Brazil
Brazil is a massive and stunning country. I`ve been there a couple of times. The first was as part of a working trip to Paraguay when there was a short delay in the project there and the opportunity was taken to cover a couple of issues on the Brazil manufacturing plant in Sao Paulo. On my second visit specifically to the plant I then found myself being needed directly afterwards in Venezuela. Between these two I in fact saw a lot more of Brazil than I ever expected to do. The Paraguay journey involved a flight down to Asuncion but the only appropriate flight was via the tourist resort of the falls of Iguacu which meant that I got a ride directly over these stunning waterfalls that dwarf Niagara by quite some margin. Check out some of the pictures below. The second `added journey` to Caracas involved a flight from Rio (no direct flight from Sao Paulo) which meant that I had to `waste` the weekend in Rio and the fly to Manaus in the Amazon to meet a connecting flight coming up the lefthand side of south America from Bolivia! The plane that I was catching was Lloyd Aero Boliviana and of the 200 passengers already on board when I boarded 199 had been chain smoking for 5 hours. It was tough.
Flying into Manaus is an experience in itself. You fly over the upper reaches of the Amazon where two of the tributaries of widely different colours meet and flow side by side (see also my Pakistan page) without mixing for miles. The Manaus Opera House sitting deep in the middle of the Amazon has to be seen to be believed. It was built by the people who made a lot of money back in Victorian times from the rubber industry. Brazil is football mad of course and nowhere is that more obvious than in Rio. Whole football leagues operate on the Rio beaches and when you watch them you understand how they develop their amazing ball control skills. It`s also a route out of the favelas (slums) otherwise they are stuck there with very little chance of escaping!! My company had booked me into the Copacabana Palace Hotel which was stunning. Of course I couldn`t visit Rio without making the tourist trip up to see Sugarloaf mountain and Corcavado the statue of Christ perched high above the city. Absolutely stunning views. On the way up the twisting road I noticed the roadside ditches were full of colour generated by all the wild Bizzie Lizzie flowers that have taken up residence. The Brazilian currency was on the move and so it was wise not to change more US dollars than necessary at a time. Interestingly I got a much better exchange rate from the bell boy in the hotel than outside from any of the banks or money exchanges!
Foodwise Brazil opened my eyes! There is of course more coffee beans grown here than any other country in the world but coffee is by no means Brazil`s only drink of note! The local caiprinha made with cachaça, sugar, and muddled limes is to die for. This is now my `go to` drink when visiting any Brazil themed restaurant back in the UK like Las Igunanas or Casa Brazil. And when I was sitting on Copacabana Beach just taking in the beach football leagues and the sun along came a young man with a wheeled box containing everything you needed to mix a delicious cocktail right there whilst you wait! They also do ice cream on the beaches of course but the drinks must be pretty much unique. Brazil was also my first ever experience of Japanese food, bizarrely! But I enjoyed what I had and learned to adopt the cuisine as soon as it arrived in the UK quite a few years later.
Brazil nuts grow in a strange outer shell - see my photo in the slideshow below. Foodwise I visited a rodizio which is a sort of barbecue where huge amounts of meat are cooked on big skewers and then brought round to individual tables where they cut off as much as you want - all for a fixed price. The other big meat thing in Brazil is a sort of stew which originated in the big ranches where the owners/ranchers would eat the prime cuts of either beef or pork and the rest of the workers got the remainder. They rapidly learnt that it needed to be cooked long and slow into a sort of stew. Add in black beans, bacon, chorizo, ribs, pulses and much seasoning and you finish up with feijoada which is fabulous. The name comes from feijão, Portuguese for `beans`.
Being such a large country and ranging from the Atlantic westwards right up into the Andes and southwards across the pampas to Argentina it has a huge range of geographical types of environment and hence wildlife. The Amazon is habitat for coypu - the world`s largest rodent, freshwater dolphins, anacondas, jaguars, sloths and of course the fabled pirana fish. The Parana region which borders Sao Paulo is host to armadillos, caiman, poisonous tree frogs (aka poison dart frogs) which are both tiny and very colourful, and more bird species than you can shake a stick at. It also has the world`s largest area of rainforest although sadly too much is being cut down to be replaced by farming.
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Browse through the picture galleries below relating to this page and you will get a much better idea than just reading my words! Each page has it`s own set of relevant images - where possible taken by us.