Itaipu Dam, Foz Iguazu (Brasil side)
Puerto Iguazu, Argentina Side, South America
Day 292
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Happy Birthday Amelia!!! Hope you have the most beautiful day..we´ll be thinking of you..and gorgeous Sophia and Santos as you celebrate!
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1 Aus = 3 paesos
Language = Spanish
Itaipu Dam, Foz Iguazu (Brasil side)
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Iguazue means, Big Water¨ in Guarani (the local indian language)
Parana River means, ´Parents of the Sea´in Guarani
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Itaipu which means The Rock that Sings in Guarani is where the largest hydroelectric dam in the world is..and we saw it today. It was amazing.
We caught a taxi there and back for 100 paesos and the taxi driver, Freddy, was really helpful. We had to stop at the Brasil/Argentinian border on the way there and they somehow didn´t get it right and only stamped our exit from Argentina to Brasil..and forgot the stamp the re entry...so we were glad he checked for us.
He also waited at the dam while we went on a 2 hour tour which we were really grateful for....he wanted our business, but we also liked having him there waiting. And it ended up being 3 hours because we had to wait an hour to get in (the time in Brasil is an hour behind Argentina!!!)
The dam is located at the Brazilian-Paraguaian border and is very close to the Argentinian border! We stopped on the way there..and took a picture of the three borders from the bridge..it´s so strange!
The hydraulic resources of the Parana river (owned jointly by Brazil and Paraguay) form the Dam, which was started in 1975 and officially opened last year!
Thirty thousand people worked on the dam..and it is said that two of Rio´s Sugar Loaf mountains is how much was filtered away to make the dam! There was 15 times the amount of concrete used to built the Eurotunnel in Europe!
It stands 196 m high and is 7.76 km long! There was a lake created by this which is 170 km long and contains 29 billion tons of water...
The reason why they say a hydropowered plant is good..is for the environment..and so there are less emmisions!
Apprently each year Itaipu generates 75 twh of electricity which saves 67.5 million tons of carbondioxide emissions that would come from coal poer plants!
The cost of this dam was amazing.....we heard costs of US$ 20 billion!
We also heard there was a lot of damage to the area..and the animals..but the Brasilian and Paraquan govenments are trying to rectify this by regreening the area...
We learned so much about dams today...more than we did at the Hoover Dam....
It was just amazing to watch the films, footage and hear what the guide had to say...
I can see how it is the largest in the world, (until the one in Beijing opens).. Aparently this dam generates 95% of Paraquay´s power and 20% of Brasil´s power! It´s just huge.
We donned our hard hats....and looked over the plant closeup!
We got to look over the inside and outside of the plant which was good too...and actually crossed the yellow line which was the border of Paraquay and Brasil! We stayed on the Paraquay side for about an hour looking at the plant.
It´s so strange..we watched the Brasilian computer scientists watching the electricity output on the Brasilian side..and we also watched the Paraquay workers watching the electricity output on their side. It´s all very separate..but from where we were standing..which was on a balcony overlooking all the activity going on below..we could see them working for their respective countries!
Brasil actually pays Paraquay for the use of their plant as Paraquay only use one of the nine generators!
An interesting thing they told us..while we were standing on top of the inlet gate on the dam wall...was...that it was clogged with chinese barnacles that were causing a problem because they couldn´t close the gates properly and they were causing problems with the mechanisms...due to the fact that they breed so much...for eg they can fit one million baby barnacles in one mil of water!!!
Scary hey!
Anyway, all in all..it was a dam good day!!! Weird speaking (Greetings and thankyou´s etc) both spanish and portuguese (Brasil)!!!
And even more weird that they answer back in English!!!
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