Itaipu Dam

On Sunday, we decided to visit the Itaipu Dam, which is an impressive bi-national collaboration between Brazil and Paraguay to develop sustainable power generation in the region. Construction on the dam over the river Paraná began in 1975 and was completed in 1984. The hydroelectric power plant at the dam produces approximately 79% of Paraguay’s energy need and 20% of Brazil’s. Paraguay exports most of the excess power back to Brazil making electricity Paraguay’s single largest export. In 2016, the Itaipu hydroelectric power plant produced the most energy of any in the world. The dam is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

Before leaving our hostel, we asked where to catch the bus to Itaipu. We were told “the terminal, you know the terminal? You can catch it there.” So we walked to the Terminal de Ómnibus and asked there for the bus to Hernandarias. It turns out we were supposed to be at the Terminal Urbano which was another 20-minute walk away. Upon arriving at the Terminal Urbano, there was zero information, and the terminal looked a bit like a closed market with a bunch of empty stalls.

We asked the driver of a passing bus where to catch the bus to Hernandarias and he pointed at the street in front of the terminal. We stood there on the corner awkwardly, waiting, trying to read the destinations on the front of the buses as they passed, but they all seemed to be going to the Centro. Since that was the opposite direction we wanted, we crossed to the other side of the street. A few buses, none going to Hernandarias, passed by and we started to wonder if we were in the wrong place again. When you know you’re in the right place and the bus doesn’t come, you can be pretty confident it’s just late, but when you don’t know if you’re in the right place, you could literally wait all day and it might never come. Finally a bus to Acaray showed up. We told the guy in the door that we wanted to go to Hernandarias and he said “sí, sí, ruta 4. Pasamos por allá.” He was quite convincing so we got on and went perhaps one kilometer before he told us we should get out again. Of course, we had paid the fare (3,000 guarani per person) for this ride, and we were still not much closer to the destination. Even worse, we now really didn’t know where we were. There was a couple waiting at the bus stop and we asked them if they knew where to catch the bus to Hernandarias. They were very helpful and told us to walk back to the gas station and the bus would pass by the corner. Just as we crossed the street, the bus showed up!

The bus dropped us off a few minutes walk from the Itaipu dam visitor center. It turns out there were three German tourists on our bus also visiting the dam. Miriam and Sebastian are also traveling for a year and had crossed into Paraguay for the day. Louisa is traveling for six months and was planning to spend more time in Paraguay. We entered the visitor center together where we were asked for our passports and then shown into a large, modern theater (seriously the most modern thing we’ve seen in a long time!) for a video about the construction and energy production of the dam. Afterwards, we were taken on a bus tour of the dam. There is one lookout point where you can see the spillway and some of the generators in the distance. Many of the clips in the video show huge quantities of water flowing over the dam spillways, but that only happens a few times a year when the water levels in the reservoir are high. Then the bus drives you around the entire facility, crossing into Brazil (don’t tell anyone we were there) and back again. 

The dam (it’s actually four individual dams) is 4.5 miles long and 650 feet tall. The hydroelectric facility has 20 generators, 10 for Brazil and 10 for Paraguay. As much water flows through two generators as over Iguazú Falls and the spillways have capacity for as much as 40 times the flow of Iguazú Falls! In order to create the dam, the river Paraná, the seventh biggest river in the world, had to be diverted which required the removal of 50 million tons of earth and rock. Some of this was later used in the construction of the dam which required enough concrete to build 210 football stadiums and enough iron and steel to build 380 Eiffel towers. It really is a remarkable feat of engineering! 

The creation of the dam was not without social and environmental impacts with the displacement of 10,000 families, the destruction of the Guaíra Falls, and the ecological impact for fish and other wildlife. Itaipu Binacional uses some of the proceeds from the dam for social and environmental projects including protected wildlife reserves, health facilities, and the creation of an entire neighborhood with state of the art schools, health clinics, sanitation and housing. One of the projects was the development of the Costanera (riverwalk) in Hernandarias, which we wanted to see after the visit to the dam. Our new friends, Louisa, Miriam and Sebastian, decided to join us for the rest of the day.

For the first time since we arrived in South America, we saw a bus map!! Jess took a picture of both bus maps since we weren’t sure which one would be for the bus we got on. Each bus map had a red line and a green line and we assumed these were different directions but we didn’t know which was which and there was no legend. However, following our little blue location dot on Google Maps and comparing it to the photo, it was pretty easy to figure out which route we were on. Bus maps are great!

We made it to the Costanera right as it started to rain. We were hungry, so we found a tiny restaurant across from the Costanera to get a hamburger. For 20,000 guaranis $3.33, we got two hamburgers loaded with lettuce, tomato, egg, cheese and sauce. They were delicious! The rain stopped, so we crossed the street to the Costanera where we were again asked for our passports and then allowed in. Most Costaneras we have seen so far actually run along the river, but this one was pretty far away.

We did, however, find lots of playgrounds and some more very industrious ants. Check out this ant highway and these giant ant hills!

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We used our bus map to figure out where to catch the bus to Ciudad del Este. We were dropped back at the Terminal Urbano, and our German friends confirmed that’s where they had picked up the bus earlier that morning. If we had only been slightly more patient, we would have met them there and caught the correct bus to begin with!