We’re planning to leave Argentina for a few weeks and spend some time exploring Paraguay. For some reason, Paraguay is a relatively undiscovered place with limited tourist infrastructure. While some Europeans travel through Paraguay, Americans seem to ignore it almost entirely, and we’re eager to check it out.
From Puerto Iguazú, Argentina, it seems a relatively easy thing to cross into Paraguay at Ciudad del Este. There is an effectively open border for locals between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay in this location. Río Uruguay runs a bus for 70 pesos ($2) that departs at least every hour, if not more frequently, from Puerto Iguazú to Ciudad del Este. The challenge is the bus passes through Brazil.
In theory, since our final destination is Paraguay, it shouldn’t matter that we don’t have visas for Brazil, but we’ve read that you need to confirm the bus will drop you all the way across the Friendship Bridge, otherwise you haven’t quite left Brazil, and the fact that you entered without a visa will be a problem. We’ve also read that since most of the people going back and forth are locals, the bus driver doesn’t stop at the Paraguayan immigration unless you ask (and sometimes not even then). And if you are dropped at Paraguayan immigration, you are likely to see the bus drive off without you, since no one, including the bus driver, wants to sit around waiting for you. So then you are left trying to figure out how to get off the Friendship Bridge, which some have described as dangerous. If you don’t get a Paraguayan entry stamp, you may have to pay a large fine when you try to exit Paraguay later. This means if you somehow miss Paraguayan immigration, you have to go back for the stamp. We’ve seen enough blog posts about this situation to think it sounds awfully complicated.
To avoid all this, we decided to find a different way. There is almost no information about many things in Paraguay, but we have found some old references to a ferry and posts in forums where people ask whether the ferry is still running but almost no answers. The implied huge advantage of this supposed ferry is it goes straight to Paraguay without passing through Brazil. That was enough to persuade us to go to the port after our first day in Iguazú to investigate. Sure enough, a ferry exists! It runs every hour between 8:30am and 5:30pm from Argentina to Paraguay (30 minutes later in the opposite direction) and costs 70 pesos ($2) for pedestrians and 220 pesos ($6) for vehicles. We were told there were buses into town on the other side as well as plenty of taxis.
This morning we walked to the port to target the 10:30am ferry. We showed up at 10:20am, purchased two tickets, and then went through immigration to leave Argentina. So far so good. Then we sat down in the shade to wait for the ferry. It was a little bit late, but we could see it arriving in the distance. Pretty soon a line of cars started to form and we got in line behind them and walked onto the ferry.
The ferry is a relatively small raft-like boat that holds roughly 18 cars with a small shaded section for passengers. Some people chose to stay in their air conditioned cars. The whole ride takes no more than 20 minutes and you can see the destination when you board the ferry.
We arrived in Paraguay just after 11am and passed through Paraguayan immigration without any serious problems. The immigration official was confused by Jess’s two passports (the first with the Paraguayan visa and two holes in the front cover and the second new, valid passport). He ended up stamping the passport with the visa in it, so hopefully that won’t pose any problems when we try to leave, but at least we have a Paraguayan entry stamp. Technically, aside from the holes, the old passport hasn’t expired….
On the ferry ride, we met a German girl, Katie, who was traveling to Encarnación, Paraguay, for Carnaval, which is supposed to be great on the weekends. Immediately after getting our passports stamped, the three of us were approached by a taxi driver who wanted to charge us $20 for a ride into town. He kept saying “veinte oos” which none of us understood. It didn’t sound like a number or a currency, but at some point we figured out it was 20 U.S., as in dollars. We declined, and he asked how much we wanted to pay. Eric threw out $10, but Jess and Katie were sure there was a bus option despite there not being a lot of clear information to that effect.
We asked at the ferry ticket window and were told the bus stop was at the top of the hill, would be obvious, and the bus should cost around 2,000 – 3,000 guaranís ($0.33-$0.50) per person. 
We started the walk up the hill. The taxi driver got in his car and tried to convince us to go with him, but we were committed to the bus. When we got to the top of the hill, there was a bus stop just to the right. A helpful woman at a house next to the bus stop told us which direction the bus would go and helped flag it down when it came.
Katie tried to pay with Argentinian pesos, but the bus driver didn’t want to accept them. Foreseeing this problem, Jess had insisted we convert $40 into guaranís in Puerto Iguazú, so we would have enough to get by until we could find an ATM. $40 is 208,000 guaranís after a $6 transaction fee, so we only had 8,000 in small bills. The bus driver asked for 10,000 but accepted 8,000 ($1.33) for three tickets when we indicated that’s all we had. After about 20 minutes or so, we were dropped off near the main bus terminal where Katie was planning to catch a bus to Encarnación.
We went to the bus station with her to learn more about the buses to Encarnación since that’s our next destination in a few days. There was an ATM in the bus terminal and it was in the Plus network, so we know the fee will be reimbursed (yes!). It doesn’t seem paying with credit cards will be as easy here as it has been, so cash is important. Our credit card doesn’t have any international fees, but we aren’t totally sure if all the ATM fees will be reimbursed when we can’t find the Plus symbol. Katie was able to get on a bus right away, so we decided to wait and buy our tickets in a few days when we are ready to leave and walked to our hostel.
There’s always more than one way to skin a cat….