Itaipu and the Departure of our Traveling Buddies (Day 6):
Itaipu is the largest hydroelectric plant in the world. It is considered one of the seven wonders of the modern world! We had already seen some pretty impressive sights with what God had done in nature, but this was quite different. In a different form of respect I really admired what man had done with this plant. In a video that we watched at the beginning of our tour they did a good job of explaining how they have worked hard at being environmentally safe and how they have used the plant's resources to teach many students.
There were a few things that I caught in the video that stuck with me. It was hard to pay attention to every detail with Elisa not being so interested and wanting to play. One thing they said was that they believed that they had a little help from the Lord in getting the plant going. Once the construction was completed they had expected to wait approximately 90 days for the lake to fill up to the dam's capacity. It just so happens that they got the worse flood in over 40 years and it took only 2 weeks to reach capacity! Normally, flooding would be a problem, but this time it was helpful.
A couple of interesting statistics they shared in the video and on the bus tour were that this plant, which borders Paraguay and Brazil, is 90% of Paraguay's energy source and 20% of Brazil's energy source. I thought that was pretty impressive. Also, the huge white tubes that you can see in the pictures and in the video I have posted can produce enough energy for 2.5 million homes - each! Whoa!
As we went along on the bus tour we made a couple of stops. As you can see from a couple of the photos the dam's spillway is open on one side. The tour guide said that we had really good timing because the spillways are closed 90% of the year. That was really cool to see. When the spillway is 100% open it is 40X the force of the Iguaçu waterfalls. We also went through a tunnel that I understood to be in the dam itself. This tunnel led to the Paraguay side of the dam. I thought that it was interesting and a little strange that this tunnel is the only one in the entire country of Paraguay.
The dam's spillway.
The dam (with the white tubes I mentioned above).
Another angle of the spillway.
Through the rain on the window of the bus you can see the white tubes that produce so much energy. They really are impressive... and huge!I thought that I would go ahead and add this picture for you. This was taken at the bird park that we went to on the 3rd day of our trip (Part I). In the picture you can see that I am standing in front of a caged anaconda snake. This snake's name is Lady Monica. Lady Monica is approximately 10 meters in length (a little over 30 feet)! She was found just 120 km (approx. 75 miles) from the bird park. The reason that I am posting Lady Monica's picture here is because the location of her discovery was actually in the mouth of the river that flows into the lake that is on the other side of the Itaipu dam. It is pretty crazy that there are animals like her just out there where people are farming and fishing. Anyway, I thought that the picture of Lady Monica would be interesting for some of you.
After we spent a couple of hours on this tour Jennifer and I headed to lunch while Dani and Alexandre went to check out of their hotel. They met us at the restaurant later (Pizza Hut if you must know) and then hit the road. Alexandre had to be at work on Thursday and it takes 2 full days of driving to make it all the way back to Porto Alegre. We really enjoyed spending so much time with our good friends, getting to know a different part of the country together. We are blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives here in Brazil.
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