As we pulled up at the hostel, we
were greeted by beaming smiles
and beer. Johnny and another Moto
traveller, Glen Short opened the gates
and beckoned us in. I think we all
ended up chatting and laughing for at
least a half hour before we went to go
and see our room. Ah, the world of
Motorcycle travel!
It was a quick change and then
back out for more travel chat and to
meet Joel, the very chilled out hostel
owner who made us a fantastic Bra-
zilian stew dinner. It was an awe-
some start to a fantastic few weeks in
this amazingly diverse and friendly
country.
We had already seen the almighty
Iguazu Falls on the Argentinian side,
so we decided not to go to the Bra-
zilian side, however we discovered
a couple of additional sights that we
didn’t want to miss whilst in the area.
The first was the impressive Itaipu
Dam; a huge hydroelectric dam on
the Paraná River between Brazil and
Paraguay. Kelvin has a love and in-
trigue for engineering, so we decided
to go for the full tour, especially as
this was one of the world’s largest
dams and supplies approximately
90% of Paraguay’s energy and about
25% of Brazil’s.
Hard hats in hand, we stepped on
the bus for our grand tour, includ-
ing a visit inside the dam, around
the control room and being the only
English speaking people in our group
we were provided with our own pri-
vate guide which was awesome as he
allowed us to get to a couple of other
places that the larger group couldn’t.
The spillway was not in operation
as the water levels were not high
enough, and apparently they only
needed to use it approximately once
a year, however a couple of days later,
after our tour, we saw on the news
that it had been opened due to a few
days of persistent torrential down-
pours. Iguazu falls was also in full
flood with many viewing sections
TRAVERSE 24
closed. Needless to say, we hung out
at the hostel and chewed the fat with
our new friends whilst the weather
was doing its thing.
The next outing was to the Chen
Tien Buddhist Temple which is home
to over 120 statues and offers a pan-
oramic view of the city.
We were lucky that the weather
had done a complete 360 when we
visited, and the sun was out again in
full force.
I am not a hugely spiritual person
however the place had a particular-
ly compelling essence of calm and
tranquility about it, helped by the fact
that it wasn’t a holiday or a weekend.
Several people were dotted around
the place, using their time to reflect
and meditate on the lush green lawns
in the welcome shade of the trees
whilst we slowly meandered around.
I particularly liked the big, fat, gold,
grinning Buddha but there was a lot
of other things to see.
Before we left Foz, we were invited