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Published: October 10th 2007
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Having departed the lovely Santa Teresa, we headed south on our flight to Foz do Iguacu. This is the town on the brazillian side of the falls. Thankfully we landed on our feet again in terms of hostels, the lovely Hostel Natura was to be our home for the next 2 nights. Run by Eduardo and his mum, it was a really friendly and homely place, with only 2 other Swedish girls staying there. When we arrived the heat was sweltering after coastal Rio, but we tramped down a dusty road and checked in. A lovely open air communal space with a kitchen, bar, tv area was perfect for lounging around. Beside it a deck outside overlooking 2 man made lakes was where meals were served-delicious home cooking from the mum ensured we ate well. Hell, we stuffed ourselves. After the mozzie massacre of Ilha grande, (where i got 18 bites on my right foot alone) we even treated ourselves to using the mosquito net. I bonded with a big black lab called Hasta, who was a cheerful and charming brute. The ladies preferred an extremely ugly handbag mutt called Suzie. she had a ´tache, that´s all i´m saying!
Our
first outing was to Iguassu falls on the Brazillian side. Clearly appearing to be sucker tourists we got latched on to by a tour guide who said she´d follow us around the park helping us, after describing how much fun the boat trips were. We were skeptical (who, me? i know, hard to believe...) and agreed to lose her at the first chance. When the shuttle bus pulled up to the stop where the extortionate boat rides depart from, (the sort of thing that is only done in the presence of a parents credit card!) she announced "this is where we get out". "Eh, no" was the reply, and it was clear to see from her crestfallen face that she wasn´t getting her commission from this attempt. She disappeared after the next stop, and we were free to explore on our own.
Iguassu Falls are the largest in the world in terms of volume of water, so to see them was pretty amazing. Despite not all flowing in one spot (which i thought would be much more satisfying as a spectacle) any one of the number of individual waterfalls was a whopper in its own right. There was tons
of spray and plenty of mental birds flying around the cliffs, only outnumbered by snap-happy tourists.
After taking plenty of pics ourselves, and almost getting our lunch stolen by adventurous and opportunistic small dog sized rodent (called a Coati), we headed off for the geeky part of the day which i was looking forward to, Itaipu Hydroelectric power station.
I know, doesn´t sound like a riot, but it is the biggest dam in the world, so i knew it would be pretty hefty. Boy, did i underestimate it. For the geeks amongst you i recommend looking it up (on google maps, good view of it). Iguacu falls was big, but itaipu was a monster. its generators use 10 times more water than Iguassu. It can produce 14GW of electricity, which satisifies 90% of paraguay´s demand and 25% of Brazil´s at the same time. They have even built a 20km river for the fish to swim up to spawn. The reservoir has 5,000L of water for each person on earth. it streches 178km from the dam. big. really big.
Unfortunately for us the most impressive part of Itaipu was not on show when we were there, which is
the spillway. Th¡s is the overflow for the reservoir, which is opened in the wet season to ditch some water. It can discharge water at 40 times the rate of Iguassu! It is designed like a ski jump to throw the water into the air, to reduce its erosion potential. (but a fast way to make a grand canyon i hear you say!...)It would have been amazing to see it open. To give you an idea of the scale, it is 400m wide! We even popped into Paraguay whilst seeing the spillway, upping the country count nicely! Having seen Itaipu, Iguassu seemed like a babbling brook. We did a tour of the inside of the dam (which is hollow, like a hollow Toblerone) in our hardhats, where some men stood around pretending to work, staring at screens. You could probably fit 6 full size soccer pitches inside it, end to end.
After that we headed from the land of gigantic wiggling arses (they really are huge, amazing what selective breeding can produce. perhaps fleeing Nazis are to blame?) and skimpy speedos across the border to Argentina. The delicious Skol beer was no longer available, but i had a new
brew to try, Quilmes (not bad at all). We then stayed at the Hostel Inn, which is a much bigger hostel than our previous one. Tons of backpackers everywhere, but they all seemed like decent folk. A good sprinkling of red faced Irish too. There we watched the Pumas pummel the Irish into French soil. Great. The first taste of Argentina is bitter...
We gave Iguazu (spelt differently in Argentina, a right pain in the arse) another chance to impress us, as they say viewing it is completely different from the other side. True enough, we got up very close to it and felt its might and spray, and manys an "ohh" and "ahhh" were had. More of a panoramic view from Brazil, more in your face in Argentina. On either side there are copious amounts of national park which house many curious and possibly deadly animals. Billions of butterflies on the Argie side, which I for one thought were nice. Kate was more dubious of their intentions...I also found a dead beetle that was as big as my middle and index fingers combined. Kate didn´t enjoy it when i produced it unexpectadly as much as me.
After
that, we got on our 18 hour bus trip to Buenos Aires. One simply must get a bus in Argentina. I´m tempted to kidnap a CIE official and show him how things should be done. For €60 we got huge reclining seats, coffee and biccies galore, 2 course dinner, soft drinks, 3 movies in english, and breakfast. You´d struggle to find a hostel that could rival that! It should be mentioned that i panicked before the main course was plonked on my lap, and ate both mine and kate´s desserts, thinking that was all i was getting!
The heart also fluttered when the drugs dog came on the bus at the border and sniffed my bag keenly (as i had lots of chocolate and biscuits in there) and i happened to be reading a book about a drug trafficker at the time!
We´ve also added a few extra photos to some previous entries, so check them out if you have time.
¡Hasta Pronto!
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MichaelM.
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Photos and diary
Doris Lessing isn't in it with ypu. Great log and photos. Keep it up.