We embarked on a short bus journey to the town centre in search of the cheapest possible hostel. A friendly lady who conjured up a marvellous ‘morango’ milkshake (strawberry) gave us directions to a modest hostel away from the main street, which turned out to be miles better value and had hardly any foreigners. After negotiating our check-in and check-out times we decided that the day was not young enough to venture out to what most people see when they come to this town, so we decided to pop to Paraguay for the afternoon.
From where we are today, the Ciudad del Este is only about thirty minutes away on the bus and it seems to be a very popular destination for the Brazilian people, if only to buy cheap electrical goods. However, we hear that it’s wise to test the product before leaving the shop to make sure that it actually works. The journey there would have probably lasted only fifteen minutes if it wasn’t for the heaving traffic. The bus ride was enjoyable all the same and got really interesting as we saw more and more Paraguayan registration plates and mixed ethnicities during our crossing of the Parana River over the large bridge. After being informed that the bridge is dangerous to cross on foot we remained bus-borne until we reached the crowded market on the other side. We were in Paraguay! Many rainbow-coloured parasols were sheltering grateful Guarani market traders from the intense sun and by comparison with Brazil, the motor madness was much more chaotic. In fact many taxi employees have wised up to this and now the motorbike taxi industry is flourishing just as much as the conventional four-wheel taxi transportation. It was interesting that Portuguese was still being widely spoken but as we wandered much deeper into the market, sounds of Spanish and Guarani became dominant. We squeezed through a mish-mash of people and narrow market stands, most of which were selling cheap sandals, counterfeit watches, undergarments and sports clothes to reach the other side where we made the spontaneous decision of taking a taxi to the Salto del Monday!
Our taxi driver was very amusing and kept us on our toes as we have not yet started going ahead with our good intentions to learn Spanish. He was speaking Spanish to us and we spoke Portuguese back. The best thing was though, that we could understand each other, but when Jon asked him to speak some Guarani in order to get a feel for things, it all went far over our heads. Still, it was great fun trying! The old local buses here are fantastic: painted in a jaunty way to lift the mood of both travellers and passers-by. As we drove out of the city, the whole atmosphere changed abruptly: tiny bungalows, dirty old workshops, non-tarmacked roads, some cobbled, some just unpaved. This was the real Paraguay!
No sooner as we arrived to the Salto del Monday it started to chuck it down with cats and dogs, leaving us completely drenched within the first minute of being outside. The Salto de Monday is a wonderful waterfall located nine kilometres from the Ciudad del Este and the sound of the light brown water crashing onto more water and rocks from these great heights was unbelievably relaxing and filled our brains with endorphins there and then. It fills us with excitement when we hear that what tomorrow has in store for us is supposed to be even more breathtaking, but if you haven’t guessed already, you’ll just have to wait and see!
We lunched very lightly with a small mixed buffet that spoiled us for choice. From this first impression, it seems as though the Paraguayans eat very well! We had a mixture of black beans, curried gnocchi, savoury cakes made entirely of corn, rice (both plain and curried) and a special red beef stew that was almost goulash-like. It was an achievement in itself being able to concentrate on the scrumptiousness of the magnificent feast in front of us as the mixture of people around us was even more fascinating! Who would have thought that we would have been dining where three different languages were being spoken, well, four if you’re including our English!
It was fairly late by the time we had finished our further browsing time in the market and had returned to base in Foz de Iguaçu, so our appetites had to be satisfied yet again. Well, since we had just been to another country, we felt that a celebratory meal was called for. What better than the ‘rodizio de pizza’ just round the corner from our hostel? This entails being seated at the restaurant to chow down on some tasty pizzas, which are brought around non-stop by the waiters and waitresses, and come in all kinds of flavours, from fairly ordinary to outrageously whacky! I hasten to add that I would be awful at that job as there would be no pizza left between taking it out of the oven and passing it the paying customer. Here is a list of the to-die-for toppings that we chomped in order: chicken heart, garlic, ham and spinach, fish stroganoff, chicken and cheese, pepperoni, (very salty) beef and tomato as well as ham and chilli. Oh! And for afters, more pizza followed but the topping were a little different: white chocolate and strawberry, coconut and condensed milk (maybe there was white chocolate in this one too), milk chocolate and coconut, milk chocolate solo and one that resembled a toffee crisp chocolate bar with chocolate pebble dashed with small biscuit balls. It was a great day all round apart from the painful waddle home after the all-you-can-eat pizza frenzy! We might just forget eating now for a few days.
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