How to successfully cross the border 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...
Firstly - you get a bus at Puerto Iguazu bus station with PARAGUAY written as the destination on it. These buses are yellow in colour and single decker with the words El Practico written on them. They leave quite regularly throughout the day. I crossed on a Sunday morning, around 10 am. I don't think that you can buy tickets in advance, so just check out of your hostel or hotel in the small town of Puerto Iguazu and go to the bus station (there is just one main bus station in Puerto Iguazu). I would recommend doing this early in the morning - I have no idea if the border is open at night - nor if it would be worth risking it.
I was on my own and I was basically wanting to get across into Paraguay and then onwards to Asuncion.
Ciudad del Este, the current name for this Paraguayan city, which is The City of The East, is on the other side of the river to Argentina. The river is the border, and the bridge is the most common crossing. As this is a post about the border crossing, I won't talk about other stuff but I had already been to the triple border of 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 I paid 5 Argentine Pesos for the bus and asked with the driver to confirm if he could stop at the border for me to get my passport stamped. I was the only person on the bus that wasn't from either Brazil, Argentina or Paraguay. Those three countries have some kind of agreement between each other visa wise.
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.
Of course to travel in South America you should have some grasp of Spanish at least (I studied in Montevideo but my Spanish is 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. Importantly I had my passport in hand and all my money changed into Paraguayan Guarani. This is important - change ALL your Argentine Pesos (except for the price of the bus) into Paraguayan Guarani in Puerto Iguazu. You can even do this on a Sunday morning - I found a bank/exchange place in town at 9am to get mine changed.
After getting on the bus you will be taken out of the town of Puerto Iguazu to the border bridge with BRAZIL first of all. Yes, don't be surprised at this point, as you are still on the bus to PARAGUAY! At the Argentine exit customs you need to make sure you ask the driver to let you get off to get your passport stamped. A lot of those on the bus may not need it - the majority of them are locals.
Get out, taking your bags with you and get your passport stamped and then straight back on the bus. Make sure the driver waits for you. Then you will cross the Iguazu River into Brazil but you won't stop at Brazilian border control. This is a regular route and the sign on the front of the bus lets you know that you are heading directly to Paraguay. So we are now in BRAZIL, "in transit on a bus" officially.
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 20 minutes or so in Brazil on the bus you arrive at a crazy bridge. Again you see a border checkpoint here, but we by pass it. It's the Brazilian border point. Your eyes will remind you that your were in Brazil for 20 minutes, your passport will not. There is no need to get your passport stamped at either Brazil passport checkpoint, BUT once your bus gets onto the bridge, Keep your eyes peeled for the Paraguay entrance border checkpoint. Why? Because the driver won't stop there, but you need to tell him to stop there for you.
The unfortunate thing is that when you tell him to stop, he sadly cannot wait for you as the passengers onboard wouldn't accept waiting for a foreigner to get a passport stamp. The bus continues on its route and you are literally DUMPED out into the madness of the 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!
Next I needed to fin the immigration place to stamp my passport now - it was hidden away in a very odd place in the middle of what seemed to be a concrete building site on the Paraguayan side of the bridge to Brazil. I didn't actually take a video of this part of my trip and wish I had - it was just crazy! When I finally found the passport place I was the only person in there. Hot, sweaty and with two heavy bags! Without further ado they gave me my entry stamp so I was now a legal tourist in Paraguay! In the previous hour I had actually been in three countries, though officially and according to my passport I was only in 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.
By chance I found a taxi driver hanging around opposite the Immigration Office (he was on a corner where food and all sorts were being sold) and he could drive me to the main bus station on the edge of Ciudad del Este for a fee of 3-4 US Dollars I think (this was thousands in Paraguayan Guarani!). Get yourself off the busy streets and a taxi to the bus station if you're heading out of Ciudad del Este.
I hope this series of border crossings will be useful for fellow travellers - please let me know if you have crossed the same borders as me and whether you experienced the same thing or not.
Happy Border Crossing!
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...
Firstly - you get a bus at Puerto Iguazu bus station with PARAGUAY written as the destination on it. These buses are yellow in colour and single decker with the words El Practico written on them. They leave quite regularly throughout the day. I crossed on a Sunday morning, around 10 am. I don't think that you can buy tickets in advance, so just check out of your hostel or hotel in the small town of Puerto Iguazu and go to the bus station (there is just one main bus station in Puerto Iguazu). I would recommend doing this early in the morning - I have no idea if the border is open at night - nor if it would be worth risking it.
I was on my own and I was basically wanting to get across into Paraguay and then onwards to Asuncion.
Ciudad del Este, the current name for this Paraguayan city, which is The City of The East, is on the other side of the river to Argentina. The river is the border, and the bridge is the most common crossing. As this is a post about the border crossing, I won't talk about other stuff but I had already been to the triple border of 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 I paid 5 Argentine Pesos for the bus and asked with the driver to confirm if he could stop at the border for me to get my passport stamped. I was the only person on the bus that wasn't from either Brazil, Argentina or Paraguay. Those three countries have some kind of agreement between each other visa wise.
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.
Of course to travel in South America you should have some grasp of Spanish at least (I studied in Montevideo but my Spanish is 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. Importantly I had my passport in hand and all my money changed into Paraguayan Guarani. This is important - change ALL your Argentine Pesos (except for the price of the bus) into Paraguayan Guarani in Puerto Iguazu. You can even do this on a Sunday morning - I found a bank/exchange place in town at 9am to get mine changed.
After getting on the bus you will be taken out of the town of Puerto Iguazu to the border bridge with BRAZIL first of all. Yes, don't be surprised at this point, as you are still on the bus to PARAGUAY! At the Argentine exit customs you need to make sure you ask the driver to let you get off to get your passport stamped. A lot of those on the bus may not need it - the majority of them are locals.
Get out, taking your bags with you and get your passport stamped and then straight back on the bus. Make sure the driver waits for you. Then you will cross the Iguazu River into Brazil but you won't stop at Brazilian border control. This is a regular route and the sign on the front of the bus lets you know that you are heading directly to Paraguay. So we are now in BRAZIL, "in transit on a bus" officially.
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 20 minutes or so in Brazil on the bus you arrive at a crazy bridge. Again you see a border checkpoint here, but we by pass it. It's the Brazilian border point. Your eyes will remind you that your were in Brazil for 20 minutes, your passport will not. There is no need to get your passport stamped at either Brazil passport checkpoint, BUT once your bus gets onto the bridge, Keep your eyes peeled for the Paraguay entrance border checkpoint. Why? Because the driver won't stop there, but you need to tell him to stop there for you.
The unfortunate thing is that when you tell him to stop, he sadly cannot wait for you as the passengers onboard wouldn't accept waiting for a foreigner to get a passport stamp. The bus continues on its route and you are literally DUMPED out into the madness of the 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!
Next I needed to fin the immigration place to stamp my passport now - it was hidden away in a very odd place in the middle of what seemed to be a concrete building site on the Paraguayan side of the bridge to Brazil. I didn't actually take a video of this part of my trip and wish I had - it was just crazy! When I finally found the passport place I was the only person in there. Hot, sweaty and with two heavy bags! Without further ado they gave me my entry stamp so I was now a legal tourist in Paraguay! In the previous hour I had actually been in three countries, though officially and according to my passport I was only in 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.
By chance I found a taxi driver hanging around opposite the Immigration Office (he was on a corner where food and all sorts were being sold) and he could drive me to the main bus station on the edge of Ciudad del Este for a fee of 3-4 US Dollars I think (this was thousands in Paraguayan Guarani!). Get yourself off the busy streets and a taxi to the bus station if you're heading out of Ciudad del Este.
I hope this series of border crossings will be useful for fellow travellers - please let me know if you have crossed the same borders as me and whether you experienced the same thing or not.
Happy Border Crossing!
About the Author:
If you want more amazing 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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