay tomorrow.