Here's how to get from Argentina to Paraguay Via Brazil
OK so there are a few different ways to cross the border between Argentina and Paraguay but I did the route from Puerto Iguazu, ARGENTINA to Ciudad del Este, PARAGUAY. In December 2010. Although in hindsight, the border crossing seemed easy compared to others I've been to, there is still a need to get things right, read on and I'll explain exactly what I did. This was one of the oddest border crossings I have ever done, for one reason and that is that in the space of 45 minutes I was in three countries...confused? Yes it did confuse me a bit...this is the first of many reports on crossing world borders from my various travels...
The first thing to know is - you board a bus at Puerto Iguazu bus station with PARAGUAY as the destination on it. These buses are yellow and single decker with the words El Practico on it. They leave fairly regularly throughout the day. I did my crossing on a Sunday morning, around 10 am I think. I don't think you can buy tickets in advance, just check out of your hostel or hotel in the town of Puerto Iguazu and head to the bus station (there is only one main bus station in Puerto Iguazu). I would definitely recommend doing this early morning - no idea if the border would be open at night - nor if it would be safe to risk it.
I was travelling alone and my plan was to get to the city of Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) and then a bus onwards to Asuncion.
Ciudad del Este, the name for this city means City of The East, is on the other side of the river from Argentina. The river acts as the border, and the bridge is the preferred crossing. As this is a post about the border crossing, I won't change the subject but I had already been to Tres Fronteras - the point where you can see all three countries. It gets confusing when you realise that your bus to Paraguay goes VIA BRAZIL.
So the cost is 5 Argentine Pesos for the bus and I asked the driver to tell if he would stop at the border for me so I could get my passport stamped. I was the only traveller on the bus that wasn't from either Paraguay, Argentina or Brazil. Those 3 countries have some kind of visa agreement with each other that means they don't require visas (or in some cases passport stamps) to cross the border.
I actually assumed a lot of "backpackers" (I hate that term, but I guess I am one...) would be going from Iguazu across into Paraguay next to see Ituapu Dam and Jesuit Ruins at Trinidad. But I spoke to over 30 people at the hostel (the excellent Hostel Inn Iguazu Falls) and not one of them was going to Paraguay. A few even said to me "why would you want to go there?"! The kind of statement that makes me realise that some of us are avid travellers and some are just not. An avid traveller will go anywhere, anytime. Someone who is not, will be more picky about where they go. I'm not - I'll go anywhere. Either way, there were no other "backpackers" on my bus or in the station that morning.
When you travel in South America you should have some kind of knowledge of Spanish at least (I actually studied in Montevideo but my Spanish is still shocking) so you can chat to locals and bus drivers. Once I saw the "queue for Paraguay" developing, I joined it, bag laden to the core and sweaty. But I had my passport in hand and had already all of my money changed into Paraguayan Guarani. This is important - make sure you change ALL your Argentine Pesos (except for the price of the bus) over into Paraguayan Guarani in Puerto Iguazu. You can do this anytime in daylight hours, even on a Sunday morning - I found a small bank/exchange place in town open around 9am to got mine changed in there.
After boarding the bus you will be driven out of the town of Puerto Iguazu to the border bridge with BRAZIL. Yes, don't be alarmed at this point, you are still on the bus to PARAGUAY! At the Argentine exit customs you MUST make sure you ask the driver to let you off to get your passport stamped. Most on the bus may not need it - they're mostly locals.
Get your passport stamped and back on the bus. Then you cross the Iguazu River into BRAZIL. But you don't stop at Brazilian border control. The driver of the bus does this route regularly and the sign on the front of the bus lets you know that you are heading to "Paraguay Directo". We're now in BRAZIL, in transit on a bus if you like.
You arrive in the city of Foz Do Iguacu which you drive through quickly, I have written a lot more about the actual waterfalls and my first trip across into Brazil elsewhere on this blog. You'd be crazy to be on this route without having visited the nearby Iguazu Falls.
After twenty minutes roughly in Brazil on the bus you will arrive at an odd bridge. You can see a border checkpoint here, but bypass it. This place is the Brazilian border checkpoint. You will remember being in Brazil for twenty minutes, but your passport will not have any proof of it. You do not need to get your passport stamped at these two Brazilian passport checkpoints, BUT once your bus arrives onto the bridge to Paraguay, keep checking for the Paraguayan entrance border checkpoint. Basically the driver won't stop so charge to the front of the bus and yell to be let out!
The worst thing is that when you tell the driver to stop, he will not wait for you because all the other passengers onboard won't want to wait for a foreigner to get their passport stamped. The bus will continue on its route and you are basically bundled out into the craziness of the border city of Ciudad del Este.
It is not recommended to cross this border by foot by the way, mainly because of robberies and safety issues. For the sake of 5 Pesos you might as well get the bus. I had to run to the front of the bus and yell at the driver to stop, this was a few kilometres ahead of the checkpoint. I had assumed he was stopping soon. SO I had to get out on my own. I asked him if he would wait and when I realised he wouldn't, then I had to grab both my bags. This was my arrival into Paraguay!
I had to find the place to stamp the passport now - it was hidden shyly in a very obscure spot in the middle of a building site on the Paraguay side of the bridge. I wish I had a video from above of my trip that morning - it was just crazy. It was hot and I was bag laden, but within a few minutes I found the passport place and was the only person in there. They stamped my entry and I was now legally in Paraguay! In the last hour I had been in 3 countries, though officially just Argentina and Paraguay.
I must admit though that I honestly am not sure if this is the easiest and best way across the border into Paraguay but I love these types of adventures on my own. I thoroughly enjoyed this part of my travels because I was the only traveller about. It was a zany place at the border and the city was so busy. People everywhere trying to sell me things. Some people might want to stay a night or 2 in Ciudad del Este but I was on a fast trip and basically wanted to head straight to Asuncion, the capital.
So from opposite the passport control, I found a taxi driver who would take me to the central bus station in Ciudad del Este for a fee of a few US Dollars (but thousands of Guarani). These are normally trustable but agree a price first and get yourself off the busy, crazy streets!
I hope my new series of border crossings will be useful for my fellow travellers. I'd love to know if others have done the same border crossings as me and had similar experiences.
Enjoy your border crossings!
OK so there are a few different ways to cross the border between Argentina and Paraguay but I did the route from Puerto Iguazu, ARGENTINA to Ciudad del Este, PARAGUAY. In December 2010. Although in hindsight, the border crossing seemed easy compared to others I've been to, there is still a need to get things right, read on and I'll explain exactly what I did. This was one of the oddest border crossings I have ever done, for one reason and that is that in the space of 45 minutes I was in three countries...confused? Yes it did confuse me a bit...this is the first of many reports on crossing world borders from my various travels...
The first thing to know is - you board a bus at Puerto Iguazu bus station with PARAGUAY as the destination on it. These buses are yellow and single decker with the words El Practico on it. They leave fairly regularly throughout the day. I did my crossing on a Sunday morning, around 10 am I think. I don't think you can buy tickets in advance, just check out of your hostel or hotel in the town of Puerto Iguazu and head to the bus station (there is only one main bus station in Puerto Iguazu). I would definitely recommend doing this early morning - no idea if the border would be open at night - nor if it would be safe to risk it.
I was travelling alone and my plan was to get to the city of Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) and then a bus onwards to Asuncion.
Ciudad del Este, the name for this city means City of The East, is on the other side of the river from Argentina. The river acts as the border, and the bridge is the preferred crossing. As this is a post about the border crossing, I won't change the subject but I had already been to Tres Fronteras - the point where you can see all three countries. It gets confusing when you realise that your bus to Paraguay goes VIA BRAZIL.
So the cost is 5 Argentine Pesos for the bus and I asked the driver to tell if he would stop at the border for me so I could get my passport stamped. I was the only traveller on the bus that wasn't from either Paraguay, Argentina or Brazil. Those 3 countries have some kind of visa agreement with each other that means they don't require visas (or in some cases passport stamps) to cross the border.
I actually assumed a lot of "backpackers" (I hate that term, but I guess I am one...) would be going from Iguazu across into Paraguay next to see Ituapu Dam and Jesuit Ruins at Trinidad. But I spoke to over 30 people at the hostel (the excellent Hostel Inn Iguazu Falls) and not one of them was going to Paraguay. A few even said to me "why would you want to go there?"! The kind of statement that makes me realise that some of us are avid travellers and some are just not. An avid traveller will go anywhere, anytime. Someone who is not, will be more picky about where they go. I'm not - I'll go anywhere. Either way, there were no other "backpackers" on my bus or in the station that morning.
When you travel in South America you should have some kind of knowledge of Spanish at least (I actually studied in Montevideo but my Spanish is still shocking) so you can chat to locals and bus drivers. Once I saw the "queue for Paraguay" developing, I joined it, bag laden to the core and sweaty. But I had my passport in hand and had already all of my money changed into Paraguayan Guarani. This is important - make sure you change ALL your Argentine Pesos (except for the price of the bus) over into Paraguayan Guarani in Puerto Iguazu. You can do this anytime in daylight hours, even on a Sunday morning - I found a small bank/exchange place in town open around 9am to got mine changed in there.
After boarding the bus you will be driven out of the town of Puerto Iguazu to the border bridge with BRAZIL. Yes, don't be alarmed at this point, you are still on the bus to PARAGUAY! At the Argentine exit customs you MUST make sure you ask the driver to let you off to get your passport stamped. Most on the bus may not need it - they're mostly locals.
Get your passport stamped and back on the bus. Then you cross the Iguazu River into BRAZIL. But you don't stop at Brazilian border control. The driver of the bus does this route regularly and the sign on the front of the bus lets you know that you are heading to "Paraguay Directo". We're now in BRAZIL, in transit on a bus if you like.
You arrive in the city of Foz Do Iguacu which you drive through quickly, I have written a lot more about the actual waterfalls and my first trip across into Brazil elsewhere on this blog. You'd be crazy to be on this route without having visited the nearby Iguazu Falls.
After twenty minutes roughly in Brazil on the bus you will arrive at an odd bridge. You can see a border checkpoint here, but bypass it. This place is the Brazilian border checkpoint. You will remember being in Brazil for twenty minutes, but your passport will not have any proof of it. You do not need to get your passport stamped at these two Brazilian passport checkpoints, BUT once your bus arrives onto the bridge to Paraguay, keep checking for the Paraguayan entrance border checkpoint. Basically the driver won't stop so charge to the front of the bus and yell to be let out!
The worst thing is that when you tell the driver to stop, he will not wait for you because all the other passengers onboard won't want to wait for a foreigner to get their passport stamped. The bus will continue on its route and you are basically bundled out into the craziness of the border city of Ciudad del Este.
It is not recommended to cross this border by foot by the way, mainly because of robberies and safety issues. For the sake of 5 Pesos you might as well get the bus. I had to run to the front of the bus and yell at the driver to stop, this was a few kilometres ahead of the checkpoint. I had assumed he was stopping soon. SO I had to get out on my own. I asked him if he would wait and when I realised he wouldn't, then I had to grab both my bags. This was my arrival into Paraguay!
I had to find the place to stamp the passport now - it was hidden shyly in a very obscure spot in the middle of a building site on the Paraguay side of the bridge. I wish I had a video from above of my trip that morning - it was just crazy. It was hot and I was bag laden, but within a few minutes I found the passport place and was the only person in there. They stamped my entry and I was now legally in Paraguay! In the last hour I had been in 3 countries, though officially just Argentina and Paraguay.
I must admit though that I honestly am not sure if this is the easiest and best way across the border into Paraguay but I love these types of adventures on my own. I thoroughly enjoyed this part of my travels because I was the only traveller about. It was a zany place at the border and the city was so busy. People everywhere trying to sell me things. Some people might want to stay a night or 2 in Ciudad del Este but I was on a fast trip and basically wanted to head straight to Asuncion, the capital.
So from opposite the passport control, I found a taxi driver who would take me to the central bus station in Ciudad del Este for a fee of a few US Dollars (but thousands of Guarani). These are normally trustable but agree a price first and get yourself off the busy, crazy streets!
I hope my new series of border crossings will be useful for my fellow travellers. I'd love to know if others have done the same border crossings as me and had similar experiences.
Enjoy your border crossings!
About the Author:
If you want more incredible tips on crossing world borders and popular travel tips and stories, check out Jonny Blair's awesome travel and lifestyle website Dont Stop Living Happy travels and don't stop living!
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