Tres Fronteras - the global hotspot of south america





Martes, 13 de Abril, 2004 Living in Puerto Iguazu, situated at the extreme NW corner of the peninsula of Misiones in Argentina, one catches glimpses of soya fields and forest -- Brazil and Paraguay several times a day between gaps in trees, or on the rise of a hilly road. The huge swift Rio Parana seperates Argentina from eastern Paraguay, flowing down south 1400 km to la ciudad de la furia -- Buenos Aires and thence the Atlantic. The Rio Iguazu flows between Brazil and Argentina to meet Rio Parana after cascading down the cataratas that createso much spray as to condense into a cloud rising into the sky, a very ethereal sight in the fires of dawn. This confluence is the region of tres fronteras, where one can see all three countries. Living in India, the names Paraguay and Brazil and Argentina had a faraway and exotic aura about them. Thus these brief glimpses were all the more thrilling.

One day Señor Carlos decides to bus it to Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, a 30 minute ride for purchasing stuff for the house -- sugar, chicken, laundry soap and so forth, things that are much cheaper there. Vamos, MArtin, a brasil !says he.

Arise at dawn, sit in the garden dispelling the chill with mate caliente, sipping it from the bombilla, a pulse of heat to the lips, the caffeine expanding the mind and the numerous vitamins fortifying the body. Around 7.30 we leave, walk on the caminos de la tierra, on towards the centro. A brief stop at the Argecam cambio to exchange pesos for brazilian reals, now its one to one here. The bus is coming down the road, we hail and get on from the back, its a brazilian bus, pay the 3 peso fare. We swing by the terminal de autobus from where buses depart for all parts of Argentina, thousands of km to the south till the very tip of patagonia,as well as north into brazil, thousands of km to Rio and further, or west to Paraguay. In relation, our bus has a small route .. puerto iguazu to foz do iguacu upto the banks of the Parana, where a bridge leads to Paraguay.

A fine sunny morning, and the sun is already fast dispelling the dawn coolness. We rush past the forest on one side, and soon are at the Argentine customs and immigration, just before the bridge of friendship. Everyone alights with bags and all, lines up to present passports or ID cards in case of misioneros. Three agents, each with a computer. Carlos scans the scene quick, chooses the smallest line and zips there. Its a lady, and she looks at the visa on my passport, punches the number into the computer, and stamps salida. Back on the bus, which now rolls on the bridge over the deep swift Rio Iguazu, argentina to one side, brazil on the other, both sides equally forested with the same vegetation, narrow beaches in certain spots with canoes. The channel here is deep, and hence not much leisure use. The end of the bridge, and BRAZIL !!!

We fly past small houses, and the signs on the road in portuguese, curiously all advertise shopping complexes in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. Later this makes sense, when i see what a major commerce zone the tres fronteras is. The outskirts of the city are like any city in the developing world, with the delicious heterogeniety of shops, small industrial outfits, vulcanization, machine shops, ceramics, albeit with lots of trees. Past a large, low house curiously on 3-4 m high stilts. Soon the density of houses increase, and tall 20 storey apartment buildings painted in pastel or bright oranges and pinks come into sight. Avenida das cataratas. People start getting off at numerous stops enroute. Pass by grey city buses, which are mercedes or volvo in great condition. The people already look a bit different from argentina, the african races make their appearance. On the horizon, amidst skyscrapers, is a huge golden dome with 4 minarets surrounding it, unmistakably a mosque, and a big one at that. Arab names also flash by in restaurants and shops. The transition from the quiet little town of puerto iguazu to this part of foz, like a suburb of a major city is vety sudden. Reminds me of versova or juhu in bombay. HUge supermarkets too, Super Moffato. Lanchonetes, the dhabas of brazil. different views of the skyline, and at one point i gasp at a vista, the city suddenly seems huge. But thats ciudad del este in the near horizon, and the river being hidden,looks like an extension of foz.

Past estacionamento bismillah, and the Last stop - the frontier with paraguay, by the puente of amistad, another friendship bridge, this time between brazil and paraguay. The place is immensely crowded and alive with vehicles and people milling about.We get down, and Carlos heads to the neighboring refreshment stand, where we have a coxinha and share a guarana soda. the coxinha is pear shaped and delicious, a patty of potato with chicken frango inside and fried golden brown with breadcrumbs from outside, 80 centavos. I could eat 5 at teh very least, but we get on, stroll towards the bridge just to see the river and the frontier, and then return to the market, purchase and head back. Thats the plan .

Well, nearing the bridge, after crossing the roads that are a mix of people and bikes and vehicles zipping along, we see ¨pedestrian entrada for paraguay. do you have your documents ? would you like to go to paraguay too ? Sure says I, and with that we enter the bridge. No exit formalities in brazil. perhaps there´ll be something in paraguay ?

A nonstop stream of humanity heads both ways, walking, in vans and cars and buses and on innumerable 100 cc motorcycles. Headed in the opposite direction, towards brazil are the hormigas..people carrying a big rectangular box on their back, another on their head. The first glimpse of the cigarillos, the carriers. Carlos explains that paraguay grows a lot of tobacco, and hence has 15 or more cigarette brands, very cheap and of a comparable quality, that sell for 30 to 40 centavos per chicita, a standard packet of 20. These are then smuggled into brazil and argentina, where they are sold to shops at 15 centavos each, which then approach a selling price of a peso to consumers in the streets of puerto iguazu. Even then its a good deal, as the cheapest argentine or marlboros are 2 pesos or more. Half the population is into this import export business. Cigarrettes make it by various ways, by thousands of hormigas, many of whom recross the bridge several dozen times a day. By vans and luggage compartments of buses. By canoes across the rivers at night, slipping past the argentine coastguard. The contrabandas have lookouts to note the activities and whereabouts of the coastguard, and accordingly choose other routes across the river.

Even then, such is the volume of traffic that the marines always land up with some confiscated goodies, which then often repose in some of their pockets. the hormigas on the bridge carry the loads openly. Indeed, more than half the pedestrians are these cigarillos. Seems like the brazilian cops and customs allows them into brazil, and then catches them, confiscating the stuff. But there are so, so many hormigas that even the police can catch but a fraction of them.

More on the hormigas later.

In midst of the crossing, we look down. its a sheer deep drop to the river, and we speculate one might break ones bones on imapct with the water. a huge island sits north of the bridge, and there is the Itaipu hydroelectric project in the horizon. Gazing far into the peaceful forested landscape is in marked contrast to the swirling chaos on whose edge we were.

Looking towards Ciudad del Este, the bridge leads straight into a strange set of skyscrapers, some painted in unorthodox colours, a very muslim green and gold, a maroon one, a tropical orange...billboards scream out Panasonic, Monalisa...and at the end of the bridge, its bienvenidos a paraguay. Carlos walks nonchalantly past men in uniform,no one checks for any entry visa or anything like that. I am in paraguay, just like that, half hour after having arrived in brazil.

The stream of traffic bottlenecks on entrance, and in the other direction seems like a bigger stream of cars, vans and motorcycles darting into every available inch of space. we walk on towards a mazoe of lanes on the right side. arrays of youths sit on the ground, their backsagainst the walls, hormigas waiting for the next assignment. the sidewalks now look out of dn road in bombay, with sellers of pirated CDs and DVDs, electronics, brand name shoes and clothes, watches, sunglasses. Little shops and big shops line the sidewalks too, and from time to time there are subterranean entrances to huge department stores in the basemnents of the buildings.

after carlos buys a 100 m reel of thick fishing line for landing seruous big ones in rio parana from a shop that specializes in fishing gear with top names, we enter one such department store. Fluoroscent lights light the numerous aisles, and the place looks half like a godown, much like sam´s club, no fancy interiors, boxes everywhere. we leave our bags at the counter, and go inside. aisles and aisles of cheap chinese stuff. plastic toys at 12- 50 cents, prices marked in US $. hardware tools, clothes, notebooks and stationery, flasks, household stuff, cheap electronics. in no time i have picked up quite a bit of general merchandise, blank audio cassettes to record some chamame programs, a few planes for the chub, a bag of marbles for the kids, a magnifying glass and gardening shears and so on. a girl circulates with a tray with tiny cups of sweet coffee at the pàyment counter. I pay in brazilian reals, having not brought any US$, and not having any guarani.

each real note has a bird on one side, a hummingbird graces the one real note. its a chinese owned store, as evident from the chinese characters on the bill of sale.

out on the street, with the road and the sidewqalk encroaached uponj by numerous carts including food vendors. We see teh name of another shop, mina india. i wonder if the folks are from india, seems like a far fetched possibility, india is so far away, and this is in the middle of spanish and portuguese speaking south america. but there are koreans and chinese, arabs and turks too. we enter the mall, and carlos asks a young proprieter of an electronic games shop, all pirated, and she menmtions there is a cloth store on the secondf floor whose owner is from india. we catch the escalator, and on top is a cigarette store, with a few hormigasoutside, another huge fishing store with camping accessories, many units lying vacant, and then mina india. the walls of the mall are unpainted, gray, and the tubelights give the place a sombre appearance. Entering mina india, we leave the bags at the counter,where mills about a bespactacled man. could be indian for sure. carlos asks him, estan brasiliero _ towhich the man replies, no, es de aqui, y originalemente de la india. i ask in hindi, india.. kahan ke ? new delhi. follows a small conversation in hindi. I wondered how come he reached here, making a living on the other side of the world, where they do not speak any language spoken in india.

turned out he has been here for 14 years, and was the first indian businessman in paraguay, having come there by way of brazil. IMporting clothes and fabrics mainly from India, some from china, and selling them at double price, which is quite fair considering the transport involved. the prices are not too high for this part of the world, like a pant amounting to 3 or 4 dollars and a shirt or cotton print dress in atractive colours, 2 or 3 dollars. Mina India has branches elsewhere in brazil and argentina too, as confirmed by lia who visits the Mar del Plata branch. what a strange relevation.. i did see a whole district of textile shops in buenos aires, around azcuenaga and ave corrientes, but in paraguay, who would have thought of it ? I find that the argentine peso is not accepted here, only reals, dollars and guaranis. it was accepted when the peso was pegged to the dollar, but after the crisis convertilida, it changed a lot, and hence. so i go out to the cambio next door, and buy reals.. here they give 9 reals for 10 pesos. then pay for a shirt for sonali and a dress for rosa.

Strolled up two others, greeting the owner with salaaam alaikum. the owner, mr baig introduces me as bei9ng from india, and i proceed to chat with the two bangladeshis. hindi they do not know, so with the opening words in bengali, their mouths open and they press my hand and me with questions, where do i live - argentina - oh, what business am i in here in paraguay ? none, i´m a student - are you musulman _ says arif, the fisheyed one. no, hindu, but que importa.. i find i am mixing castellano with bengali or hindi, now having equally broken fluency with all three. you must come to our houses, we live near the mosque, all of us bangladeshis, there are about 50 of us. please ask the owner the next time you are here, and come visit us... whew...carlos looks on, with a smile, professing to understand the conversation in bengali, hindi and spanish nodding knowledgeably now and then.

ciudad del este, previously known as puerto alberto stroessner after thelongterm dictator, has this very strange vibe. like the intergalactic bazaar in star wars. we exit mina india after further chat with the owner, who goes to india to visit family every 3 years or so. to a cigarrette store, with more than 20 varieties of cigarretes, a lot of customers, testifying to the sheer volume of the cigarrette business given that there are cigarrette shops on every block. An armed guard stands with a carbine, overkill ? perhaps not. the frenzy of commerce with undertones of smuggling and mafia and reports of arab terrorists funnelling money and arms, together with the openness of it all, mixing with the images of the skyscraper painted in the muslim masjid deep pistachio greeen, 4 tiny minarets on the corners on the rof painted in gold. The only time i saw a skyscraper with minarets was in a picture of some arabian or egyptian city. The air smelled of meat on a spit, as the sun grew increasingly fierce, that was amplified by the tremendous noise and fumes of vehicles, and the relative lack of trees.

Chinese and KOreans have gained an economic foothold in poaraguay, by special gifts to the rulers, like a fleet of vehicles for the police a nd army, and thus hey get to import planeloads and shiplñoads of items from china and korea dutyfree. ciudad del este then serves as the exit distribution point for south america, and thus has attracted arabs, lebanese, turks, chinese, koreans and many other folks from across the world, all speaking the language of commerce. casa zhuang.

After stopping at a gun shop and a guitar shop ( no, no second hand guitars are sold in ciudad del este, yeah right, but i buy a set of guitar strings. and there is a nicely crafted 3-4th size classical guitar made in brazil for 55 dollars), we head back towards the bridge and brazil.

Its now around 11.30 or so, and the sun cooks up a soupy haze with rio parana humidity and vehicle smoke. A multitude of mobikes make the place look like a beehive. On mobike tries to creep into a narrow space between a parked car and a van, and slips sideways. The load attached to the carrier must be at least 100 kg. we and some others help the motocyclist back on, and he zooms off, sans thanks. its a rough place, no niceties or polite formalities.we cross the street in a series of manoevers,avoiding darting bikes. Thats the only way, and so do hundreds of people, as there is no place to cross, no signals. On the footpath leading to the bridge is a steady stream of the hormigas, the sherpas with their loads of cigarrettes, the box on the back having dimensions of approx 1 foot deep by 2.5 ft by 1.5 ft or so. i guess carrying maybe 100 cartons of 10 pcks of 20s each. two such packs form the load of a cigarillo. These youths stem from all racial backgrounds, as is paraguay, a strange tapestry of races, east europeans and germans mingling with native guaranis, other mestizos, arabs and chinese. there are hundreds of them on the trail, all headed to brazil, many more sitting down resting, with a cigarrete on ther lips. at the halfway point which is the official frontier, brazilian cops pretend not to notice them, like not seeing an elephant. carlos gleefully pointed that out. down on the brazilian bank, is a stretch of scrubby jungle with boxes jettisoned by hormigas from the bridge, to avoid capture by brazilian cops. down there on the bank were also hundreds of hormigas sitting, perhaps detained by the customs. waiting it out, to be set free , to come back again and again.

the line of hormigas suddenly stopped at one point, someone came from the oppoisite direction bringing word that the cops were active atthe end of the bridge. so they retreat to the paraguayan side of the bridge and huddle there. meanwhile on the road vans full of people and boxes full of cigarrettes and other contraband, notably electronics passes on. its a matter of luck, for every bus or van detained, 5 others pass thro. they cannot afford to stop every single vehicle. that would be absolute deadlock for traffic. sometimes bribes can work, other times not.

humid, sweaty, claustrophobic. at the brazilian end we see hundreds of helmeted heads on bikes, some motor taxis, a risky form of taxi, others carrying cigarillos, milling around like a swarm of flies, the red and green looking like bobbing plastic balls. all mobikes entering brazil have to enter a special lane, that is just barely one bike wide. hence the bottleneck. insane, the amount of jostling and fighting going on in that mass to gain entrance, everyone trying to get in at the same time, and its a mass of bikes stuck. some souls jump the line by zooming ahead and then inclining their running bikes under the cable fence. we laughed at one such soul and he grinned back, ear to ear, as he zipped forward to the check post. each bike has one or tow riders, with numerous bags and cases.todo comercio, martin.

a thick moustachoed agent barks at every pedestrian to open bags, abreo la bolsa, carlos smoothly tries to slip past, buit the agent motions him too. its evidently a formality, as the agent briefly glances at the unzipped daypack, not inside, and we are back in the streets of brazil, in the market area outside the bridge.

now its time for the original work at hand, to buy the chicken and coconut milk and other household necessities. we trudge up a sloping road, spot a vendor of hamakas coming down, haggle a bit and get a good cotton hamaka for 20 reals. he asks one more for a cafe. anyway, past footpath stalls selling artistic mates, out of gourds with sides etched with fire, aluminium rims, and metal stands. Super moffato, the supermarket, into whose cool confines we proceed. Aisle after aisle, this time i compare prices of things in reals against prices in pesos. some thinbgs are cheaper, some the same, others like beans actually more expensive, as argentina, misiones in particular exports a lot opf beans to brazil, whose demand is very high. this market in foz however has a greater diversity of stuff, like coconut milk, a brazilian staple, and soya sauce. JUst a river seperates the two countries, with landforms and vegetation pretty much the same on both sides, however the people in foz come from other parst of brazil, bringing their tropical africa influences cuisine, as well as other communities of lebanese, turks, chinese and japanese. an hour goes by. i speak in fledgeling portuguese asking the price of the bauducco cakes, that we ate hundreds, bought in pepes store in chicago and supermnercado brasiliero on somerville ave in boston, startlingly the price here in foz is the same as in boston, 3.30 reals. buy some persimmons at the fruit counter, the only fresh stuff to grace the cart laden with 5 kgs of sugar, coconut milk, soya sauce, notebooks, chicken, sausages, milk, pasoquinha, peanuts,soya butter andso on. Then leave the cart with the bags and head for some refreshments, some skol pilsner and more coxinhas and kibbehs. i think i prefer coxinha to kibbeh. a nice lifting buzz, and we poke about other stores, carlos searching for a store with the mythical price of 9 reals for 5 kg of washing soap that someone in the street had told him. the shopkeepers laughed. to a store where everything was 1.498 reals, just like a dollar store. to a bicicleteria to buy a tire puncture repair kit. bicycles here are expensive, at 40 dollars for a kids bike.

pick up our bags and head back to the bus station near the bridge, have another rond of brahma and coxinha. the bus arrives, swallow off a last beer, and board.

there is a tourist in a llama cap, an argentine reading the HItchhikerçs guide to the galaxy in english. off the bus, but we leave the bags behind, pass thro migracion, and back in. in a jiffy we are in pto iguazu centro, where we get the number 2 bus pronto. 3.30 pm back at home, we sit on the upstairs porch, squinting in the bright sunlight accumulated in the retina, a small meal of arroz con pollo, chub awakes hearing teh conversation. rosa wonders why we took so much time just to buy some chicken and milk.. quantos cervezas toman ustedes !?

Miercoles, Mayo 5.On this cloudy morning, Carlos and me have mate and then set off for paraguay once again, forewarned by Rosa not too come back too late ( and not too many beers either ). Its been cloudy for almost a week, with spells of extreme heavy rain, that makes all the vegetation extremely fresh and turgid. The weather is cool enough to wear layers.