A fleeting peek at Paraguay

Ecstatically
Paraguay
Indifferent
Cuidad del Este

Did a quick day trip to Paraguay - mainly to get another passport stamp. Pete reckons there isn't a lot of interesting places to see, so doesn't spend any time there with the truck. A group of us were curious though and so got a minibus to Cuidad del Este, Paraguay's second largest city, predominantly famous for its duty free shopping.

The city was heaving with little stalls where locals were peddling their wares. Most sold the exact same stuff, and kept their prices the same as the neighbouring stalls, with only a little haggling accepted. Sunglasses, towels and sneakers were the recurring products, there were also the odd few taizers for sale. A couple of the guys even got approached with the offer of Viagra - egos were dented after that sales approach I reckon.

Many of the group did substantial purchases in the town. New cameras were bought (from reputable stores, not the stalls!) and all the smokers ecstatically stocked up on really cheap duty free cigarettes.

Ciudad del Este was also teaming with hundreds of yellow motorbikes zipping all around the streets, some even had dedicated pathways. I soon discovered that these were motor-taxis, used for transporting single passengers around the city. You needed to keep your wits about you so as not to get run over by these. I counted seven bikes riding abreast at one stage, each weaving out their own path among the larger vehicle traffic.

Having been warned to only bring what we were prepared to lose I just brought my point-and-shoot camera. From the way people were going on I was expecting to definitely get pick-pocketed. In reality I felt safe with my belongings, apart from one eeek moment - but that was brought on by my heightened paranoia rather than anything malicious.

Some poor lady fell down a few steps outside a shop and roughly grabbed at my left wrist in an effort to steady herself. Selfishly I merely glanced to my right side and went to protect my bag and camera as I thought it might have been a 'stumble and snatch' pickpocket tag team effort (got that notion thanks to Shantaram, great!) Luckily it was just an innocent incident and the lady wasn't badly hurt. I was slightly worried afterwards at my indifferent attitude towards her welfare - hmmm not good!