Day 163 - Iguazu Falls, Brazil, Paraguay and the Itaipu Power Station

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Today was our second morning in Puerto Iguazu and we were picked up early and whisked off to the Argentina / Brazil border. This journey took all of about 10 minutes. We had half-expected to see hordes of street kids astonishing us with their football skills as soon as we entered Brazil. In fact it turned out to be largely the same as Argentina, although all the signs were even less understandable - they speak Portuguese here rather than Spanish.

The first thing we went to have a look at was the Iguazu Falls and they were quite amazing. The Brazilian side is best for appreciating all the falls together with a panoramic view of nothing but white crashing water. There is a gantry which takes you to the best viewing spot and it feels as if you are surrounded by waterfalls (we think the figure was 270-ish degrees of waterfalls). After this we went to an ‘artisan market’ or tacky tourist shop depending on your level of cynicism, where you can buy really hideous and enormous split-open rocks containing crystals. The apparent idea is to give them pride of place in your home, which is an excellent idea if your name is Dell Boy or if you’ve ever played Premiership football. The best thing there was a coffee shop where the coffee - Brazilian naturally - was the best we’ve come across on our journey so far (first equal with a place in Quito, Ecuador). We had lunch in the city of Foz do Iguasu which was a traditional barbeque with a selection of meats delivered to the table on skewers the Brazilian way. They freely admit that Argentina has much better quality meat - we thought both countries might claim theirs is best - but the meal was delicious. And interestingly it was all beef, with a range of different cuts each with a surprisingly distinctive taste. Gemma established this with a very funny conversation with the waiter, where she was making animal noises and eventually got the response ‘yes is MOO cow’. In the afternoon we visited the world’s largest functioning hydroelectric power station (one of the 7 wonders of the modern world apparently). It was built by Brazil and Paraguay - it lies on the river that forms the border between them - but Paraguay had no money so they ‘paid’ for it by agreeing to sell their share of the electricity to Brazil for 30 years or so. There are loads of impressive statistics that as usual we won’t bore you with, except to say that each of its 20 turbines could handle the entire flow of the Iguazu Falls. It’s massive. As the power station’s visitor bus took us to the far side of the dam it means we have now visited Paraguay, albeit for 5 minutes.

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Comments

[Philippa]

power station
Hi, When I was there in 2001, the power station wasn't in use -so it wasn't very spectacular -nice to see your pictures. I thing I remember most about the Falls apart from the beauty of it all, is the heat! I hope you enjoyed it anyway!