As part of Samosa's symposium, they loaded us all onto buses and brought us to see the Itaipu dam: "the largest hydroelectric power plant on the planet" (p. 329) according to the Lonely Planet guidebook for Brazil. Well damn, even Texas can't beat that. That just seems like something a superhero should announce loudly and proudly. Or just as easily perhaps, a supervillain could utter this rather craftily and sneakily, maybe with signature hand gesture.
Length: 8 kilometers
Height: 65 stories
Energy Production: Enough to cover 22% of Brazil's consumption and 90% of neighboring Paraguay's (they share the dam)
The pictures below (and believe me, my camera does the scene absolutely no justice unfortunately) show just the run-off surplus water. Yup, my glasses got all fogged up even from this distance.
On the one hand, the dam provides amazing clean energy. It's magnificent. And of course, it's now involved in all sorts of environmental and educational good works.
On the other, serious damage was definitely done when making way for this dam including destroying approximately, "700 sq km of forest...Several species of plant life...driven into extinction. Many native Guarani and Tupi settlements were destroyed, as was the impressive Sete Quedas waterfalls." (Lonely Planet, p. 329). It feels like one of those things where now we're supposed to just enjoy the thing, proudly tout it, and totally wash over (hah, no pun originally intended) what was done to get to this point.
We were given a tour of sorts. Mainly it involved some informative talking over the bus loudspeakers and then the bus letting us off at various places. We'd get off, wander into them and take lots of photos. There wasn't too much explanation until the smiley, happy yay-Itaipu! documentary of the dam that we were shown on a pavilion with an expansive view of the dam.
[Interesting note: the engineer's building is built right underneath the dam - perhaps to remind them that if they screw up in any way all this water is going to come toppling down on them first?]
Then they showed us a light show since it was well after dark. There was dramatic classical music playing, so for some reason, I thought I was in for something. But, then they just switched on the floodlights, some tinted with colors, one by one. With everything glaringly bright now, the music ended and that was it. The guidebook described the experience by employing the word "hokey." People continued taking pictures and others walked towards the buses.
The last picture I took that night, because it amused me, was of this chair in the Itaipu ladies bathroom intended for "elderly and pregnants."
From there we quietly filed into our buses and headed through the darkness to a churrascaria in the downtown for meat, more meat, caipirinhas, more meat and last-minute confusion about the drink bill. The buses took most of the engineers back to the resort, while Samosa and I walked back through silent but generally well-lit streets to our more modest lodgings. (Modest yeah, but how about those towels?!)
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Brazil. Lonely Planet. January 2008, 7th Edition.
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