Why everyone should love Paraguay.

As some of you readers may remember, buying foreign product in Brasil is costly. Depending on what you buy, you can face enormous taxes forcing you to pay 150% more than you would be paying elsewhere. Books, are a perfect example of this. For more details, see the previous post.

Before I learned how to shop in Brasil, I paid almost US$50 for two $15 books. After however, I bought three $15 books for R$19. That's about US$15.

How is this possible, you may be asking?

The answer, is Paraguay.

For those who are unfamiliar with South American geography, Brasil is enormous. It literally dominates the continent of South America in size with a whopping 8,514,877 square kilometers, landing itself as the 5th largest country on the planet. Because of its enormous presence in South America it makes sense that it would have many neighbors, one of which is Paraguay.

Paraguay is appealing to many Brazilians for holidays and vacations for many reasons. However of all the people I've asked, the biggest reason by far is this:

No tax!

That's right. Paraguay can buy things from the United States for muuuuccchhh less money than Brasil because of a much lower importation tax. So some ingenius people buy these desirable products and simply cross the Brazilian border. Same product, much less money.

Paraguay is a great shopping destination and this exchange student's favorite loophole because things are cheap! Paraguay is Brasil's one stop shopping point for all things American. In the South at least. Clusters of these small marketplaces intertwine to make one colossal network of shops. In cities like Londrina, there are sectors of the city completely dominated by this Paraguayan market.

Rivaling New York's Chinatown (in my opinion), anything from electronic equipment to tennis balls can be found at a heavily discounted price! After playing with tennis balls that are as pressurized as Jack Johnson, finding new balls was a breath of fresh air. You have no idea how relieved I was to find this place.

In summary, I love Paraguay. If any of you folks ever go to southern Brasil, be sure to keep Paraguay in the back of your mind if you need anything.

Isso é tudo! Tá mais!