Sunday May 3, 2025
On Sunday morning, we woke up more slowly than usual because we had such a long Friday night and Saturday. We were looking forward to going back through Cuidad del Este to see the Itaipo Dam, known for being the second largest dam in the world and the dam producing the largest amount of energy in the world. There was also a free waterfall nearby and a town outside of Asuncion known for producing Nanduti lace. Also, because it was dark when we drove through on our way, we could see the country.
We headed out about 9 am as our kindhearted host waved us on with blessings for our passage back to Paraguay. There were very few people out and as soon as we pulled up to immigration we were met by a man who informed us in Spanish "No hay balsa este cerrado hoy." What?? "Si. No balsa en los domingos." haha...Seriously there are no ferries going on Sundays? Why didn't the immigration officer tell us this when we had the "you are only staying one night then returning this way" conversation?
We pulled over and parked to decide what we were going to do next. We had a few options. We had the kids weigh in too.
1. We could go back to our Airbnb and see if the host would have us for the night since we missed our first night. Maybe he would consider it as if we rescheduled. Then we would catch the first ferry on Monday morning and drive the 5 hours back to Asuncion. A major concern for this plan was that Clark was supposed to be in class by 2 pm so we would be pushing it on time. In fact, he'd probably not make it back until 3 and that's if there wasn't traffic.
2. We could take our chances crossing into Brasil. Maybe they wouldn't stop us or if they did, we could pretend to be dumb and beg them to let us go only to pass through. We could prove we weren't planning to stay in Brasil because, accordin to our receipt, our rental car was due back. They would yell at us and look ugly but maybe it would work.
3. We could drive 5 hours south to the Cuidad de Pasadas, Argentina and cross the international bridge into Encarnacion, Paraguay then drive for 5 hours back north to Asuncion. It would mean a long day in the car but we were staring down a long day sitting the Airbnb, twiddling our thumbs watching Netflix. We could sit in the car and see Argentina's well-known Bosque de Misiones instead.
We all voted for the drive, but Clark wanted to get more information from a local we could trust first so we headed back to the Airbnb to get Gustavo's feedback. He said we were very likely to get pulled over in Brasil because we have Paraguayan plates and he ensured us the road to Pasadas was very straight and good. Thus, we left Puerto Iguazu around 10:15 am.
The Misiones Forest is fabulous! Seeing the beauty of Argentina this way strengthened the feeling that all this trouble was worth it. Argentina is a huge lumber producer. It was interesting to see the forest in different stages of growth. The cities of Pasadas and Encarnacion appeared to be places worth exploring as well someday. We ended up arriving back to Asuncion around 9 or 9:30 pm.
Gustavo wasn't exaggerating...the road was great!
