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Travelling for me has imbued me with an unquenchable sense of adventure. An old flame emailed me today asking me to go to South America with her in May if only for a month or so. The sensible side of me says that's out of the question! No way Mark, you don't even have a job right now, even if you did, you'd then have to leave it after a month or so
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How much time do you have there?
well I'll assume you have lots of time so here goes.
Rio is a must. Salvador De Bahia is fantastic and has amazing beaches in and around salvador itself. Don't be afraid to explore the surrounding coastal area. Also if you can get to Salvador or be there on a Tuesday evening. Every Tuesday evening they have a cultural display of all things Brazillian and at around 9:30pm they get a bunch of guys on the drums and everyone and anyone can follow as they weave through the old town part of Salvador all the while playing the drums doing a funny dance and just having a grand time. Touristy yes, but tonnes of fun. Careful if you have a camera though, I almost got mine nicked off me in that crowd. Lastly food is great in Salvador, or at least I was lucky to find great restaurants.
I went to Manaus Amazonas but I wouldn't reccomend it to everyone. It is surprisingly expensive not just to do the tour thingy where I spent 5 days on the Amazon itself but just getting there is a pain in the arse. You could take either boat or bus but that in itself is not fun and literally takes several days just to get in and days just to get out. Sort of picture travelling from Sydney to perth and back again overland. Take a long time right? Now imagine not being able to speak the language and dealing with second rate bus system the deeper inland you go. You can fly (which is what I did) but domestic flights in Brazil are exorbitantly expensive. Like almost double what you'd pay in Australia. Why because only the very wealthy can afford to fly in the first place so the companies can tailor their prices to them.
If you are keen on seeing wildlife I reccomend that you go to the Pantanau. You're a lot more likely to see a lot and it'd be easier to get to than Manaus. Sao Paulo is ok for some but boring for me. It has a decent night life but then if that's what you want you are still better off in Rio. Rio is definitely one of the best/exciting and interesting cities I've ever been to. I stayed in San Telmo which is especially exciting an area to be in on a Friday night. There's like a night street festival. Loads of drinking and fun to be seen. Of course there are the touristy things as well such as going to the Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf mountain. I found Christ the Redeemer more rewarding than other tourists only because I walked up to get to the top. I wanted jesus to save me by the time I got there. It was great hehe.
As for sugar loaf I climbed up but you can only get to one part of it before you have to pay for the next section.
Copacabana beach and Ipanema are fun. Kind of like Bondi in Sydney except you get soccer, more volleyball and lots more people trying to sell you shit. The one good thing I saw to buy was a bag that if you unzip becomes the brazillian flag and can be unravelled into a beach blanket. You fold it in itself again and it becomes a cool summer bag again. Pretty cool but a bit girlie I suppose.
Ummm then there's Florinapolis which I didn't have time for. A place where Europe meets south america I heard. Very pretty architecture and generally a nice city to be in. That southern area in general is pretty cool and the buses in this part of the country along with the main routes from Rio to Salvador for eg are quality and not too expensive. Also if you don't have time to go to Argentina then you must at least go to the Brazillian part of the Foz de Iguazu waterfalls. Biggest waterfalls in the world! Absolutely spectacular but even more impressive on the Argentinian side. It doesn't take long to do both sides! so don't think that time will be a factor here. You just need a day for the Brazillian side then a day for the Argentinian side. If you are gonna do both though save the Argentinian side last. It's worth it!
That's about it for Brazil. I'm sure that's more than enough to get you started. Let me know what you think!
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