Ciudad del Este, Paraguay
Ciudad del Este, formerly called Puerto Stroessner after the ex-dictator of Paraguay. Truly one of the worst places I’ve been in my life. The long, and somewhat shabbily maintained, bridge crossing the half-dried up river border between Brazil and Paraguay was choked with cars, buses, and lorries, all full of Argentines and Brazilians eager to take advantage of the extensive smuggling and blackmarket operations that the town thrives upon.

We walked across the bridge, my friend, myself and a Brazilian taxi driver who was translating from Spanish/Guarani into Portuguese for us. Border control was a group of suspiciously Nazi-Germany-SA-looking guards with automatic rifles almost as tall as themselves. Two of them spat at us and a third demanded a bribe to get in. The town itself is relatively ugly – it exists solely to provide a black market and smuggling hub for the southern part of South America. The gerry-built buildings slumped next to the crack and scarred pavement, which in itself is commandeered by rickety wood and corrugated iron market stalls selling anything from Paraguayan lacework (usually of a high quality) to faked Hugo Boss gear. Men with suspiciously gun-like bulges loll insouciantly against copious amounts of faked merchandise, whilst Brazilian car thieves drive in stolen Mercedes and other luxury cars to sell. The President of Paraguay was caught driving around in a stolen Brazilian Mercedes a few years ago. He probably got it in Ciudad del Este (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1208609.stm). To be fair, this is probably less of a crime than that of his predecessor, who had his vice-President machine-gunned and grenaded to death. We ambled through the streets, choked by fumes from the cars, pestered to buy gold, heroin, women, guns. A Paraguayan came up to me and offered to sell me an oblong wooden box, engraved with a swastika. Inside were two SS knives and a ceremonial luger. He’d got it off an elderly German man who had lived in Paraguay since 1945, and wanted $3000 for it. After I declined he offered me heroin, cannabis, women, or guns. He told me he could get anything.

We went in one of the premier shopping centres there. Heartbreakingly beautiful Paraguayan girls lounged around, selling faked perfume and makeup to Brazilian and Argentine women. One tried to interest me in a fake Yamaha piano (it was called a Yomaha), and then in something called a Ploystation. I was tempted, as I’d fallen in love with her deep brown eyes, but I realised that it wasn’t the best thing to take home.

Outside again, we ran into a police patrol drinking maté, and, being gringos, they started talking to us. Apparently gunfights between rival smuggling gangs are common, so the police just dump the dead bodies in the river between Brazil and Paraguay so that no one has to investigate. There is also a suspicion that there’s a cell of Hamas based there, responsible for a series of bombings in Buenos Aires in 1992-94.

Ciudad del Este – the only place I’ve ever come across with a combined Supermarket-Brothel.

Ciudad del Este – reputed second largest exporter of Scotch in the world after Scotland at one point.

Ciudad del Este – smuggling capital of South America.

It’s a shithole…. but if I had the chance I’d go back again tomorrow.
(Zapiola zip-zap-zop, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 18:39, 2 replies)

I think a Ploystation
Must be the greatest name ever for a knock off item. Yomaha is pretty good too, but Ploystation :D

Fuck me, you should have bought one for a laugh
( LemonEntryMyDearWatson This time, Moriarty, the hand is on the other foot, Sat 31 Oct 2009, 0:44, closed)

I bought a
Givson guitar in India...
(Mousy Tongue ...Generally bemused by life..., Sat 31 Oct 2009, 5:48, closed)