Trip report: Asunción, Paraguay, October 2024.
We spent a few days for shopping in Asunción at the end of last month, traveling by bus overnight with NSA (semi-cama ARS 75k, cama 85k each way), which wasn't too uncomfortable but it's a long (16+ hours trip) with one stop at the border, and possible one more for coffee / bathroom. Since flights are now well over USD 500 with Paranair we said we'd try it.
We rented an Airbnb in the Recoleta / Villa Morra area, for USD 21 per night, well equipped, comfortable, and with a pool on the roof to cool off after the hot days (30+ degrees all day every day, 40+ in summer). The area contains at least 4 shopping centres, and some more specialized outlets as well like Nissei for electrodomestics and Feria Asunción for inexpensive clothes. We picked an apartment in front of a Biggie 24hr kiosk, though calling it a kiosk isn't accurate, Biggie beats El Jevi hands-down, you'll find everything from an ATM, frozen meat, fresh vegetables, soft and hard drinks, cooking supplies, ice-cream, basically everything you need to get started in your Airbnb. Biggie would be considered expensive in Paraguay, but there was also a Super 6 supermarket close by for more serious food purchasing.
Travel by Bolt (no Uber) in the area I mentioned is about USD 1.50 - 2 per trip.
My main reason for going was to buy Semaglix, a Paraguayan-produced equivalent of Ozempic. A tube of Ozempic here, with an OSDE 40% discount, costs ARS 240k (or at least it did last time I checked, 3 months ago, I'm sure the price has gone up since). Semaglix costs approx. USD 70 per vial, the method of application is less convenient, but hey, it costs almost 4 times less.
We did some clothes and shoe shopping, all the shopping centres offer tourist discounts, which can generally be accumulated with any price reductions in the shops themselves. There are lots of offers, for example Moschino shoes for USD 99 (normal price USD 459), I got some Goodyear shoes (USD 40) for myself, clothing items (T-shirts, and so on) from USD 2 - 10. Xiaomi had a reasonably low spec (5Mpix camera, 128GB memory) smartphone for USD 85 (reduced to 75 with the discounts). In general, prices are much lower than here. One problem is that the brands are sometimes unfamiliar, many are from Brazil, so research is needed to find good, reliable products.
Next time we go, we hope to bring back some electrodomestics (airfryer, pressure cooker, and so on) and maybe some tools for me (Xiaomi have nice man-toys). We might go by car next time, to bring more stuff back, though this article reminds us that we only have a USD 300 allowance:
Aduana dispuso un nuevo procedimiento para las empresas de transporte y micros que realizan tours de compras en el país trasandino. El objetivo es evitar largas demoras y conflictos en el paso fronterizo Cristo Redentor
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The inspection at the border on the way back was cursory, load everything into an AFIP van with an X-ray machine, nobody asked about the Semaglix, nor the various clothing items.