All day tourist day 🙂
Tour bus picked us up at 9:10am and took us to Iguacu Falls – very cool walk along the pathways and very impressive the size, noise and amount of water of the falls.
Amazingly few Brazilians – most Argentineans and Europeans… interesting… well… not so surprising – I’ve lived in Brazil most of my life and never even thought of coming here to see this!
After the falls we stopped at a buffet style restaurant where we ate a bit – well – more like a lot – feijoada, cupim, farofa, guarana, suco de acerola and all the Brazilian food I missed quite a bit!
The afternoon was dedicated to Itaipu – the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world in terms of megawatts produced.
It’s a “joint” project of Brazil and Paraguay but the story goes that Brazil basically paid for it… Paraguay pays it’s share now with electricity.
Paraguay uses only 7% of the energy produced, selling the remainder 43% back to Brazil. This 7% supplies 90% of Paraguay’s needs.
Brazil in turn utilizes 93% of the energy produced supplying 20% of our energy needs!! Crazy.
Apparently the new Paraguayan president wants to increase the price at which they sell the electricity to us. According to the deal signed back in 1973 the price cannot be readjusted until 2025. This has been causing some friction between the two countries along with a land reform the Paraguayan president promised the people before being elected. A good chunk of land in Paraguay is owned and run by Brazilian farmers. The people are now protesting against this Brazilian position and demanding that the Brazilians leave their country and land… uff…
Back in the hotel waiting for the torrential rains to go by and then go out into the city again.
Tomorrow we’ll be back on the bikes riding to Sao Pedro do Ivai – Fazenda Barbacena!!
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