Brenda & I have found ourselves in the land of Foz for the past week.  It’s my second time here and I’d been looking forward to sharing the experience with Brenda.  “Foz” is the short nickname for the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguacu which, in Portuguese, means “Mouth of the Iguacu”.  Foz has a population of about 350k people and is home to not just one but two of the seven wonders of the world.  First of all, Foz is on the tri-country border of Paraguay, Agrentina, and Brazil and is adjacent to Iguazu Falls which is one of the seven natural wonders of the world and is, by far, one of the most spectacular places I’ve ever been.  Secondly, Brazil & Paraguay share Itaipu Binational – a hydro electric plant on the Parana River between the two countries which was named as one of the seven modern wonders of the world and is the world’s largest generator of renewable clean energy providing power to around 30 million Brazilian residents (15% of Brazil’s population) and 5 million Paraguayan residents (75% of Paraguay’s population).

Our visit to Foz is proof that it’s definitely worthwhile to visit places more than once.  On my first visit, I was amazed by the fabulous waterfalls of the Iguacu River and took at least a hundred photos and videos – none of which captured the true beauty and sound of nature.  On this visit, I didn’t even take a camera with me and truly appreciated “living in the moment” but Brenda couldn’t resist taking just a few pictures so we do have a few for this post.  Here is a link to a Youtube video that is probably as close as one can get to seeing the beauty of the falls without being there:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjTto03jy54.  Also, my first visit was only for a couple of days and I didn’t have a chance to visit the hydro electric plant or get acquainted with the the city and it’s wonderful people – both of which have been highlights of our visit this time around!

Foz & it’s People

As tourists (or “travelers” as we prefer to consider ourselves) we find that we’re often “accosted” by taxi drivers, business owners, or just plain derelicts hoping to score our business or take advantage of us by inflating the cost of food or services.  As hard as we try to avoid being obvious gringos, it’s pretty hard to blend in like chameleons – especially when we don’t speak the native language of the places we visit.  Over the course of our foreign travels, our skin has gotten pretty thick but we do often find ourselves being cautious and skeptical of those who seem a bit too eager to help so, even though I’d been in Foz before, our radar was on high alert when we arrived and were approached by a super friendly taxi driver.  After learning that all cabs in Foz are professionally run and metered, we settled in for the ride and had a wonderful conversation with the cab driver who gave us information about visiting the area and even offered us his business card in case we needed another reasonably priced ride!  After checking into our hostel, we walked to dinner at a quaint Brazilian restaurant where a bilingual server gave us a personal description of almost every item on the menu so we were actually able to order something unique that we both enjoyed.  We’ve come across people at the bus stops who have helped us board the right busses and we’ve struck up conversations with people we’ve met just sharing a bus ride.  Most notably, Foz has a pretty active Couchsurfing community and we were invited to attended their weekly meeting where we met even more wonderful and friendly people.  We have to say that Foz is, by far, one of the most friendly places We’ve ever been and everyone seems genuine with no personal agendas – just an interest in conversation and a passion for fun.

Foz also has a pretty interesting blend of architecture inclusive of simple adobe block homes, traditional wood frame buildings, some spanish/colonial buildings, ultra modern high rises, european style apartments, and even a hostel made entirely of repurposed shipping containers!  Although we didn’t stay there, we were invited to enjoy the common area as guests and even attended a Couchsurfing party there.  This was a truly great place to hang out and meet fellow travelers from all over the world.  To see more of the hostel, goto:  http://www.hostelworld.com/hosteldetails.php/Tetris-Container-Hostel/Foz-do-Iguacu/92439

A few more cool things about Foz:

1. It is a very international city whose residents represent more than 86 countries.
2. There are several universities in the city including a growing university that is associated with the hydroelectric plant and is one of the leading engineering schools in all of South America.
3. You can go to a park where you can watch the sunset at a point where rivers merge and divide Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina and you can see cities from all three countries from that point.
4. There are bunches of sporty and super efficient Fiat & VW mini pickups driving around that you can’t purchase in the US and make me miss my Subaru Baja.
5. We didn’t see any street dogs around Foz and learned that Brazilians (at least in this area) make efforts to spay and neuter their pets and promote adoption and rescue.
6. Foz seems to have a pretty active athletic community.  There were quite a few runners and cyclists and there are some great paved bike and pedestrian routes both around town and outside of town.
7. It just has a cool name!

Itaipu Dam:

Visiting the Itaipu Dam was a true highlight of our visit to Foz.  Learning about the plant actually started in our hostel where we met another guest who is moving here from Sao Paulo to begin working at the plant – he was here for his orientation and was extremely excited about his opportunity to go to work for the Binational Corporation.  I learned even more about the plant on the bus before I arrived when I struck up a conversation with a college student on his way to attend his renewable energy class at the university there.  He too was passionate about his studies and his hopes of gaining employment in a position that helps sustain our environment.

The Itaipu Binational Corporation came to fruition after years of negotiation between Brazil and Paraguay and began producing energy in 1984.  The plant has 20 generators in operation and 14,000 megawatts of installed power.  In 2013, the plant generated 98,630GWh of clean power which is enough to cover the entire world’s electric power consumption for about 2 days and would supply the entire country of Paraguay with electricity for more than 8 years!  To construct the dam, the Parana River was temporarily diverted and more than 12.7 million cubic meters of concrete was formed and poured to create the 7919 meter long dam which is enough concrete to build 210 soccer stadiums.  The iron and steel used to construct the dam would build 380 Eiffel Towers, the dam is about 65 stories high and the maximum discharge of water from the spillway is 40x the average flow of nearby Iguazu Falls!

In addition to it’s impressive mechanical, electrical, and structural engineering and it’s incredible contribution to providing clean power, the Itaipu Dam and power distribution plant has an extremely innovative business model.  I’m not quite sure I have all of the specifics but, basically, it is a binational company that operates like a private enterprise which generates significant profit but it’s also a “non-profit” in that all of the profits are re-invested into research & development, the university, and thousands of environmental and community projects that benefit both Brazil & Paraguay.

The plant bridges both countries and even has a formal “border” between the two countries which is interesting in it’s own ways – specifically that all signage on the Brazilian side is in Portuguese and all signage on the Paraguayan side is in Spanish.  There are a few other very unique differences a bit too hard to explain in this blog but lets just say that there is amazing collaboration between the two countries and all of the employees to make it work.  All of the employees are at least bilingual (Spanish & Portuguese) and most are trilingual including English.  The plant employs equal numbers of Paraguayans and Brazilians – pretty much everything is divided 50/50 including even the Senior Plant Controllers job.  For more info about Itaipu, goto:  https://www.itaipu.gov.br/en/press-office/faq.

Tonight is our last night in Foz.  Tomorrow we’re heading for Rio where we’ll spend our last week in South America.  It’s hard to believe our time here is almost at it’s end.  There is so much natural beauty, architectural beauty, and human beauty – ie. kindness here and we’ll be sad to go.  Already thinking that a 3rd visit may be in the cards.