Ciudad del Este & Encarnacion (Paraguay)

I said goodbye to Brazil and walked accross the border to Paraguay - I couldn´t believe when I realised it had been 10 months since I last crossed a land border!! Chom Poo Moo decided that she did not want to leave Brazil and in fact was going to head back to The Pantanal as she enjoyed swimming with the Caimans and playing with the wildlife.

Ciudad de Este at the Paraguay side of the border - lots of people from Brazil and Argentina cross the border every day to shop in Paraguay as it is much cheaper here....I had crossed the border with the intention of staying here but was not very inspired so pretty much headed straight to the bus station.

Kids cleaning people´s shoes - a common site in Paraguay.

People living rough near the bus station in Ciudad del Este - just a few km´s from the busy market and high rises above!!

A four hour bus journey south to Encarnacion - buses were certainly more basic than those in Brazil but I was kept entertained with people, particularly kids, jumping on and off the bus selling all sorts of goodies.

Encarnacion established in 1600´s by the Jesuit Missionaries it is now Paraguays 3rd biggest city with a population of 70,000 - though it felt more like an old rustic town than a big city.

Quite a mixture of buildings and houses in the city - small wooden houses to more modern villa`s - the art deco style one that I spotted seemed quite out of place here!!

Dog sun bathing on the roof!

Encarnacion is also shares a border with Argentina and again has a popular though less frantic market area where your more likely to get quoted the price in Argentinian Peso´s than Paraguyan Guirani!! International buses from Argentina drop people of in the middle of the market.

There were also more modern designer style shops like this kids store - in the middle of the old market area....

The views from the Paraguay side of the Parana River - you can either cross the border over the bridge or by ferry. A bit of a contrast between the old town feel of Encarnacion and the modern high rises of Posasas accross in Argentina.

As in any big city there are always a few mad characters floating around!!

I liked the park bench in the middle of the supermarket...

Again this modern casino seemed a little out of place in the old town area of the city.

I took a trip out of the city and passed a few small towns and villages where this was the typical style of houses.

Trinidad - thought to be one of the most impressive Jesuit ruins in the Southern American area. The Jesuit Missionaries came to this region in the 1580`s after the area was conquered by the Spanish. They established these missions in an attempt to improve the life of the natives by introducing religoun, education and social rules...some of the teachings had long term impacy on Paraguian culture. There was still a lot of detail in some of the stone work around what would have been the church and I was happy to find the crypt and have a rest for a while!!

The Jesus Ruins - a second Jesuit Mission a few km`s further along - there would have been lovely views over the hills from here if it hadn´t started to rain!!

Other than the Jesuit Temples the reason I had headed to the South of Paraguay was to visit one of their National Parks - having used Yahoo Babel Fish to translate I had been in e'mail contact with the rangers as they have to meet you off the bus to take you to the park (not many tourist companies or buses in Paraguay) ....but when I turned up at the bus station I was told because of the heavy rain over the last few days the roads were closed and likely to be for several more days.....so a quick change of plans and I jumped on a bus to Asuncion the capitol of Paraguay instead!

On route passed a few towns with new standard built housing estates.....