I crossed the border to Paraguay in a regular city bus. Strange was that the bus didn’t stop at the border and nobody cared to take a look at my passport, so now I am in Asuncion and don’t have a stamp in my passport, I hope that won’t get me in any trouble.
You notice fast that Paraguay is a little poorer then Brazil, the busses are older, buildings and streets tend to be falling apart. In Asuncion the pollution is pretty bad, but it has some nice old buildings and I have to spend less money here. It’s incredible the change in temperature I experienced in just going west. In Curitiba it was only 15 degrees, here it’s around 35, what a change.
There is one thing in Paraguay that I noticed immediately. Everybody is walking around with “Terere”. It’s a cup, sometimes made out of the horn of a cow, with a metal straw in it. You put some special kind of local herbs in it and fill it up with cold water. While the water passes through the herbs it takes on its flavor, kind of “instant tea”. I have hardly every seen something so typical for just one region.
In Asuncion I stayed in the Hotel Palmas del Sol, very nice and not expensive.