--Obiwan Kenobi, Star Wars IV
And that pretty much is how I felt when I landed in Ciudad del Este on a brief 'scouting' trip this weekend. A 220 mile trip of course translates into a 7 hour bus ride (there is no Paraguayan equivalent to the Autobahn of course), so I arrived just as commerce was winding down...most stores as well as semi-formal and ambulant vendors work from 6am-4pm. But it was great to finally meet the city I'm going to be inhabiting for the next year or so.
Here are some photos that I quickly snapped while walking around on Saturday. CdE is not the most savory locale, so being a wide-eyed (and very white) tourist wandering around with a camera is not the brightest idea...so I tried to make my photo-ops as discrete as possible.
This is the city skyline (the 'microcentro' as the locals denominate it) as seen from the Brazilian side in the comparatively well-manered and orderly Foz do Iguaçu. The Brazilians just opened up a brand new customs/immigration facility on their side of the bridge, which has dramatically reduced traffic back and forth between the cities. It used to be a common site to see pedestrians, motor-taxis, and kombi-buses precariously loaded with tons of products destined for Brazil. This looks really quiet compared to both 2003 and 2006 when I last visited.
Shopping "Monalisa"--one of the mega-import luxury good stores on the main avenue of CdE. They have an entire floor of imported perfumes. And a baby grand piano to serenade you while you decide between the Lacoste sunglasses and the Kate Spade bag. Owned by the incredibly powerful Zacarias clan (one of the original Lebanese families to arrive in the zone), the Shopping Monalisa represents the rediciously high-end products available in CdE. The cheap Adidas knock-offs available at all of the street stands are the opposite end of the spectrum.
Entering CdE from the "Puente de Amistad" (Friendship Bridge) from Foz do Iguaçu. Traffic is chaotic even at the end of the day when things are winding down. Scooters are particularly aggressive.
The free trade zone (FTZ) has a large number of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Lebanese and Syrian immigrants who run import/export businesses...usually trading in electronics and domestic appliances. And of course Chinese textiles. "Casa China," "Shopping Taipei" and other big wholesale markets are common in the commercial 'microcenter'.
The large indoor gallerias are barely visible through the explosion of street stalls that crowd out the sidewalks and spill onto the streets. It is almost impossible to walk through the city without constantly walking through these small stores, which can be pretty overwhelming.
And returning to Brazil the next day...a beautiful view of the Paraná river over the friendship bridge. It will be a tough decision about where I am going to live. Foz do Iguaçu seems much less dangerous and certainly a lot more habitable (i.e., I had a great sushi lunch on Sunay in Foz before taking the bus back to Asunción). But a big part of this project is about the chaos of Ciudad del Este (and how people *do* manage to make it habitable)...so living in Brazil would be counterproductive to my research project.
Decisions decisions...
In any event...back in Asunción and continuing to pester the head office of Fundación Paraguaya.
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