Research on moving to South or Central America

Hi Zimobog,

I created a new topic on the Paraguay forum for better views.

Please can you tell us more about the kind of information you are looking for?

Regards,

David.

Thank you, David. We are still at the "read and compare everything" stage of our planing. I have been comparing Paraguay, Nicaragua, and Ecuador in particular. Cost of living, opportunity/ease of starting new business, and freedom are the three largest factors.

We are used to a semi-rural lifestyle and live very frugally.

What might you suggest?

As a Paraguayan I can say that Paraguayan people are friendly especially towards Foreigners, in fact, they'll put you on a pedestal just for being american. You have to be careful though, Paraguay doesn't have rules that regulate prices on products there, so, if you want to buy things cheaper, you'll have to ask Paraguayan friends to do shopping for you, otherwise, Paraguayan Merchandizers may rise their selling price because they know that dollar has more value than guarani, therefore, they'll try to trick you on prices, but in supermarkets that's not a problem, the problem in supermarkets is that you have to be very careful when you go to the register because cashiers add the"comission," despite that is a nice country to live, people are very friendly and helpful specially with Americans, Paraguay has two national languages which are Spanish and Guarani. Guarani is an indian language that we inherited from our ancestors,as well the terere and mate, those are the national drink there by the way, nevertheless, despite the fact that we have two languages we mix them and we speak what we call YOPARA and in the borders with Brasil we mix Spanish, Guarani and Portuguese, that happens in the city where I was born Ciudad del Este and that also happens in Pedro Juan Caballero and our Spanish has Argentinian slang because we have borders with Argentina too, I think you'll be white well living in Ciudad del Este, is kinda like Miami and you have Foz do Iguazu(Brasill) crossing the Puente de la Amistad (Bridge of Frienship) grocery is cheaper there and you have all the electronic an appliances in Ciudad del Este downtown way cheaper than other place, Brazilians, Argentinians go to Ciudad del Este because of that, and you can make friendship with other foreigners like, Arabs, Brazilians, Argentinians, Chinese, Korean, people there because there's a lot of foreingers that has stores there, anyway, I hope you can decide where to go! good luck!