Today was a lazy day – downtime. Rebuilt Guille’s bike refitted components on to Leila’s and packed Leila and Larry packed their bikes and bags.
A New Years celebratory cake and just a low key down day with food friends and conversation.
Day 4: we saw Larry off to the airport, and the three remaining needed a reason for adventure – so we needed a special USB cable to charge a battery – which was forgotten at home.
We headed to Brazil – Foz do Iguaçu. One of three cities on the triple boarder. We got dropped off near the friendship bridge between Brazil and Paraguay and walked across. Three cities, three countries in three hours.
In this area, the commerce between the three countries is fluid so the boarders are open. While there are immigration and aduana stations, the locals just walk across the borders without stopping. Due to me not having a visa for Paraguay – we pretended we were locals and just walked agrias. No one ever asked or cared.
Ciudad del Este in Paraguay was a shopping craze bazaar. Anything you want, in any of the the four currencies accepted – all priced in US$. While the sell merchandise, their real business is money exchange. The conversion rates were inflated by 50% so if you didn’t pay in hard US$ cash, the price was 50% more. If you used a card to purchase, add another 7.5% to the total. I still got my cable for less then what it costs on Amazon.
One thing I wanted was an entry stamp in my passport for Brazil – so I had to go through immigration in Brazil coming from and going to Argentina. My passport didn’t scan on their system so there was a slight delay. By not a single word was spoken to me by the Brazilian agent on either entry or exit. Seems like they were bored with their jobs.
Was a nice relaxing beer and dinner with Guillermo and Leila for a few hours back in Puerto Iguazu and made it back to the cabin.
Day 5: a down day. Today we are packing to leave tomorrow. Packing and redistributing gear. I get two additional panniers on the rear with things I didn’t need to bring with me as they had them here but will be using on the trip.
Tomorrow morning we will head out early and Leila will head to the airport.
It’s been a good few low key days with friends before the 1400km trip to Buenos Aires.
Pizote Adventures 