Watch out around (not in) Asuncion! Some municipalities seem to have discovered that there is money to be made fleecing unsuspecting motorists!

It works like this: You're on the highway, a town comes up, speed limit is 40 km/h. Somewhere at the entrance of the town, where you're just slowing down a bit (but never all the way to 40km/h), a cop with a radar gun is hiding. He clocks you and radios to a narrow spot in the middle of town where you will be stopped, you and your bike will be appraised, and then they come up with some ridiculously high fine. It doesn't matter how much you're above speed limit. The town council has set a certain number of "Journales" which are then multiplied according to the offence to establish the fine. e.g. Being any number of km above the 40 km/h limit is "Velocidad no prudencial", that makes 10 "journales" and that makes 560.000 Guarani, a whopping 100€!! And they first talked about 1.6 Mio, then 1.2 Mio!!!

See photos:



Whatch out here:

Emboscada, 40km north of Asuncion
Coordinates:
S 25.07.480
W 057.20.549
Cost me 100€

Roque Gonzales de Santa Cruz, 100km south of Asuncion
Coordinates:
S 25.52.756
W 057.17.390
Cost me 50€

My friend Kurt was also stopped and had to pay somewhere on the road from Asuncion to Ciudad del Este. I don't know where exactly.

Strategy:
Locals say they just do as if they would stop and then hit the pedal. This didn't work for Kurt. He hit a roadblock 70km later and had to pay there.

The other way is just having 50000PG or 100000PG in the wallet. They usually take that then. Like my fine in San Roque would have been officially something like 750000, I only had 250000 in the wallet and they took that. Both times I got an official receipt. I had locals look at it, they said they're both genuine.

BTW, apart from US$10 I paid for crossing a yellow line on the way from Ciudad del Este to Asuncion 9 months ago, these were the only fines I had to pay in 1 year in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and southern Brazil. So watch out in Paraguay especially!

Good luck!

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“You mean people are going to mug us and steal all our money and kick us viciously in the ribs?” Terry Prachett