Other side of the Equator - Part 2

Landed in Foz

BUGET AIRLINES - OCEAN AIR

CCB had a rented a car and it was quiet useful since most places are far off from the city and having ur own trasport gives u that extra bit of flexibility.

Foz landed in straight into my friends aunts house , A quick round of introductions and the complex sign language communiction later we were digging in for a gorgeious dinner of pork,black bean, rice and wht not and i couldnt stuff in the desserrrrrt

Early start another gorgeious breakfast of rolls ham and hot choclate .Let me tell u the locally produced coca makes this hot choclate extra special , loved it No where else would u get that taste and yet its cheap locally avialable coca (a business opportunity here)

Onward to seee Foz do iguacu from the brazilian side the biggest waterfall in the world in terms of volume of water flowing trough almost twice as big as niagra and in the border of 3 countries (parague . Ar and Br)

Well if u cant get the scale of things when former president of US and his family were the first lady looked at it and said " Ohh poor Niagra "

seriously it will make Niagra thirsty

next day was my extra special, both of us being engineers
Itiapu Dam -

This is the worlds biggest dam spanning 2 countries generates enough electricity to cover 98% of parague and 25 % of brazils needs and to date its the single largest eco friendly Power generation plant.Even after the 3 gorges dam is built it would be the biggest in the world but it wouldnt beat Itapu in terms of electricity produced.

In the short video shown in the tour it said the chinese will have the biggest dam but we have the power of parana.Itaipu litterely means sond of Rocks in the guarani langauate - local tribal group.

Facts about Itiapu

The name "Itaipu" was taken from an isle that existed near the construction site. In the Guarani language, Itaipu means "the sound of a stone". The American composer Philip Glass has also written a symphonic cantata named Itaipu in honour of the structure.

Itaipu Binacional is a company that runs the largest operational hydroelectric power plant in the world.^[1] It is a binational undertaking run by Brazil and Paraguay at the Paraná River on the border section between the two countries, 15 km north of the Friendship Bridge. The project ranges from Foz do Iguaçu, in Brazil, and Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, in the south to Guaíra and Salto del Guaíra in the north. The installed generation capacity of the plant is 14 GW, with 20 generating units of 700 MW each. In the year 2000, it achieved its generating record of 93.4 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), which supplied 93% of the energy consumed by Paraguay and 20% of that consumed by Brazil as of 2005.

Credit- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu

After this was again a pretty shady part of my trip

After this we made our way to the Argentinan embassy .where CCB's cousin was working .Well joys of my international connections ehh courtesy of him my visa was done in 4 mins . ONwards to Parague .

We went Up to the Parague border parked the car on the brazilian side and walked across Parague and voila I was in Ciudad del Este Parague and country i had set foot in with a valid visa passport stamp or any piece of official paper .Mom u should be proud of me:)

Crossing the bridge on the side roads on to the bridge and stepping into parague it all takes about 15 mins but u can see a stark difference in skin colour and the place .It looks a bit more dirtier people trying to sell u any thing .Its a bit like National market Bangalore india but on a much larger scale.

Half a day in parague we made our way back because later they start checking for passes and i didnt have any.so there u go i have been in and out of this country no problems.After coming back CCB went to this random chemist shop to ask for some directions and bingo he found one of his relatives there and he owned the shop .I was the uninvited guest to his house that day :)

All along my time in Brazil these were the questions asked

India.................! mouth wide open and awe that people of india can be normal humans.In this part of the world u have got to understand they dont come in contact with a lot of Indians and that too me working in UK and brown and looking like a paraguaian makes it a bit more intreasting . All along in the Clubs of Rio to Curtutiba a few people mistook me for Portugese or paraguian

How many languages do u speak - reply was 7 i cut it down to 6 they had almost stars in their eyes

What are the languages - i had to give them the whole list

Next - is the song and dance routine

Well i was force fed some more rolls and stuff saying its argentenian dont get it anywear eat eat.Remeber all this was happeing in portugese and i had to figure it out through CCB translations or actions and hand movements (universal language).

Night CCB deserted me to take his aunt to the hospital .2 hours i was left with his Uncle with some pretty animated conversations showing the family photograph album .Telling me who was what .

I must say credit due CCBs aunts family .They welcomed me as one of their own and gave me soo much and the food it was gorgeious.

Onwards next day to Argentina

3 countries in 3 days not bad ehh....

Stamp out and in 15 mins and Ar the land of tasty Steaks,Che , Tango and more important FOZ.we ended up in Puerto iguazu the town closest to Igauasu.I must say the argentinian side of the falls are much more impressive than the brazilian one .From brazil u get a panoramic view and from Ar u get up close and personal to Iguacu river .Garagatas diablo(devils throat) was absolutley impressive . get this its has 275 falls spread around 3 kms

Pics speak more than words well if possible i will even load the video have a look.

Intreasting bit of on the Argentenian side is u get up close and touch the falls yep .we took a speed boat that take u under the the falls.Its so powerful u couldnt open eyes and the fresh water pounding on u when its 30 C and humid it does make it a bit extra comfortable.Back and then we had the biggest icecream in the world and bak home for extra special dinner and then onwards to Curutiba

Going to Curutiba was a decision made because , even tough there is nothing much to see its my friends native .Its the city he knows it as good as the back of his hand. Landed in and was recived by is MOM and onwards to his luxurious apartments.

There CCB took me this fantastic eat as much as u want restaurant where one person or Skewer comes in every minute with a huge lump of meat like this and explains about it and if you want he will slice a piece as much as you want.I am told they do about 40 different kinds of cooked meat in this place they came up all the wierd stuff

Chicken heart,Ostrich,Tender steak,Roasted Steak blah blah blah

Bummer i couldnt try all of it but did manage to try a lot of meat . Sorry mom but the steaks u get in S america taste soo soo awesome you can compare it high quality horse meat(sorry again mom) or higest quality tender lamb.

Hit the clubs and bars in the night but by this time i was dead tired with all the late night outs and partying and hetic travel well just a few more days.

Next day went around all the beautiful parks in curutiba .This is a very sort of a business city and is relatively cooler than the others i had visited which was a welcome relife.

All the parks to me being from india looked like mini jungles by itself and the city was pretty but not touristic.Its certainly more devloped than Rio and there is majority european popluation here well i did enjoy just sitting in the park watch the world go by general catch up and sipping tender cocount .

All along CCB had the most embarassing job when i was taking fotos (of mundane things to them) explaining it to the people that i was from india and this was new to me!!!!!

Came bak tired to the apartment and had a good chat with CCBs cute nephew he tried as much as possible to talk to me in portugese but i could convey my message as well !!! And here the most amazing conversation happened .

CCB and this Kid wanted to see the schools and school children in india so i did a random search in youtube and put on this video.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lpc-jGZkbAk

He watched the video with great intreast and asked me this question

Y are they walking to school while my mama drops me off in a car everyday !!!!! this is unfair Look at how different this kids barely 5 years old thinking

Life would eventually take this away from him and he ends up greed like us CCB's parents tried to talk to me all the time .Once they asked me where i went what i saw and everything , surprisingly i manged to answer most of them thats when CCB's mom said to Him u see we dont need to know the same language but still can talk - True true

Next day was the day i was flying i had a little more than half a day left .ohh forgot to tell u the previous night CCB was quiet keen on me rating the first indian restaurant in his city so we had dinner there sadly we were feeling the effects of it the next day driving .While CCB taught it was becs he was not used to indian food i taught it was goosebumps before flying !!!!

Either way next day we were enjoying the views of Graciosas mountain with some stomach rumbling and stopped at a colnial town called Morretes beautiful colonial town and had a lovely meal .Sadly could have most of if due to the strange noises in our stomach !!!!

Here the speciality is eating the beef boraetoo(typo) with banana.Very tasty but sadly could eat a lot but did drink a lot of Guarana Antartica (brazilian fizzy drink) if u get a chance try it i got hooked into it .And i swam is cold water in the river there which had no one onnnn , it was quiet cool.

Onwards to the airport were i flew from Curutiba- Sao paulo(via)- Rio - Saopaulo- London- my city. 5 flight in a space of 18 hours was dead tired by time i was back .

This trip was a milestone for me

Visiting 3 countries in 12 days

Getting to meet the proper locals what more eating for free at their place

Seeing one of each of

7 wonders of the modern world - Christo Redentor

7 Wonders of the Industrial world - Itiapu dam

7 Natural wonders of the world- Iguacu falls

Handgliding

Entering a country with out a single piece of legal document whts more buying souvienrs there and coming back unhurt !!!

All this in 12 days pretty impressive ehh .....

Well that was the end of my amazing adventure in S america . I still remember Seeing CCbs card when he left Europe with a message inviting me to his country and thinking well i dont see that happening but it did !!!.Dreams do come true u just have to work hard to get to it thats all

He has promised to tour my motherland with me .Only time can tell if that dream can come true!!!!!!

Got to the flight and bak to cold grey England .I taught numerious times when i will set foot on this continent again there are so many things i did on this trip and so many i missed on partly becs i didnt have enough time and partly becs of buget and distance constraints

some of them include

• Giant steaks and Buenos aires
  
• Patagonia
  
• Machu pichu
  
• Pirana hunting in the amazons
  
• Anaconda watching there as well
  
• Swimming in this river if that is safe
  
• Death road Bolovia

Please give me time and money my lord so that i could do this

Well thats it this time preparing my next blog about the ancient city of Constantinople

so please wait

CIAO

PS Ignore the Typos spell checker not working and i dont have enough time to correct manually