We had a 6:30 wake-up call and a good breakfast at the hotel and were underway by 8:00. Angel wanted to try to get our passports properly stamped, but it was the Paraguayan Independence Day and the proper office was closed. It seemed to take forever to leave the city but by 9:45 we were out and into the rolling hills formed by eroded Cretaceous basalt flows in the Paraná Basin . The good, paved highway is heavily used by trucks so travel was slow at times. We pulled into a small open-air eatery on the highway for lunch and ordered pasta for everyone. It was a manioc pasta that was quite good. The meal cost next to nothing and everyone left satiated.

By mid-afternoon the prospect of visiting the Itiapú Hydroelectric Project, crossing the border, and seeing the Brazilian side of the falls during the remaining daylight was bleak. We scratched Itiapú and went to the border. Angel made the mistake of stopping; we probably could have driven through the Paraguayan side, given the holiday. Fortunately, the migraciones agent was so tired; he gave us all exit stamps without even looking for our nonexistent entrance stamps. The Brazilians waved us through without stopping us. We raced through Foz do Iguaçú to get to the park but arrived 45 minutes after the gate closed. Had I known the closing time we would have gone to Itiapú instead.

We checked in to the Don Pedro I Hotel, an excellent place just a few km from the park entrance. Todd and I went to the indoor pool and watched the Brazilian women in their nearly nonexistent bathing suits, chattering away on the other side of the pool.

For dinner, we walked 500m to a buffet-style dinner show. Jayne was worried that the shorts she was wearing might show more leg than anyone here had seen before. There were several hundred people there from all over Latin America. The food was great and so was the show. It had bottle dancers, a bolero, tango, samba; several incredibly scantily clad samba dancers gave the show a definite Brazilian flavor. It was a great final evening. I told Jayne that I thought she was overdressed in those shorts.

After the show a lot of people went shopping outside where a few vendors had booths, I helped Jayne pick out a blouse with the help of one of the bottle dancers. Then we returned to the hotel and went to bed around 12:30.