October 23rd, 2006 | 
Author: As many people will know, Brazil is one of the world’s largest countries and, as such, it was extremely difficult for us to do this vast country justice in the last few weeks of our trip. If you’re short on time, as we were, we would definitely advise purchasing internal flights to enable you to see as many places as possible without having to spend a great deal of time covering distances by land. A word of warning though, if you can, try to sort these out in advance of your trip and purchase a Brazil air pass before you leave the UK as this should save you a lot of money.
Our travels around Brazil were to take in a whistlestop trip to Sao Paulo and visits to the amazing waterfalls of Foz do Iguacu, the Amazon jungle via Manaus, the wonderful mix of African and Latin American culture of Salvador and who could miss out the famous Rio de Janeiro?! Brazil is certainly a country of many contrasts and contradictions not only in terms of its geography and culture but also in terms of the huge gaps that exist between rich and poor. This was most clearly experienced by us during our favela tour in Rio where we saw rich and poor living literally side-by-side.
Brazil offers an amazing array of natural and man-made sites and experiences. The waterfalls of Foz do Iguacu were simply stunning and were probably the best of any such waterfalls seen on our travels. Whilst we only touched on the Amazon, our trip there gave a great introduction to life in this vast area as well as an insight into the simply amazing numbers of animals, and flora and fauna that co-exist there. Salvador provided an eclectic mix of African and Latin American history, dance, food and culture and the strange experience for us of the Candomble religion. Finally, Rio was perhaps something of a disappointment in terms of the overall buzz of the city but this must certainly be entirely different during carnival which we sadly missed. However, the city did provide an incredibly educational favela tour and visits to the excellent and picture postcard familiar sites of Pao do Acucar and the Cristo Redentor statue.
Brazil is certainly well worth a visit and was a great way to finish off a fabulous trip!
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