The Brazilian side of Iguazú : Iguaçu

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After three days of doing little more than sunbathing, swimming and eating, we thought it was about time we got back down to some ´real´ travelling.

The Brazilian Cataratas (falls)

We hired a taxi driver for the day to take us to the Brazilian side of Iguazu to get our bus onward to Florianopolis. Before we got the bus, he took us to the falls, a bird park and the amazing Itaipú dam. Our driver (can´t remember his name, lets call him Jorge for simplicity) collected us at 8.30 am and we set off for the the Brazilian border. After passing through immigration we drove on to the Falls. The National Park on the Brazilian side is pretty different to that on the Argentinian side, when you enter the park you have to hop straight on a bus to the viewing points. Along the way there are a few stops where you can join tours. They do hikes in the jungle and rafting. We decided to skip this as we had already done a boat ride on the Argentinian side (and we didn´t have much time). When we got off the bus to head down the trail to the viewing points, we started seeing lots of coaties (co-a-tees). I´m not sure what kind of animals they are but cute and all as they were, they struck me as being the Iguaçu (let´s use the Brazilian spelling) equivalent of Trafalger square pigeons. They were doing alot of foraging in and around rubbish bins. On the Argentinian side (even though we didn´t see any coaties there) there were lots of signs all over the place warning that they bite and not to feed them!

After very little time in Brazil we were fast discovering two things that Brazilians don´t seem to like, queueing (fair enough but not so great if they keep skipping ahead of you in the queue) and maps (they don´t seem to think that they are necessary). Unlike on the Argentinian side, we had no map to guide us around the Brazilian side except the ones on signs at intervals. As we walked along the trail we began to see some falls that we hadn´t been able to see from the Argentinian side, Saltos Dos Mosqueteros, Tres Mosqueteros and Rivadavia. We also had an incredible panoramic view of the Argentinian side from Saltos San Martin around to Bossetti. There were lots of little viewing points all along the trail too, giving us an impressive overview of the whole thing.
Obligatory photos taken, we headed back to the taxi and popped over the road to the bird park.

The bird park
The photos are really the most important thing here so i´ll not waffle on the description. We proceded through a series of aviaries (extremely large cages where human and bird mix) and walked past a few cages with some more exotic specimens in.
Our favourite bit was the butterfly and hummingbird aviary - giant butterflies like in the Argentine national park, and the most amazing tiny hummingbirds - buzzing about almost faster than the eye, you can only really see them when they´re feeding from a plant or tree, and they do indeed hum - the little ones very quietly!

The Itaipú dam
To give you an introduction, the Itaipú dam is the world´s most prolific hydroelectric dam - it´s not the biggest (I think 3 Gorges beats it there, and it´s not the highest or the one with the largest lake (quite small by area comparitively).
It does, however, provide Paraguay with ~90% of its electricity needs, and Brazil with a staggering 25% of its. On hearing these statistics I decided I had to take a peek and our driver deposited us there in order to take in one of the 6 free tours that leave daily.
We sat and watched the propaganda video which talked about the construction (40,000 workers, more concrete and steel than anything, ever) in the auditorium and then climbed about air-conditioned buses which took us to various viewpoints so we could view the dam for ourselves. You can see the pictures and probably won´t spend much time on them - but when you see the giant white penstocks (10m+ diameter) think that the water flowing down each one of those drives a truly gigantic turbine - which in turn, after an equally enormous dynamo, generates enough electricity to power comfortably a city of 1.5 million inhabitants. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And there are 20 of these babies!
Oh, and the water overflow bit to the left of the dam has typically 40 times the amount of water flowing through it than the entire Iguaçu/Iguazú falls.

When they said the Rio Paraná (Paraná River) was a generous one, they were right!

You can get more info here...
Itaipú Dam

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