Dam engineers with hard hats and hard-ons
Saturday, March 4th, 2006After the rude awaking on monday morning, thankfully the day got better. The night saw most of the hostel turning up at a local carnival party, somewhere between a free party and a redneck ho-down, but an excellent night dancing around in the dirt to DJs and a samba band, what a way to see out the carnival!
The next day I had to escape before the endless partying killed me, so I took an overnight bus over to the Iguaçu falls and spent the day sleeping and recovering while it pissed it down outside.
Today I came up smiling and was even up before breakfast started at 7:30am – now there´s a first (and realistically a last).
The Brazillian side of the falls are located in a corner of Brazil referred to as the three frontiers as it borders both Paraguay and Argentina. In the morning I went to see the Brazillian side of the falls, very nice they were too, and could see across to Argentina on the other side.
In the afternoon I went down to see the Itaipu hydroelectric dam, one of the biggest this and largest that etc and also claimed to be one of the seven modern wonders of the world. After half an hour of cheesy corporate promo video, telling us how wonderfull it all was and what a good job they´d made of it, we jumped on a bus and headed for the dam. A photo opportunity missed was of the large sign greeting us on the roadside as we approached: “Welcome – prepare to be excited!!!” with a photo of a man with a big smile, not unlike the election signs that are plaguing Mexico at the moment (and which it would seem Gwyn has a hand in). I can assure you, I was wetting myself!
The commentary over the bus speakers helpfully informed us with such interesting stats like the amount of concrete poured in each day was equivalent to a 22 and a half storey building, the amount of steel used could build 319 slightly small Eiffel towers etc. – you get the idea. All of this was interspersed with synthesized lounge jazz music, which is perfect when looking at all this industrial shit. This is obviously where Ministry went wrong. Well by this point I couldn´t contain myself as I tried stiffling the laughter. The German engineer types were not amused.
On the journey back through town I passed the border to Paraguay, where lots of people got on with bags full of cheap electronics as the Brazillian government taxes technology at around 100%. So effectively I`d seen three countries in the same day, which is all very clever but ultimately pointless, but good all the same.
Crossed the border over to Argentina today and will go to see the falls from this side tomorrow, then get the bus down to Buenos Aires, which promises to be one of those places I´m going to get stuck for quite some time, looking forward to it.
Ed