A day in Foz

I slept reasonably well down to Foz. I had got the front seat of the bus and had left the curtain open. I was surprised that each time I woke the weather had changed. Once, it was raining heavily, then there was thick fog, then it was clear and dry. I suppose that over such a distance it isn’t uncommon for the weather to be so changeable!

We arrived before dawn at Foz, much to my disgust. We had to disembark from the bus and check in at the hotel. A few members of the group clearly hadn’t figured out that I am not a mornings person during the first week of the trip, but given the one word answers (or grunts) that those who tried to talk to me got at that hour of day, I think it soon became apparent that it wasn’t worth their effort and they went to talk to others.

Once in the hotel room, I flopped into bed again and slept until after breakfast (intentionally, this time). We then regrouped aboard the bus and headed to the huge hydroelectric dam which sits between Paraguay and Brazil. It generates more power than any other dam in the world (25 percent of Brazil’s power needs and 90 percent of Paraguay’s needs) and was truly awesome in scale. After this, we headed to a bird park where Hilda (who had been bird spotting since our arrival) was in her element.

After lunch at the bird park, we then headed to some shops. Stephen, Alistair, Noel, Bill and I headed with Angela, Del their son (whose name now illudes me!) and Margaret into Paraguay. We were with a local pastor in a VW camper van. We drove across (not requiring any customs or immigration clearance, despite stopping and asking if we could get our passports stamped (they would, but it would have cost more money than we were carrying!)) and visited the home of a local pastor who lived nearby. The Pastor told us about his work (although a certain member of the 5 of our party (not me, this time) was snoring slightly during the talk…) and then we drove through the centre of town, noting the number of people carrying guns that we could see and the general mayhem of the country. Driving in Brazil was, in fairness, practically European. There were rules of the road and police enforcing them. Paraguay, like Peru, cared little for the rules of the road and so we had remarkable fun sailing our camper van amidst the sea of noisily busy vehicular traffic.

On our return to the hotel, we joined together for dinner before going to the church of the local pastor who had been showing us around Foz. The last time that Tommy and Margaret had been there, the building had been little more than a steelwork shell, but now it was complete. The service was, again, a lively affair and with some tunes that I knew the English words to, which was cool. Again, we were to sing to the congregation and so we duly sang a couple of pieces to great critical acclaim. After the service, we returned to the hotel for a night of well deserved rest.