Iguazu falls is right at the border of Argentine, Brazil and Paraguay. I found a tour at the bus station to Foz Do Iguazu (Brazil) and Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) for 110 pesos. The last I checked is I will need a visa to Paraguay but since the tour mentioned that I won’t need a visa for a day trip so I just sign up for the Tres Paises En Un Dia tour (3 countries in one day tour).

[mappress]

A van picked me up from the hostel at 8am and after passing through the Brazilian immigration checkpoint, the guide drove us to Ciudad Del Este. We just drove through the paraguay checkpoint without stopping. The city is famous for shopping and is the third largest free-tax commerce zone in the world and is the gateway for counterfeit goods and contraband into the South American market. Bought a headphone at one of the stores (US$1.70) for skyping.

Then we went to Foz Do Iguazu, which is at the Brazilian side. the city is much bigger than Puerto Iguazu. We visited the Iguazu National Park and I heard someone spoke in Taiwanese dialect and approached them. Turned out that the 2 aunties are taiwanese businesswoman. They have lived in Brazil and Paraguay for more than 20 years and owned businesses in these 2 countries. I was told that right now Brazil is giving out permanent residencies to foreigners (once every 10 years) so this might be a good opportunity to move there.

Hang out with my new met Buddhist friends at the park. The monk actually tried to recruit me and mentioned that I have potential to be a monk.

The waterfalls is at the Argentinean side but at the Brazilian side, we get a better view of the waterfalls. The waterfall system consists of 275 falls along 2.7 kilometers (1.67 miles) of the Iguazu River.

The tour included a buffet lunch. I ate like a camel so the meal was considered my dinner too. After lunch we stopped by at a place where we can see the 3 borders as well as Parana and Iguazu river.

The tour was supposed to bring us to see Itaipu Dam, the world second biggest after The three George Dam, but because of swine flu, the road to the dam at the Paraguay side was closed. Swine flu is big news in South America even though we don’t care about it that much in US. I read on Bloomberg about a prediction that swine flu might kill 90,000 americans this year, scary. Story

Took a bus to downtown in the evening to purchase my bus ticket to Rio. First I missed the bus stop and then the bus broke down. Got to the bus station an hour later but fortunately still manage to get my ticket.