Brazil

We can easily imagine a trip from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro. Brazil will offer you everything that Argentina is missing: white sand beaches, coconut trees, warm water. But the South of Brazil has some hidden treasures which I really enjoy.

Brazil is the nature’s masterpiece

“God is an artist, and Rio is its masterpiece”, often say Brazilian people. The first brushwork was blue: the sea, then the green appeared with the forests and finally mountains and rivers.

Rio de Janeiro is nicknamed the wonderful city, and this is not a legend. The town developed around the majestic Guanabara, Bay wherever it was possible with ubiquitous nature. Portuguese explorers though the Bay was a river mouth and gave them the name of January River, Rio de Janeiro.

From Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo, the green coast seems to be heaven sent. It is filled with natural beautiful sites, spread in a territory rich with history and traditions.

In this wonderful green setting, the village of Paraty is one of the most well preserved colonial heritages and its reputation is getting bigger and bigger. Paraty has a car free historical town center, old houses and 17th and 18th century churches. Not far from there, hidden in the forests and arm’s reach from the water, you can visit fisherman’s villages that can be accessed only by the sea or by walk.

The largest national park in South America

Also, the Pantanal Natural Park, the biggest in South America, is for me the best place to watch a very rich wildlife (even better than the Amazon). There you will meet Capybaras, caïmans, piranhas… And also more than 300 bird species like les eagles, falcons, kingfishers, cormorants, black kites, and beautiful macaws, those big parrots with blue, red and yellow feathers, and thousands of wading birds which gather in colonies over several km².

All these wonderful species are quietly living in a unique landscape of red soil, more or less flooded sometimes and vivid green vegetation. The best time to visit Pantanal is from april/may to September/October, during the dry season.

But the real natural gem of Brazil is the Lençóis Maranhenses Park and its sand dunes mixed with natural swimming pools, in the north of the country, a unique spectacle in the world.