Expat Life

It's day 6 of blog everyday November. My last two posts are in Spanish and Portugese, the first one talked about my first day in a new house that I'm renting for a year. The second was a bunch of pictures my girlfriend and I took in Foz de Iguazu. Well... It's Sunday and a whole lot has come together here in my new house and I guess now is as good a time as any to talk about some really cool and weird things here.

Paraguay

So I decided to settle in Paraguay for a few reasons. They have 100% hydroelectric power, which means fuel shortages won't have a tremendous impact on my life, and electricity is super cheap... like 6 cents/KwH cheap. My house is about a kilometer from a paved road... but I have fiber internet(coming soon). The climate doesn't really get cold enough to snow, but 5-10 degrees(C) isn't too uncommon. It does get pretty hot here being nearly tropical. The import taxes on electronics and other things are fairly reasonable. Brazil you can expect to pay 100% import taxes and Argentina can be even worse with some things... Like the official price of a Nintendo Switch is over $1000, while here it's not much worse than shopping in a high tax city like Chicago. As for things that are locally sourced... it's roughly half the price.

My House

Is a recently constructed 3 bedroom / 3 bathroom of about 150 sq meters(1650sqft). It's got an outdoor kitchen(quincho) which is pretty standard in this area... carne is almost always on the menu. It also has a automatic landscaping lights that are dusk-activated as well as electric fencing on the exterior walls (also fairly common). There is a pump to provide extra pressure for the city water as well as a few thousand liter tank in case the city supply goes offline for a couple of days(uncommon), but the water is a little hard. The water bill is something like $8 a month. Rent here is comfortably sub $1000/month.

Services

I have a gas stove, and a 10kg(22 pound) propane tank refill runs $15; Delivered. The cheapest fiber internet plan is 160MBpS and is $17/month. One thing my girlfriend (from Brazil) is really surprised by is cash on delivery for household items like home appliances and furniture. While one annoying thing is I can't update google maps, so my dirt road remains unnamed and I have to send a pin to everybody who needs to deliver items. But they are more than happy to come to the pin, drop off a TV and get a wad of cash. I have yet to find a delivery for a major appliance that costs any different than walking out of the store with an item. Most people here drive compact cars and I think this really helps the economy here function. Delivery for food on the other hand runs 0-$2... usually around 70cents.

Markets

Any common items can be found here. Paraguay is kinda known as the shopping destination for Argentina and Brazil... Shopping malls near the border are like state line casinos in Nevada. The range of goods goes from generic to brand name. Some things I still haven't been able to find: the exact espresso machine I want or any immersion circulator(sous vide). In general things from Brazil are even cheaper than in Brazil. Electrolux brand appliances to food items, and even Petrobras gasoline. How a state owned oil corporation exports fuels cheaper than they sell it domestically is rather baffling to me... might have something to do with the hydro-electric dam and electricity exports to brazil... but who know? (yes this is an invitation to leave a comment)

Long Term Plan

I'd love to get things here settled enough to start building elsewhere. I need a drivers license and a car... a permanent residency etc... Then I'll feel comfortable enough to buy some land somewhere and build my own little slice of heaven somewhere.

In the meantime I'll be putting some effort into making this place home and of course, building out HoneyComb and the SPK network. Hopefully my internet will be installed shortly and I can resume building/testing in full.