4/10: Off to Paraguay and the world's best waterfalls ✈️ 🛂 🥩 🌊
Flying from Bulgaria to Paraguay turned out to be easier and cheaper than one would imagine:
- Take a low-cost flight from Sofia to Madrid;
- Get a direct 12-hour flight to Asuncion operated by AirEuropa.
We landed on Tuesday morning and went straight to business to gather all local docs needed for our Paraguay residency.
Applying for the residency in 4 days
Many foreigners use a Paraguayan law firm or an international agency to help them with the residency application (normally $4-5k), but in our case we decided to save ourselves this expenditure and instead put our Spanish and people skills to work by aplying fully on our own (if you are interested in applying yourself you can get my concisely summarized steps here). With some good planning, questioning, moving around town, and a lot of patience, we managed to file our applications on Friday (thus getting the job done in 4 business days). One can also do it in 3 days, but it might as well easily take 5 days or more. Things come up (like Interpol misspelling my name..which could have blocked my application). So you need to pay attention to details.
[!Tip] TIP! If you are a patient, detail-oriented, process-thinking person (with reasonable Spanish), then you can totally apply on your own within 3-5 business days and pay less than $1,000 for the application for Temporary Residence.
If you are interested to do so, get my notes here.
If the above description does not apply to you, you can hire local lawyer. Another potential option is for me to help you out fellow Bulgarians. As I get inbound requests for guidance, I am considering plan my next trip together with some of you and guide you through the whole application process: first preparing the docs in Bulgaria, and then getting all ready and applying in Paraguay.
Enfoying ze carne :)
After successfullying applying, we celebrated at the fabulously delicious buffet-style steakhouse "O Gaucho" - $35 for an all you can eat buffet of freshly grilled carne coming at your table every 5 minutes, until you decide you have had enough.
Paraguay is very well know for its beef. You can find quality cuts and very nice restaurants for about $15. Additionally, you can definitely get raw meat from local shops and eat super nutrious food for super cheap (compared to European prices).
If you are someone like me...you can eat at 50% cheaper than in Bulgaria: eggs, steaks, along with some veggies & fruits. As far as I understood Paraguay does not produce much food outside of beef.
So if you are looking for more local food than just great meat at even better prices, you might head north to Bolivia (read more about it in our next section in this series ;).
Freezing on our way to the phenomenal Iguacu waterfalls
There is not really much extraordinary to see in Paraguay (please message me if I am wrong and missed something worthwhile). The landscape itself is super lush and green to drive around. We greately enjoyed a scenic 6-hour drive on the first row of the second floor of an intercity bus. Busses in Paraguay were surprisingly modern - with large semi-bed seats. The only annoying thing for me was the aggressive air-conditioning. I personally can't stand super cold air-conditioning - largely prevalent in the US, Middle East and Paraguay...
Anyways, surviving the cold spell was worth it as we reached the breathtaking Iguacu waterfalls right outside of east Paraguay at the border between Brazil and Argentina. Many said the Argentinian side of the waterfalls was nicer. To me both the Argentinian and Brazilian sides were equally amazing and if you have two days to spend I highly recommend visiting both. Additionally, on the Brazilian side, I really enjoyed exploring the Belmond hotel and I heard Itaiupu Dam was very much worth seeing as well, though we missed it.
Life, safety, and community in Paraguay
After Iguacu we went back to Asuncion where we spent a few more days exploring the city and the communities. I read that Paraguay's capital is the cheapest global capital and this might actually be tha case.
I found the city unimpressive... or as a friend described it: a "basic city with a cute lovely vibe". The neighbourhoods Villa Mora, Recoleta, and areas around Shopping Del Sol are the nicer ares where expats live. That is where you have nice shopping malls, bars, cafes, new modern high apartment buildings aaaand that is about it. You can read a deeper dive into the Asuncion neighbourhoods and real estate market here.
On the even brighter side, Asucion boosts a high level of safety. I went around many parts of the city and never felt in danger. I also met multiple expats living for quite some time and all agreed Asuncion is a very safe place to live. Since I will have to visit more times to finish acquiring my residency, I definitely plan to spend longer time in the future and get to feel more what it is like to live in this city.