Cuidad del Este

After a 16h busride (including a bus change because the motor of the bus broke down) we arrived in Cuidad del Este which is located on the border of Brazil and Argentina. This town is the point of departure of Paraguay for visiting the world famous "Iguazu Falls" aswell as the hydroelectric dam "Itaipú".

"Itaipú" is the world's largest producer of clean and renewable energy. The hydroelectric dam with its 20 turbines belongs half to Paraguay and half to Brazil. With only 2 turbines, Paraguay produces enough energy for the whole country. The energy of the other 8 turbines is used for export reason. The 10 brazilian turbines spend 20% of the whole needed brazilian electricity. It suplies especially São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The length of the dam is almost 8km - very impressive!

The town itself ist nothing special, but well known for buying cheap stuff. The roads are covered with countless small sales stalls offering all the same products: fake branded t-shirts & sneakers and electronic devices. It was quite funny but not worth buying anything cheap. For us the most impressiv Thing was, that even the original electronic devices had almost the same prices than in Switzerland.Read more