Encarnacion, Paraguay

In the morning all the Brazilian RVs were gone which is almost all of them. There were only three RVs left including us. 

We filled and dumped and the kids did homeschool and we headed to the border.

Leaving Argentina was just going through a toll booth window and they typed the information in and peeked in the RV.

Entering Paraguay we got out and stood in line. We were told the first entry was free but subsequent entries required a visa. I didn't know this. I had googled this and no visa was required. The TIP was handwritten and slow. The whole border took about an hour which is pretty fast. 

We drove through and there were stores selling electronics and clothing. Paraguay is one of the poorer countries in South America and with Argentina's inflation a lot of people come over to buy things. I pulled over to withdraw some money from an ATM and then went to gas station to fill up on propane which is readily available in the major cities in Paraguay at autogas stations. 

We then headed to downtown to find some Japanese food. 

The Japanese restaurants were wanted to go to were closed but a third one was open as a buffet. The food was kind of terrible but when it came to pay I realized we were supposed to weigh our food. The guy just guessed the weight and charged us $8. 

We then walked to a Taiwanese boba shop and ordered four bobas drinks and an order of dumplings to go. The bobas were refreshing but pretty artificially flavored. The dumplings we later on tried for dinner were delicious. $3.75 for 10.

We went to visit a zoo outside of Encarnacion that charged only $1.25 to visit. It was small but we saw so many animals we has not seen yet. We loved it. The kids touched a python. The barrier between the animals and humans was only a chain fence and one could easily loose a finger on a caiman, jaguar, puma, or tiger. I am not sure why there was a tiger there except maybe it was rescued from a cartel.

It was pretty hot at 86 F so we had some ice cream.

We then went to get some shopping done. We picked up a rotisserie chicken from $5

and went to a supermarket and spent $50 instead of $80 to $100 in Argentina.

Paraguay feels so much more affordable than Argentina and it is great. We then went to look for a campsite near the beach and decided on going to Playa San Jose in Encarnacion. A good sign was that there were other RVs there. 

The kids played in the water and I was hounded by no-ses-ums. 

We had chicken and dumplings and it was great. There was a nice breeze and we had all the windows and doors open and other RVs had their doors open and it felt safe. It wasn't too quiet but it was nice to be not too hot or cold.