The past summer I had the awesome opportunity to spend a week in Paraguay with my family. My brother had been living there while serving an LDS mission for the last 2 years and I flew down with my parents to pick him up. Paraguay is nothing like the US. We drove across the country and saw things we never imagined or had only seen pictures of and never thought we would experience. If you are planning on traveling to Paraguay here are some things I learned for/during my trip:
|You need CRISP $20 bills
In order to enter Paraguay, you need a tourist visa. You buy this at the airport right before you go through customs and you have to pay in CRISP $20 bills (US). Make sure your bills don’t have markings on them either because those will not be accepted. I believe the price was $160 per person if you have a US Passport and $150 US if you have a Canadian Passport. My mom has a Canadian Passport so hers was $150 while my dad and I paid $160.
|Never lose focus in traffic
The roads in Paraguay are a madhouse and from what we saw while we were there, stop signs are optional. A man we met with while we were there told us he actually thinks the driving is safer in Paraguay than in the US because the drivers in Paraguay are more vigilant. Makes sense. There are also a lot of one-way roads in Asunción and on most streets, you can’t turn left.
Another thing about the roads is that there are only a few paved roads in Asunción and everything outside of that is either dirt or rock. Be prepared for a bumpy ride if you plan on going down any side streets.
|There are people selling things right next to your car
One of the things we weren’t expecting when we went to Paraguay was the people selling things EVERYWHERE. When you are driving down the street they are standing on the divider and the sidewalk, as soon as you stop they flood the streets to try to sell to every car. These people are selling everything from fruit to phone chargers. The fruit they sell is really good but if you don’t want to buy anything just keep your windows up and give them a thumbs up. My dad rolled down his window and ended up with a lap full of bananas. No lie. He had to shove them back into the man’s arms because we did not want them.
There are also people, a lot of kids really, that are washing car windows for money. If you do not want your windows washed you need to wag your finger at them. I will tell you though, this doesn’t always work. They are super aggressive about it and a lot of them will start washing your windows anyways. If they wash your windows, you have to pay. A few coins are fine.
| You will probably get pulled over
The police in Paraguay aren’t really known for being the greatest. Many times you will get pulled over for a made-up reason or just because they can tell you are a tourist. When this happens you’ll have to pay them off.
My family got pulled over twice while traveling across the country. The first time my brother greeted the officer in Spanish and gave him a thumbs-up. To literally everyone’s surprise, the officer smiled, gave him a thumbs-up back, and let us go.
The second time we weren’t so lucky. On our way back to the city after spending a few days in Caaguazú we were stopped again. This time we were fined the equivalent of about $60 USD. They actually had my brother get out of the car and took him around the corner of a building to talk to him. We weren’t fans of that. After we paid the cops we were back on the road.
One thing you should know is that the police there don’t turn on their sirens and follow you in their cars. You’ll just see some cones in the middle of the road and that means that there are police there. When they pull you over they will step out into the street and gesture for you to pull to the side of the road.
| Carry cash on you
When traveling in Paraguay you’ll want to carry cash with you no matter where you are in the country. You’ll need it if you want to buy something from someone on the side of the road, but you’ll also need it at a lot of stores. There are a few very very nice malls in Asunción where they have stores like Nike (everything in the Nike store is in US prices), Swarovski, etc. A lot of the stores in the malls will take credit cards but some only take cash. Also, if you are planning on buying anything from the little stores at the airport you are going to need cash for those too.
As mentioned above, you’ll also need cash if you get pulled over.
I think that’s about it for traveling tips that I can think of. If you have any questions about traveling in Paraguay that I didn’t answer feel free to leave a comment and I’ll answer you there!
xo Cait
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