It's border time

Foz do Iguaçu is a Brazilian frontier town on the Iguazu River, upstream from Iguazu Falls. The town is linked via a single bridge to Argentina and its own frontier town of Puerto Iguazú. Foz do Iguaçu was our base for 2.5 days while we explored the falls and their surroundings. While the falls are the town's best-known attraction, we also took time out to visit two other significant sites.

The first was Itaipu Dam, the largest hydroelectric plant in the world. The dam straddles the Parana River, linking Brazil and Paraguay. It's a massive concrete structure more than 196 metres high and two kilometres in length. The installed generation capacity is 14GW, with 20 generating units of 700MW each. In the year 2000, it supplied 95% of the energy consumed by Paraguay and 24% of that consumed by Brazil. We're talking big!

As part of our visit, we took a bus tour that drove on to the dam itself. This meant that we briefly crossed into Paraguay for ten minutes or so - but never left the bus. This has to be the shortest trip I've ever made to another country. In 2004, I recall spending at least 15 minutes in North Korea when I visited the DMZ north of Seoul. At the time we crossed the Korean border by simply walking to the opposite side of a table placed inside the UN armistice hut.

The second unusual attraction near Foz do Iguaçu is the tri-border area. Here you're able to stand at a junction where the Parana River meets the Iguazu River and see three nations simultaneously; Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. On the banks of the river, each nation has erected an obelisk painted in the national colors of the country in which it resides.

It's not often you can stand in one spot and see another nation in front of you. I can now say that while I've never been to Paraguay, I've seen it firsthand. I also recall seeing Albania from a boat in 1990 and Israel from my hotel room in Jordan last year. I'm beginning to think I should start a list of such nations, alongside my "visited" list. At last count, the visited list of countries reached 45, excluding brief excursions like Paraguay.

Argentina is on the left and Paraguay, the right river bank

So much for the neighbourhood. Let's talk about the Falls!