Finally reachin Paraguay after long busrides we now stood in a 3 hour line getting through. The border was full of argentinians going into the much cheaper Paraguay to shop, much like norwegians go to sweden or finland for the same purpose. Being very varm and humid down in the flat Paraguay we were sweating the hole time and didn't get into the city of Encarnacion before mid afternoon. Got a hotel and went with a bus out to the old ruins of Trinidad, an old jesuit mission. The jesuits came here to protect the indigenous from the slavehunting brazilians and spanish and so they built them own cities were they could offer them this protection. 2 jesuits governed cities of up to 5000 Guaranies(paraguay indians). Eventually, they got runned over by the spanish, who ruined the cities. So today there are only ruins left of this great story. We spend the late afternoon until sunset walking around there, being two of extremely few tourists at the site. The lonely planet states that this is one of the least visited Unesco site in the world and I can see how that can be true. We sat by the side of the road as the sun set waiting for a bus to pass. Eventually we got one, and we rode it back to the city, straight into the setting sun. Because Paraguay is so flat, you get the same sunsets here as the ones you see on Lion King, and I could here the "naaaaatsiimenjaaaaaa, bababiitsababaaaa' going through my head as we drove back into Encarnacion.

The jesuit ruins of Trinidad Waiting for a bus

There we spent the night at the hostel before we got on a bus to the capitol of Paraguay, Asuncion, the next morning. We got there late afternoon that saturday. Walked around the whole evening and had a few beers. The city is beautiful and apparently full of money. Paraguay is said to be the secondmost poor country down here after Bolivia, but we hadn't really seen real poverty so far in this country. But there was traces of it in Asuncion. About 100 meters from one of the most beautiful government buildings, just down a small hill by the side of the river, we saw people living in shacks. Incredible contrasts. And we wanted to visit the biggest park in town, plaza Uruguay, and as we got there and walked into it we saw hundreds of tents of tarp and plastic being put there in between the trees. These are some homeless people that we never really found out why were allowed to be there, but that we think are a kind of nomads moving around the whole time. We saw the same type of people in Ciudad del Este right next to the bus terminal and our taxidriver told us that they would soon be gone. "People from the camp" he said. We dig too much into this issue, but it is evident that something isn't quite right there. Anyways, we got a city bus back to the terminal around midnight and got on an overnighter to Ciudad del Este on the brazilian border. Sunday we tried to get to the brazilian side of Iguazu falls, but the lack of time and reales(brazilian money) stopped us from doing that, so we returned to Paraguay and instead visited the Itaipu dam. It is the second largest dam in the world. 9 km long. Could run through all the crazy numbers like "enough steel to build 380 eiffeltowers", or I could just say it was BIG. And it generates crazy amounts of electricity for Paraguay and Brazil. Being an environmental engineer student it was actually quite interesting and we did enjoy our time there, especially when the tour was free. Hitched a bus back to the city and had a pizza for dinner before we crashed in our hotelroom, utterly exhausted from walking around all day in this heat. monday morning we got a bus to Argentina and Puerto Iguazu and eventually got to the Iguazu falls. Spent the whole day out there at this new natural wonder of the world. An immense waterfall out in the middle of the jungle between brazil and argentina, I can see why people would vote it a natural wonder. It was a wonderful day, and standing on the mouth of the Devils throat, looking into the crazy amounts of water falling into the gorge was something I had been looking forward to and it didn't disappoint me! Rafael was also delighted to be there, as the pictures shows. We spent the night at a hostel in Puerto Iguazu, before going back to Paraguay early next morning. Iguazu falls

There we went to see a zoo which the company behind Itaipu dam was obliged to build after flooding huge areas of pristine rainforest, displaying the local fauna. I loved it, being able to see big cats like the panther, puma and jaguar up close. Being in a zoo seing animals living right in those areas that we have been walking in and sleeping in in our hammocks gives new perspective than before. A jaguar is not only a jaguar anymore. And of course it's even more different with those animals that we have seen ourselves, like the macaws, toucans, and many more. After the zoo, we got back to the terminal and got tickets for Sao Paulo. The busride is 15 hours. It's basicly the same from either Brazil, Argentina or Paraguay, but the price from Paraguay is less than half, for the same ride. So the choice was obvious. Getting our 6th paraguayan stamp in our passport we were now of for Brazil and my last day in south america. Upon reaching the 20 million monster of a city we quickly realized that this would not be cheap. Our hostel was almost 30 dollars a night. That is crazy expensive being south america. We walked around trying to find a place to chill for the night having some wine and good food, but hence these prices we ended up with crappy pizza and some skool(brazilian beer). Later I saw in a norwegian newspaper that after Oslo, Sao Paulo is the secondmost expensive city in the world. Go figure. I had a good last night in Sao Paulo and the next morning I said thank you and goodbye to Lizzy after travelling with her for about 6 great weeks and got on the metro to the airport. After I met Lizzy and Kirsten on lake Titicaca, and Tal and the others a week later, time has flown by and as we have been travelling superfast and not chilled almost for a moment, I hadn't had time to realize that the trip was coming to an end. And it came fast. Suddently I was sitting in Aeromexicos boeing 777 looking down at the rainforest, Chaco, Bolivia and Peru passing me buy as I enjoyed a free Corona beer thinking: "It's over".