Itaipu Dam from Ciudad Del Este

Date of Entry: December 14th 2015- December 16th 2015

Place of Writing:  Hostal Salta por Siempre, January 1st 2016

To get back in to Paraguay from Puerto Iguazu in Argentina you have a few options.  You can take a bus which takes you through brazil and across the friendship bridge to Paraguay, but it won’t stop and wait for you at the Brazilian border or the Paraguayan border so if you’re planning to stay more than a day this can be problematic. Sure you can get off and wait for the next bus at each border but that takes time.  Luckily, not far from the center of Puerto Iguazu is a ferry service, bypassing Brazil and taking you straight to Paraguay for 30 Pesos (3 CAD).  It leaves every hour on the hour until 5 or 6 pm and anyone in town should be able to tell you how to get to the ferry terminal, personally I walked it since it was all downhill.

At the currently mildly flooded port you buy your ticket, get stamped out of Argentina and then get on the basic car ferry as it makes the roughly 25 minute journey across and down two rivers, leaving you down on the embankment below the outskirts of Ciudad del Este, a city famous for it’s black market for Brazilians and Argentineans looking for everything from electronic equipments and perfumes, to guns and drugs at massive discount prices.

Once on the Paraguayan side you locate the Migraciones office and get stamped in (many countries require a visa arranged ahead of time).  From there you have a choice, a gruelling roughly half hour walk up a hill to the bus stop (Only gruelling if you’re out of shape or have all you’re stuff)  or find a taxi.  When I was there at least there were a few waiting for fares, though I’ve read this is not a guarantee.

My hostel is unfortunately on the other side of Ciudad del Este so the taxi costs 70,000 Guarani (About 15 CAD)  but in the 35 degree heat the idea of walking does not appeal to me so I pay and we zoom across the city, the friendly driver explaining all about Paraguay and even pointing out his house on our way to finding Hummingbird hostel, which takes a few tries, in the end it’s proximity to Macdonalds allowing us to get there.

I check in to a comfortable and clean air conditioned dorm for (8 USD)  and am greeted by the English speaking host who welcomes me warmly.  This place ends up feeling a lot like home and over the next 5 days I record an entire rap album there, but also do some touristy stuff, including this entries focus, a visit to Itaipu Dam.

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For those that don’t know Itaipu is one of the largest hydro electric projects in all the world and was built in the 1980’s in a joint effort between the Brazilian and Paraguayan governments, damning the Parana river and it now provides 80 percent of Paraguay’s total electricity, and just over 20 Percent of Brazil’s total consumption..  Basically a lot of electricity.  But it didn’t come without cost.  To make the damn work they flooded guaira falls, a set of waterfalls most agree were comparable to Iguazu in Grandeur, and that makes me beyond sad.  There is a beautiful poem about the destruction  the falls  from Brazilian Poet  Carlos Drummond de Andrada and I’ll share it here.

Here seven visions, seven liquid sculptures vanished through the computerized calculations of a country ceasing to be human in order to become a chilly corporation, nothing more. A movement becomes a dam. -Carlos Drummond de Andrade, “Farewell to Seven Falls”

Or my preferred translation and section of the poem: “even ghosts murdered by the hand of man, owner of the planet…Seven falls passed us by, and we didn´t know, ah, we didn´t know how to love them, and all seven were killed, and all seven disappeared into thin air, seven ghosts, seven crimes of the living taking a life never again to be reborn”

Okay down to the nitty gritty, to get to Itaipu from Hummingbird hostel it really is simple, you just walk down to the main street cross it and hail one of the frequent buses heading for Hernandarias (3000 Guarani, 0.75 CAD) asking the driver to let you off at the Itaipu entrance/visitors center.  This is important as to visit the dam you have to take an organized tour which leaves on a comfy air conditioned bus from the visitors center, a few kilometers back from the dam itself.  The tour is free though, and well organized though the schedule seems to depend on how many people show up.  There are some regularly scheduled ones at 8am, 9:30am, 2pm and 3pm Monday to Friday  and an extra one at 10:30 on saturdays, but when I went it seemed like they we’re leaving just about every hour.

I board the blissfuly air conditioned bus and after jsut about 5 minutes we’re off, driving along the main road then turning on to the private access road of the damn, the huge concrete structure looming in the distance ahead.

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The bus stops and our tour guide who’s been speaking through the microphone telling us all sorts of interesting facts about the river invites us to get out and look at the spillway, which in some ways is a cross between a waterfall and a giant waterslide.  It’s undoubtedly beautiful and across the river you can see Brazil, but as I watch the vultures gliding over the powerful spray I can’t help but think of the dead waterfalls that we’re once so nearby.  Still from this viewpoint you can certainly appreciate the massive scale of the dam, and marvel at humanity’s ability to harness some of the natural forces of this world.

We are eventually called back to the bus which takes us along a road below the damn giving us a still better idea of the true scale of the construction.  Sadly this is the standard tour and we don’t get to go inside, but if you want to do that you can book a special tour from the Brazilian side which will show you all the inner workings of this modern wonder of the world.  It’s huge and impressive, even if it still fills me with hatred.

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We come across to the Brazilian side of the damn for a different viewpoint of the spillway (sadly only one of three is open and flowing)  and of course of the damn itself.  Our time here is much briefer and just enough to snap some photos before climbing back on the bus watched from a distance by a Brazilian immigration truck.  I’m being me I’m tempted to take off running somewhere, just to see what happens.  But, not wanting to end up in jail I hold back.

From here we head back into the bus this time taking the road on top of the dam which provides even more panoramic views of spillway and diverted river, but also shows us the lake behind it, where I know somewhere the falls used to be.  I don’t know why but for me it’s hard to let go of the sadness.  this marks the end of our tour and we’re driven back to the visitor centre where I head back out to the main road and hail a bus back to town.

Itaipu damn is a nice half day trip, and for those looking to do more there’s also an animal refuge close by where you could potentially visit to extend the day, but in the oppressive heat I was happy to head back to the hostel and spend the rest of the day relaxing.

 

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