Brazil

Visited: August 1997, March 2001, July 2019

Duration of visit: 30 days

Capital city: Brasilia

Population: 328 million (2019)

• Tracking wild animals in tropical wetland area of Pantanal.
• Gazing at Iguaçu Falls, one of the world’s largest and widest waterfalls in the world, stretching almost 3 kilometers on Brazil – Argentinian border.
• Business meetings with power tools distributors in Sao Paolo.
• Navigating the biggest river in the World – Amazon river – from Tabatinga to Manaus.
• Brasilia – futuristic capital city with the most impressive architectural creations in the country.
• Rio de Janeiro – the vibe of the city with fantastic beach, activities on it and renowned monuments.

Rio Carnival, magnificent beaches, football and the jungle are the first associations that come to my mind, when Brazil is mentioned. Huge nation of different cultures, languages, origins and interests is a monster in American continent, member of BRIC countries that are the future tigers of the world. Brazil is the largest country in the Southern Hemisphere and equates to 50% of the landmass of South America – twice the size of European Union.

The perfectly planned capital city Brasilia was built during the late 1950s as a symbol that the nature can be conquest and adapted to human needs. On the other side, there is still estimated that tens of uncontacted groups live within the Brazilian Amazon.

With so many natural, cultural and architectural wonder it would take months to explore the whole country, but somehow, I managed to cover the main areas of my interest during various trips in a span of 25 years.

My first encounter with Brazil in 1997 was part of on my 15-months Big Tour around Americas, which started in New York City and ended 15 months later. Starting in the north, obviously Brazil was the most southern point of my journey, being on a road for over a year.

After surviving for months in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia with less than 20.00US$ per day, a financial shock struck me as soon as I crossed the border to Brazil: eating or sleeping, driving or sightseeing, everything was much more expensive than ever before on my trip, after leaving the USA a long time ago.

The exchange rate of 1 USD = 1 real was so impacting that I limited my visit in the biggest South American country only to the area of Pantanal and the famous waterfalls Iguaçu Falls on the southern border with Argentina, before crossing to Paraguay.

Pantanal is a natural region encompassing the world’s largest tropical wetland area and the immense flooded grasslands, located mostly within the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, but also extending to Bolivia and Paraguay. I booked a tour for four days after agreeing all terms with the agency owner Gill.

My Spanish was quite good by then, but Portuguese sounded like an alien language. I couldn’t understand anything; Brazilians were speaking to me in Portuguese I was answering in Spanish. Apparently, they were telling me that they understood all details, but it was not true.

At 4:45am somebody was knocking on the door of my room. It must have been a mistake, since we agreed to meet at 6:00am. It was Gill, who was in a rush to take me on a motorbike to the meeting spot, where a truck would be waiting for us. We couldn’t find it. He dropped me at the gasoline station, where I was picked up a few minutes later and driven to the Pantanal forest.

Seven hours on a bad gravel-sandy road was not fun. At one of the food stalls where we stopped, we spotted one of the most poisonous snakes in Brazil that was killed by a local boy. The fer-de-lance is the most murderous snake of Central and South America and causes more human deaths than any other American reptile. Quite exciting start of my Pantanal expedition.

The campground was located in the middle of forest, close to the river with some cleaned area where tents, improvised kitchen, tables and benches were deployed. Twice per day a group of eight visitors was guided on a one to two hours walk in search of wild animals. We walked around barefoot. I was scared at the beginning, but later I stopped thinking about all negative scenarios that could include close encounter with a snake, crocodile or any other potentially dangerous animals.

Monkeys, macaws, anaconda, caiman, wild pig and an anteater were the main animals that I observed. Especially dangerous was our attempt to catch a feral pig. It was fortunately too fast for us, but we managed to get very close to an anteater, which I had never seen in the nature before.

Coming back to the civilization I quickly realized that high prices of transport, accommodation and entrance fees will not allow me to visit the capital city of Brazil, nor Rio de Janeiro. I rather invested the rest of my savings to Iguaçu Falls on the border with Argentina, which was the last item on my bucket list American Big Tour that I didn’t want to miss. I can always come back for the carnival or Rio in the future, when my bank account is solid, combining it with Argentina, which was pricewise on the similar level as Brazil due to fix exchange rate.

A long trip through Campo Grande took me two days, out of which I spent more than 20 hours riding buses. The good news was the so called all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants, where once per day I filled up my stomach as much as I could. All kind of soups, vegetables, salads, stews, and of course meat, were available for a few dollars. I planned to attack the restaurant at around 3:00pm to 4:00pm, when my stomach was really empty and I would be fine with the light dinner in the evening.

The name Iguazu originates from two words that mean water and big. These words don’t quite capture the magnificence of this natural wonder, which was declared one of the New Seven Wonders of Nature in 2011 and a wider Iguazú National Park, which was proclaimed a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1984, for its scenic beauty and the biological diversity of the subtropical rainforest.

The Iguazu Falls are 2.7 kilometers long and up to 82 meters high, divided by islands along its edge. The actual number of waterfalls fluctuates depending on the water level and how much water is flowing from 150 to 300 falls. Two thirds are located on the Argentine side.

There are different circuits in the Argentinian and Brazilian side that people of all ages can enjoy. It doesn’t necessary mean that from Argentine better views are available or more of the falls can be seen. I walked both sides for two days, took a bunch of photos and enjoyed every single view of the falls.

The Devil’s Throat is undoubtedly the greatest attraction of the park due to its majesty: this fall is more than 150 meters long, with a drop of more than 80 meters high with an average flow of 1,500 m³ per second. I was one of the very few young backpackers, surrounded by Japanese groups a lot of American and Brazilian overweight oldies.

All in all, Iguaçu Falls are really an amazing experience that should not be missed.

My first encounters with Brazil were not so enthusiastic.

During the long overland travelling across Americas in 1996-97 I visited Pantanal and Iguaçu Falls area, since Brazilian real was so strong against US dollar that the country was prohibitively expensive for backpackers.

In 2001 I was on a business trip trying to find local distributes for power tools in Sao Paolo. I had never before felt so humble, surrounded by thousands of skyscrapers, huge offices and never-ending warehouses. Self-confident purchase agents were determinate in explaining me that they don’t need another brand, more products or additional problems, since they are self-sufficient and making a lot of money with current business.

I never really managed to understand Portuguese, beside being fluent in Spanish and I was not able to have good conversation in English, since no one really cared about it too much. Yes, Brazil is the country, like only few in the World: big, strong, independent, without needs to adjust to any international regulations if they don’t see real benefits.

Definitely, I needed another rapprochement to definitely fall in love with Brazil or add it to a list of the countries that are nice, but nothing special. In 2019 I carefully chose the most spectacular places in different regions that would complete the coverage of the country.

Amazonas was the first thing to do on my listing. The river that is born in Peru and borders to Colombia, reaches all its splendor downstream of Tabatinga, where I embarked a ship that would take me down to Manaus. Amazon represents 20% of the global riverine discharge to the ocean, but this time I was going to finish my navigation approximately half way to the Atlantic Ocean. Our boat was much more luxurious than almost obsolete and mostly for cargo ready ships in Peru.

I arrived to the port early in order to have a privilege to find a good spot aboard. It was much less crowded than expected and only three backpackers mixed with approximately hundred locals that were travelling home or visiting their families. The trip was very different from what it was supposed to be my original Amazon navigation back in 2006, when I was planning to form a part of Slovenian ultra-marathon swimmer Martin Strel crew. He invited me to be a member of his team, while swimming the Amazon river from beginning to the end, but I had to cancel the participation in the last minute due to other commitments.

3-days navigation on a slow boat was quite routinely, but far away from being boring. All passengers gathered for breakfast, lunch and dinner in a small dining room. Communication was not easy in Portuguese, but somehow, I had a feeling that I could get by with my Spanish in conversation with Brazilians much better than in previous occasions. It is astonishing that many people I talked to had a chance to fly, but they opted for this traditional, old fashioned mean of transport, without worries and plenty of time needed.

I could sit out on the top deck for hours and watch how we were slowly sliding along the banks of the river from where impassable jungle extended all the way to the horizon. I was well stocked with books and movies that I could watch at night.

It is fascinating, how people get used to be lazy when there is not much to do. Many passengers spent the whole day laying in hammocks switching between sleeping and napping. The only work to do, was eating three times a day. And some people were so desperate or bored that they were queuing for a meal 45 minutes before it was served, even though there was always enough food for everyone and it was included in the price.

Around us, on river banks, there were small and very basic settlements at the beginning. Many without electricity or elementary infrastructure. The distance between houses became smaller every day as we approached the Atlantic Ocean. Wooden houses were replaced by concrete structures, churches; satellite dishes and piers were a sign of electricity and docking spaces for bigger carbo boats appeared.

Just before arriving to Manaus, we passed the point called Encontro das Águas – the meeting line between the blackwater Rio Negro and the pale sandy-colored Amazon River. For six kilometers two rivers’ waters run side by side without much mixing. A very curious situation – mandatory part of commercial tourist tours from Manaus.

If there is a place in Brazil that I always wanted to visit, it was definitely … no … it was not Rio de Janeiro. It was Brasilia, the capital city since 1960. After so many people were asking me, why I bother to go there at all, suggesting me to fly from Manaus straight to Rio or continue navigation down the Amazonas, I expected to be one of the very few backpackers to visit the capital city. And I was right. I didn’t see any foreign visitors or tourist during my stay in the capital.

Brasilia reminded me very much on Canberra – both planned cities developed from zero and devoted to be the center of governmental infrastructure that was moved from previously most powerful economical centers of Australia and Brazil.

The easiest description of Brasilia, built in the shape of an airplane, is that everything is enormous and planned for the future well ahead. A lot of space between buildings, tremendous – hardly walkable distances, huge premises and well-planned parks.

The city is located at the top of the Brazilian highlands in the country’s center-western region – perfect location with friendly climate and secure source of water. It was founded by President Juscelino Kubitschek on April 21^st, 1960, to serve as the new national capital. Developer Lúcio Costa, and especially the most recognized Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer got a blank list of paper and playground to realize their dreams … and they did it in 41 months. Brasilia was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 and named ·the City of Design due to its modernist architecture and uniquely artistic urban planning.

Monumental Axis, Metropolitan Cathedral, Alvorada Palace; Juscelino Kubitschek bridge, the National Congress building, Three Powers Plaza, Ministries Esplanade, banking and embassies sectors overwhelmed me with design, uniqueness, visionary ideas and the size. You can read about them, watch movies or observe photos, but seeing them live is another story.

Two areas that impacted me most, were:

• Praça dos Três Poderes depicting three governmental powers around the plaza: the executive, represented by The Presidential Palace; the legislative represented by The National Congress; and the judiciary, represented by The Supreme Federal Court. The plaza was designed by Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer. It is home to the largest flag in the world to be flown regularly. I was the only person in an English guided tour through the impressive building. The National Congress was under minor renovation. Among senators the most recognizable face to me was one of the most outstanding football players – Romario.
• Cathedral of Brasilia – was also designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer, completed and dedicated in 1970. Hyperboloid structure constructed from 16 concrete columns is covered with outer roof made of fiberglass. Very non-traditional entrance into the cathedral through a dark tunnel emerge into a bright, underground main hall. Standing at the center of the Monumental Axis, the Cathedral is surrounded with water, which not only mirror reflects the beauty of the structure, but also serves to help cool the high temperatures of the scorching climate.

Due to extreme distances and spaces between buildings, people are almost invisible. The best place to spot human bustle are food courts in shopping malls. Food courts anywhere in Latin America offer variety of junk food: from burgers to French fries and pizzas to wraps soda drinks and sweet, industrially prepared deserts. In Brasilia it was different: all kind of local chains with big variety of dished and local food was spiced up with delicious natural juices and sweets.

No wonder why so many Brazilians are overweight. They really enjoy eating, being in all-you-can-eat-buffets, price-per-kilo-restaurants, confectioneries or prestigious restaurants. When I got tired from walking and exploring Brasilia, I turned into a shopping mall and found good deals in food courts restaurants.

Rio de Janeiro – Cidade Maravilhosa – a wonderful city – offers everything: from white sand beaches to verdant rainforest, from favelas to the glorious villas and sinned dance halls, from Cristo Rendetor to Corcovado and Pão de Açucar.

I met Marcos in a simple guesthouse in Brasilia. He was a high-tech engineer working at night and resting during the day. He worked for US-army and was very knowledgeable about Latin-America. He recommended me to stay in Ipanema area of Rio de Janeiro to avoid tourist crowds and enjoy beautiful beach, where many locals go.

Arriving to a small guesthouse on the main street of Ipanema, I was welcomed by a hotel manager, Brazilian drunk actress that left me waited on the street for almost an hour. I shared a room with Joao – a young banker whose monthly salary didn’t enable him to rent a private room and thus he preferred staying in a different hostel around Rio every week; and Paulo, who was visiting Rio on holidays. His ultimate goal was to drink a coffee in the most exclusive coffee shop in Rio and consume a beer in one of the most reputable city’s bars. I kind of crazy group of people, but we had a lot of fun sharing our stories every night.

Rio is an astonishing place and I really enjoyed it. Just sitting on the beach, drinking cold caipirinha and watching people in action: young boys playing footvolley, tanned young women sunbathing in bikinis, white sunburned tourist taking photos or cruising on electric scooters and runners exposing their more or less shaped topless bodies.

There are many other interesting faces and creatures passing by, doing strange things, practicing a variety of activities and smoking all kind of stuff. If you sit long enough you can buy whatever you want to drink and taste wide culinary offer. It is a perfectly organized beach, where harmony is visible among most of the visitors. It could be much busier in the high season, but in September the whole ambient was for a postcard.

I didn’t decide to visit poor and shantytowns called favelas. They became a very famous tourist attraction and most of the tours are safe. I believe it’s good that also the poorest inhabitants get a part of tourists’ dollars if it attracts the crowds, who want to see their lifestyle, culture art and houses. I have been living for a long time in Latin America and I have seen many non-touristic, poor, abandoned and also dangers areas of countless cities. For that reason, I was not captivated by organized tours to favelas.

In general, I have never felt in dangerous, nor seen any people that would look suspicious to me in Rio. I consider it a safe place during the day, if you take care of your belongings as in any other South American city.

A cable car took me to the top of Pão de Açucar in the early afternoon. There are actually two cable cars, the second lifting up to 396 meters above sea level, from where the view to the city of Rio is really spectacular. I immediately decided to stay there until the evening, even if the crowd was going to increase. Spectacular view all around Rio gave me the right impression of the size of this city. Since there is much more space on the top than at Corcovado, I was able to enjoy the view of Copacabana beach, Cristo Redentor, industrial zone, the modern skyscrapers and mountains with rainforest surrounding Rio.

The Christ the Redeemer statue (Cristo Redentor) sitting atop Corcovado mountain and overlooking the city of Rio de Janeiro is iconic. Constructed between 1922 and 1931, the statue is 30 meters high, while the arms stretch 28 meters wide. This was the only place in Rio that was really crowded and I needed to book a ticket for a train to the top of the hill at least two hours in advance. Just enough time for a good lunch in the meantime. It makes sense that they limit the number of visitors at the top, since it was so crowded that I needed a lot of patience to take a photo without tourist posing in front of Cristo.

It is really funny to watch what kind of strange postures people are willing to do to make an interesting selfie or photo. Ascending Corcovado and visiting Cristo is a must-see activity in Rio, but I enjoyed much more the view from Pão de Açucar the day before.

Estádio do Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro hosted the world’s biggest ever football match. The 1950 World Cup Final, between Uruguay and Brazil, when officially 173,850 spectators crammed into Rio’s Maracanã Stadium, is remembered as a national tragedy, since Brazil lost 2-1.

I visited the museum, which beside the legendary game, shows some of the most historic moments of Brazil national team, clubs Flamengo and Fluminense. It also pays tributes to the best Brazilian players. A short tour, video and especially the walk on the pitch and the tribunes are memorable for any football fans. The stadium has also been used for opening ceremony of the Olympics in 2016.

The largest country in South America equating to 50% of the landmass of South America and the only one where Portuguese is an official language, has been an enthralling experience for me. Exciting, vibrant, huge, with the largest Catholic population and the best football players, wild carnival, beautiful beaches, unique architectural solutions and dense jungles, offer a variety of activities, sightseeing attractions and opportunities to have fun.

I visited it so many times, that I can claim to know it and understand it substantially well. But still, not Hispanic, Brazil is a world apart from the rest of Latin America, challenging with big distances and the language I only partially understand.

From the Amazon rainforest to the white sandy beaches of the Caribbean coast, from the capital Brasilia to fantastic Iguazu falls, at the end of the day, I love it.