Asuncion 2007

In the region around Asuncion, this is the embroidary that they do. It is described as a "spider web" lace work. The real name is "nandut ｨｪ".

We went into this church. It is all wood inside.

I think the guide said that the pillars were carved from the trees, or something like that. I wasn't paying attention because I was busy looking.

Here's the sign outside the church. It was established as a Franciscan mission... built in the 1700's, etc.

This was a massive wood door. Quite impressive. It reminded me of the huge doors to the temples in Japan.

This is the carving at the altar in front of the church. It is ornate and intricate.

A view of the ceiling and those pillars.

See the pulpit on the left side? When we walked past it, I asked Marival, "What is that?" She said, "Pulpito." Like I'm supposed to speak Spanish....

We went driving some more and stopped by the side of the road. There were these small water falls that were kinda pretty.

Marival on the slightly spooky wooden bridge.

The MB team. Marival, Jimbo, Judy, Gordon

We stopped in a cathedral in some town. The story is that there was a man who was fighting during the war. He was in a desparate situation and prayed to the virgin Mary, asking her for help. If she would help him, he vowed to build a cathedral for her. He was saved, and made good on his promise. I am not sure I understood the guide -- his english was not so good. My Spanglish is also not so good.

We came to this lake and had lunch.

Marival saw the "Princess" boat and we had to take her photo! She is the "princess" of the team. Notice her cute Brazillian sandals? She bought them during her long layover in Sao Paulo.

This is a photo of a caterpillar in the National park in Iguacu, Brazil. The guide said that the caterpillars with spiky hair are POISONOUS. This bug was on the handrail as we were walking! Part of the job of the guides is to prevent you from getting killed by the bugs and snakes in the park.

We walked through the park as part of a tour as we were headed to take a boat toward the waterfalls in Iguacu. This was just a small waterfall.

The MB team. We left Asuncion a day early and flew to Cuidad del Este, on the eastern border of Paraguay. We took a van into Brazil and stayed near the waterfalls of Iguacu (Foz do Iguacu). We had gotten up at 3:30 AM for this trip. It looks like my hand in the air, but it's really Jimbo's. See his hat? It is his famous Iquique hat that he loves.

The park is really beautiful. It is a national preserve, so it is not built up commercially. That means it also has all the animals -- bugs, snakes, birds, wild animals... Fortunately, it is winter in August, so the snakes are sleeping.

We got onto a boat to go toward the falls. At this point, the water was calm and peaceful.

The river forms the border between Brazil and Argentina.

Since we were headed up toward the falls, the water became rougher. The boat had big engines on it to go up the river.

You can see the falls up ahead.

By the time we got this close, all you could hear were the roar of the engines, the thunder of the water falling, and the MB girls screaming. We were getting wet, even though we were covered in ponchos.

You can see the kind of boat we were on. It was just a big, rubber, rafty kind of thing.

While we on the boat, the guide said, "Stand up!" So we did.

The boat guides would take us very close to the falls so that we would get soaking wet. They'd circle around several times so that we could fill our eyes with the sight. We noticed the vultures circling overhead, wondering if they were looking for their next meal of drowned tourists.

It's really amazing -- to see this much power, just from water.

After the boat, we went walking again. Isn't this beautiful? If you have seen Niagara Falls, you must go and see the Iguacu Falls.

We look pretty dry, eh? Those ponchos are still in our possession because we know we'll need them later on.

There is a walkway that you can see on the right side of this photo. We put on our ponchos and walked there.

The next morning, Marival had to leave very early for her flight home. Jim, Gordon, and I had a later flight. Gordon says at breakfast, "I want to go on a helicopter ride." So here we are. Helicoptero. Our guide did not speak English, but we managed quite well.

The front seat (where Jim sat) was the spookiest. There are windows by their feet!

Those trees look like broccoli! (That's what Joey said the first time he flew as a toddler.)

Some small airstrip in Iguacu.

We were headed up to Itaipu, where there is the world's largest hydroelectric plant. The dam is very large (8 km wide). The plant supplies 25% of the electricty to Brazil and about 75% of the power to Paraguay.

The damming of this river was a massive project because it involved two nations -- Paraguay, Brazil

This is the dam and the spillway.

You can see the turbines of the power plant. They built in the potential for expansion, so they can still add a few more turbines if necessary.

This is the Friendship Bridge that connects Paraguay to Brazil; Cuidad del Este in Paraguay, Foz do Iguacu in Brazil.

The falls were beautiful from the air.

All of that wooded area on the bottom of the photo, is the National park on the Brazil side.

This is one of the resort hotels built in the park itself.

This is the visitor's center of the national park.

While we were waiting for the helicopter, I had to try on the famous Jimbo Iquique hat.

There was a bird park (Parque des Aves) near the helicopter place. We went inside to look around. They had the most funky looking birds.

You gotta see a toucan up close. The colors are amazing. The demarcation of the colors is so clear and distinct. It looks like the colors are painted on, and it's hard to imagine they are feathers.

We were at the intersection of three nations. Look! I am Carman Miranda.

At this intersection of the rivers, each country has it's monument. We are in Brazil, but we could see the monuments for Argentina and Paraguay.

This is a termite mound. We had just arrived at the Itaipu dam.

I asked the guide if the mound was soft. He said it was hard, and that I could touch it without getting bitten by termites.

These are really big.

Here is a sign of the stages of construction of the dam.

What you see is just the top of the turbine. The tour was in Spanish, so it was hard to follow.

Here are photos from one of the ceremonies of the Stability course.

All those guys speak. In Spanish. It is very formal.

This is Blas Vasquez. He was our host in Asuncion. When my luggage did not arrive from Sao Paulo, Blas was the one who checked each flight to try to locate my luggage. When he finally brought it to me shortly after midnight on Sunday (the course began on Monday), I said, "Blas! You are my new boyfriend!" My luggage had all the handouts and CDs that were needed for the course.

My hotel room. This was where I could work. No wi-fi. We had broadband, but we had to have our own patch cord (which I ALWAYS carry with me.)