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Published: March 22nd 2012
Itaipu
Dam it!We were woken in the night barely half an hour after we had got to sleep by the 'children' (our younger group members) round the pool until 2 am making a racket - no doubt down to the party alcohol. Aah well. However, we did feel sorry for the other people staying at the hostel! Up for brekky just before 7.30 am - fruit and bread and ham and cheese toastie with plenty of coffee and tea. A few of the rest of the group were up at 8.00 am.... and probably back to bed after breakfast to sleep off the effects of the night before! We decided to go to the Itaipu Dam which provides nearly 100% of Paraguay's electrical needs and around 25% of Brazil's so we left the hostel just after 9.00 am to catch the free bus down to themain road then the local bus to Foz de Iguacu main Bus Station and then a further bus to Itaipu which was much further out of town than we expected. We are not sure why but we didn't pay for latter bus although others (though not all) seemed to. We arrived at the dam around 10.40 and discovered
that the next tour with 2 spaces available to see the outside as well as the inside generators was not until 1.30 pm. With nothing really to do and nowhere else to visit for three hours, we decided on the 11.00 am Panoramic Tour which was basically a bus ride around the dam with a couple of photo shoots with a half hour introductory film in the Auditorium beforehand. Call us cynics and even though clearly a very impressive piece of engineering and one of the world's largest electricity-producing power stations - once you have seen one dam you've seen them all! (Been to Aswan and Hoover dams previously!!) Lots of water behind a large concrete structure with some big pipes! After the tour, we treated ourselves to a drink and a small snack (allegedly chicken but would have failed the blind tasting test I suspect). Back into town and a wander round the main street. A soulless place - no shops of any note, all somehow rather scruffy and nothing worth buying. We then caught buses back to the camping site which somehow were all perfectly in sync so no waiting for connections. There was no water in our hostel part of the campsite last night and still none when we got back so could n't have showers straight away.
Dinner was pasta made by the cooking group. Group-made food is becoming tedious nearly 9 weeks on!!
Water finally back on and we had showers and went to sleep.
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