well its not Rio and its not Friburgo but it is in Brasil.
the Iguaçu Fall, Brasilian side.
“spin, drop, rest”
just in case you don’t believe the rest part....
well it looks like it is somewhat at rest before it tumbles again and its way down stream
In 1950, Brazil's capacity to produce electrical power was only 1.9 Kilowatts, in 2002 Brasil generated 339.1 BILLION Kilowatt-hours.
Brasil is the 3rd largest producer and consumer of electricity in the western hemisphere. (Behind the USA and Canada) In 2002, 83% of its power production was hydropower, 10% thermal (Oil, natural gas, and coal), 4% renewable and 3% nuclear. It is being forecast that Brasil will produce 36% South America’s electricity needs by 2013.
Brazilian side Iguacu falls
In 2008, Brasil had 706 hydroelectric power plants in operation. The largest is the Itapúa dam which produces over 94+ billon kilowatts of power annually and is considered the largest dam of it kind in the world. This dam on the Parana river and just up stream from the world famous Iguacu falls is jointly owned and operated with Paraguay. The dam was begun in 1975 and became fully operational in 1982
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Argentina side Iguacu falls
Itapúa dam
The transmission wires carry the electricity 1000s of miles loosing nearly 15% of the power before reaching Sao Paulo and Rio.
This power generation is just one of the dichotomies in Brasil. This country, rich in natural recourses and knowledge of power generation technology, technology now being exported throughout the world (As we speak Brasil is providing China with the technology for a super, super dam) is still unable to bring a stable power supply to its smaller cities. There are areas in the Amazon region that just received electrical power in the past 5 years. (Amid much controversy a damn is being built in the eco-sensitive region)
In Friburgo, the fronts and sides of buildings are still wired with old and messy electrical wires. Some are still pirated to provide the older buildings with electricity. This doesn’t happen as often as even 10 years ago when if you wanted electricity or telephone you just ran a wire from your nearest neighbor’s connection – but it does still happen. Sometimes when I am paying the bill for the house, and it is over R$300.00 with no heat or air-conditioning, no hot water tank, and only two people living in our house, sometimes I wonder if someone hasn’t hooked their house up to ours….
We kept getting told by the taxi drivers,waiters, van drivers - everyone kept saying the Argentine side of the falls was the most beautiful - SO off we went. We hired a taxi for the day and went first to the 'biggest, most powerful' power plant ever built. Itaipu. It was okay.... a ride around the complex in a large bus with dirty windows.... Then we got back in our taxi and went across the border into Argentina to judge the two views for ourselves. You can not say you've seen the falls until you looked at it from both sides and I can not choose which is best. 
After lunch, yesterday, we walked through Morretes to find the recommended sight of birds eating bananas left out by one of the local vendors. Then the 12 of us on the tour loaded into a small van and headed back to Curitiba via the Estrada da Graciosa. We had one more scheduled stop to make though, in the small town of Antonina to see a church built in 1715, a finely restored public square and a walk out on the pier to see the fishermen. There was a clearly written sign that said, no bicycles, cars or fishing. Actually I think it was a very old pier that we were supposed to be viewing - the fishermen were extra. Today we took a taxi around Curitiba to four of the many famous sights in town, a museum designed by Niemeyer, the botanical gardens, the Park Tangau and the Bosque Alemão which we never found.It was cloudy but no rain. Maybe I am getting acclimated but it seemed not quite as cold today. It has been a long time since I have ever been really impressed by a building but the Museum was really fantastic. I will talk tomorrow about it and send you photos.
Tomorrow we will leave here and go on to the Iguacu falls.
Kisses,ginger
Wikipedia has a pretty good page or two about Curitiba which is south of Sao Paulo in Panamá state. Today was a super day. I'll do my complaining first. The train was not heated and last night it was -1, and it had very bad windows so it was difficult to see the scenery let alone take any decent photos. After an hour or so when the sun had warmed the train, I walked up and stood behind the driver - taking pictures out his open side window and out the front beside his head. I was able to take a few nice photos. For the total day I took 329 and deleted 41 - there probably are another 20 that are marginal and will end up deleted later when I look at them closer. The train wound up a mountain of the Serra do Mar, along a track that was originally built in 1885. Thank god it has been maintained and the bridges reinforced since then, because it pretty much hangs on the side of the mountain and down into the city of Morretes. This pretty little colonial town is two blocks wide and about 4 blocks long, with two small parks along the river. Many of the buildings have the original façades and have been painted in the yellow, blues, whites and oranges favored in the 1800s. There were some nice hand crafts and very good photos ops. We had lunch in a restaurant specializing in barreado, a goulash like meat dish mixed with farinha which tastes delicious but was like a brick on the stomach for two hours after. The desert as a banana, cinnamon, icecream and chocolate concoction that drew bees to our table. We fought them off in a valiant effort to eat the whole thing ourselves.
more tomorrow - ginger
