The dodgy immigration post - part 1

All the advice made it seem so simple. Get a bus to immigration, get your passport stamped, hop on another bus, get your passport stamped, leave Paraguay, go to Argentina. Job done. Land borders always have more potential for fun and games than airports, I always think they are far more fun too. Getting dropped off, we estimated, a kilometre from immigration was our first clue that we'd made the right call making an early start rather than fit in a mornings activity before crossing back to Argentina. As we walked through the busy market area of Ciudad del Este the queue of cars was our next hint.

We arrived at the Paraguayan immigration and were stamped out easily. Despite the lengthy queue of traffic we waltzed through immigration as there are agreements between certain Latin American countries that citizens don't need to perform immigration procedures, we appeared to be the only gringos crossing today. The Puente de la Amistad (Friendship Bridge) over the Iguazu river forms the border with Brasil and traffic funnels over it as shoppers return with their spoils. I have read that up to 80% of electronic equipment has been smuggled or otherwise sourced from Paraguay due to very different import restrictions. We'd been advised not to walk over the bridge due to robberies occurring, though it was hard to see how in daylight with so many people crossing, lots of locals were clearly walking. We scanned the line of waiting traffic as far as we could see and counted a grand total of no buses in line. As Dave Briggs, our original Dragoman driver from the Grand Asian Overland always said, now is the time for waiting. So, we waited. And waited. A couple of Argentinians joined us and seemed unconcerned, so we relaxed, and waited. A chirpy sock salesman explained that an Argentina bus was on it's way, a taxi driver suggested otherwise, we went with the sock salesman. A cuddly Peppa Pig salesman, trod on the the salesman's patch causing some lighthearted banter. For the record it was the Peppa Pigs that were cuddly, not the salesman. A bus appeared in the queue and made it's way towards us, after 20 minutes it became apparent - as predicted that it was a Foz (Brasil) bus and of no use to us. Repeat. A slightly higher quality vehicle appeared and the sock salesman gave us the nod that this was the Argentina bus and sure enough, it was, finally the right vehicle so we tipped the sock guy (he'd been friendly and helpful) and jumped on.

Interestingly, and surely the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question, the Argentinian border is 20k from Paraguay across Brasilian territory but as it is a non stop bus you do not clear Brasilian immigration. Crossing through Brasil but effectively in nopersons land was an interesting experience, having crossed over on the dam the previous day we had effectively been in Brasil twice but officially we hadn't yet made it. So near and so far but for now it was back to the Peso and huge anticipation for visiting the falls tomorrow