The area around Iguazu Falls is on the border of three countries; the falls themselves are on the Iguazu River which forms the boundary between Argentina and Brazil, however not far downstream is its junction with the Parana River that marks the border with Paraguay.
The meeting point of the Iguazu and Parana rivers. The bridge links Paraguay (left) and Brazil (right). And is not yet open. The photo is taken from Argentina.
Each of the three countries has a town nearby. At the junction (and therefore the tripoint) itself are Puerto Iguazu in Argentina and Foz do Iguacu in Brazil. The Paraguayan city of Ciudad del Este is a few km north, on the west side of the Parana River, opposite the northern parts of Foz do Iguacu.
Bridges link Foz do Iguacu with both Ciudad del Este and Puerto Iguazu, but to get directly between Argentina and Paraguay there is a small ferry. While that leaves from a port just north of Puerto Iguazu town centre, the Paraguayan side’s terminal is not really anywhere, about 8km south of Ciudad del Este and not serviced by easy-to-track buses. There’s allegedly an hourly bus from the central bus station to the viewpoint overlooking the tripoint near the ferryport, but information about this bus is sadly lacking in the bus station. It’s also a useful journey to take if you want to visit Salto de Monday waterfalls in the south-west of Ciudad del Este’s suburbs, but again, they’re not an easy place to visit if you’re reliant on buses and don’t speak Spanish. I am, I don’t, so I didn’t.
However, there is a direct bus that links Ciudad del Este and Puerto Iguazu. It passes through Brazil, but as we’ll see, not really.
The bus from Ciudad del Este to Puerto Iguazu
Ciudad del Este’s central bus station isn’t very big. There’s a large inter-city coach station about 8km west of the city that most long-distance services use, but strangely I never had to use that one. Buses to Puerto Iguazu in Argentina seem to always use the door on the far right, from the point of view of being inside the bus station. There’s no obvious indication of this, nor of the bus times; they’re allegedly frequent but the impression I got was that they were hourly. The bad travel blogger in me failed to make a note of what time we left, although it looks from the timestamps on photos I took later that we left about 1:40pm, so work on that basis.
You buy your tickets on the bus, either from the driver or from a conductor who passes through occasionally. There’s a sign on the side of the bus near the driver’s cubicle that lists prices, which if I recall correctly were 5,000 Peso or 30,000 Guarani; I do recall it was cheaper to pay in Guarani.
There’s a lot of traffic in Ciudad del Este, especially once you’re on the main road to the border. It’s a dual carriageway but there’s a lot of pedestrians and parked vans along the roadside, and pretty much every car is headed to the frontier where they may, or may not, stop. There are bus stops along this route – certainly through Ciudad del Este the bus is a normal city bus rather than an intercity express service.
Ciudad del Este is one huge marketplace. This is just one example.
Now. This is important, and online is often mentioned as the cause of some worry about admin; I’m here to tell you you don’t need to. When I boarded the bus, I specifically asked the conductor to drop me off at Paraguayan emigration, because I assumed I’d need an exit stamp in my passport. However, this request was not passed to the driver, because we passed right through border control without stopping and before I knew it we were on the bridge over the Parana River and on the way into Brazil. I took the logical view that it would probably be the same on the way back, but it did mean I’d have to come back this way. Then, on the other side of the bridge, we also passed straight through the Brazilian frontier, aside from using a standard bus stop nearby.
The journey through the Brazilian town of Foz do Iguacu took just over half an hour. Again the bus operated like a local city bus and utilised some of the street-side bus stops, before reaching the edge of the town and the turn towards the bridge over the Iguazu River into Argentina. And guess what? We again passed through Brazilian emigration as if it simply didn’t exist.
I mention this because there’s a lot of information about ‘this is what you need to do to get stamped in and out’ at the various frontiers while taking this route. My experience is, at least as of October 2024, you don’t actually need to. I’m not saying that you can enter Brazil visa-free even if you need a visa for Brazil, but what I am saying is that if you need a visa for Brazil, you don’t require one if you’re just passing through. And by extension, if you’re visiting Brazil to see the town or Iguazu Falls from the Brazilian side, you don’t seem to need to tell the border staff. At least in practice.
The bus does stop at Argentinian immigration, however (after making a stop at a large supermarket in the tax-free no-mans-land just before it). Everyone deboards at immigration, including both third-party nationals (like me) and Mercosur citizens (everyone else). It’s a long corridor with quite a few immigration agents in booths, but because everyone crossing the border passes through, and there’s a lot of buses from elsewhere, let alone cars and vans, that it can take a while. There are automated immigration machines for Mercosur citizens to use but no-one seems to use them. Beyond the immigration officers, there’s an x-ray machine you need to put your bag through, but then you just step out and wait for your bus to come through.
From here it’s just a short ride into Puerto Iguazu; the bus station is pretty central and the city itself isn’t very big so it’s only a few minutes from the border to leaving the bus. The whole trip took me around an hour and a half; it should take an hour but you have to allow for traffic.
The bus from Puerto Iguazu to Ciudad del Este
My original intention had been to take the ferry (and then visit Salto del Monday), but I couldn’t because I needed to not be stamped back in to Paraguay, and I knew if I turned up at Paraguayan immigration, they’d Ask Questions that I thought might be difficult to answer. So, assuming the bus doesn’t stop at the border unless you absolutely beg, I felt this was the better option. It must be said I wasn’t 100% sure this would work, but I figured everyone else would be walking past and not popping in, that even if the bus did force-stop at the border, I could still breeze through unnoticed. Even with purple hair.
Puerto Iguazu’s bus station isn’t very big, and consists of about 6 or 7 bus stands next to a series of travel agents. The buses to Ciudad del Este go from a stand about 2/3 of the way along from the centre – if I recall correctly the stand has a small sign highlighting it. On the window of the main ticket office window is a poster with the bus times; on my visit they were hourly at 45 minutes past (except the first bus at 6:15am); the last bus is relatively early, departing 5.45pm. Again, you can buy tickets on the bus in either Guarani or Peso.
The bus stops at Argentinian emigration where everyone gets off to get their passports stamped. Note there’s no luggage x-ray machine in this direction. Again, there’s automatic immigration machines for South American citizens but no-one seems to use them; on my trip a couple of locals tried but it didn’t seem to work for them. Then you again leave and wait for your bus to come through – in this direction it helps to remember your bus’ registration plate because there’s quite a few buses and you don’t want to end up going in a different direction.
Crossing the bridge between Brazil and Argentina.
It then goes over the bridge into Brazil, and again passes through Brazilian Immigration without stopping. I say ‘without stopping’ – there is a normal bus stop just beyond the frontier where people can board and deboard, and some people do, but there’s no compulsory passport control. Note too that while the bus passes through a considerable amount of Foz Do Iguacu, it generally doesn’t stop anywhere. There are advertised buses from Puerto Iguacu that specifically go to Foz Do Iguacu, that aren’t this one, but I think if Brazil is your destination you can also catch this bus and hop off somewhere in the centre.
Again at Brazil’s emigration point, before the bridge over the Parana River to Paraguay, there’s no requirement for the bus to stop, but on my trip some people did get off (and on) here. Also on my trip, there was a huge amount of traffic from around this point onwards; our journey over the bridge wasn’t all that much quicker than the people walking it.
The majority of the bus deboarded either at the Paraguayan Immigration stop, or one stop beyond. But, as I suspected, there was no obligation to deboard here to go through immigration. Rather, most people left here because they were taking the bus primarily to do shopping. The part of Ciudad Del Este around the border is one huge outdoor market, generally at much cheaper prices than Brazil and Argentina; I’m sure there are questions of tax and smuggling that a more ethical travel blogger would ask. I, myself, was almost tempted to see if I could pick up a knock-off phone to replace the one that got nicked in Buenos Aires. Or possibly the same phone, I did think of that. But instead I stayed on to the bus station – the only person to do so, as it happened.