My whole life I have been a worrier.
I guess it comes from being the eldest child - my aim was always to do better, be fairer, to win. Sometimes that was a good thing to do, but mostly not. Right now, with 33 days or one third of this trip done, I have plenty of time for thought and reflecction and I dont want the ride to either hurry up or finish. Moreover, I am not too concerned where it goes or how fast it will be - I will know I am in that delightful zone when I dont mind being the last bike or riding really slow.
Today we took a very touristy bus trip inside the closed area of the Itaipu Dam and Hydro Electric Scheme. It is huge and was started in 1973, to be the largest in the world. Right now it ranks 3rd after two others in China, one being the Three Gorges Dam. Nonetheless it is huge at 1400 Mega Watt Hours. We drove around the diversion tunnel, then under the face of the dam, then up to the top to see the huge over-flow channels, where the water flows at 140km/hour! While we say most from the top deck of an open bus, they stopped three times for photos which are excellent given the sheer scale of the thing.
But to me, the most interesting fact is that it is Bi-National. Paraguay and Brazil agreed to split everything 50/50 in terms of cost and getting the power from it, which really helped both countries that sit either side of the river. This included an animal thoroughfare and we saw Tapirs walking with their kids along the side of the canal!
In the afternoon we did a "Shenny" after Shenzen shopping in China, but just across the border in Paraguay. It is an "open border" - you just drive through, but the car queue took 1 hour 10 minutes to get past "immigration". Our driver took us to "Shopping Paris" a six story building totally full with stores selling just about any thing, but cosmetics, clothes, technology and alcohol were top sellers. I was DELIGHTED to buy a bright red suitcase with rolling wheels to replace my awkward softbag provided by Compass. This one was cheap and has all the right zips, pockets and expansion options. It also wheels along with ease. I also replaced my very scratched sun glassed with a smick pair of Tommy Hilfiger ones for about $100, probably a quarter of the price in Australia.
The last thing for the day was to pick up our bikes from the Service Centre at Pico Motors (a Yamaha dealer) who did a truly outstanding job on my bike - two new tyres and an oil service, but nothing wasted on brake pads of air filter which were "fine" they said. Very glad to save that little bit, so the service was 40% cheaper than in Australia and the tyres were 30% more expensive!
Dinner was at a superb Bistro Buffet which was paid for by Compass. I tried not to eat too much.
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