Owner: Brazil Travel Blog URL:www.braziltravelblog.com Join Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 16:55:07 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A blog written from São Paulo for anyone with their minds set on a trip to Brazil. Site statistics:Click here
Whale-watching in Santa Catarina 2007-08-07 05:31:06 The whale-watching season is on its way on the southern coast of Brazil. The Right Whale
Environmental Protection Area goes from Pinheira, south of Florianópolis, to Rincão, and it’s there where most whales gather together.
When summer arrives in the southern hemisphere, right whales abandon their traditional feeding grounds, in colder latitudes, and seek the shelter of coastal lands where their reproductive cycle takes place. From July to November a sizeable number of right whales gather in the coast of SantaCatarina
. The best period to go whale-watching in the region is from the middle of August till the middle of October. The whales have already arrived this year, with dozens of sightings along the coast.
The NGO Projeto Baleia Franca mantains an excellent site on the internet, with plenty of information on the right whale and the Brazilian coast. As well as that, the organization keeps and up-to-date chart with all the daily sightings of whales, showing how many individua
Carnival 2008: dates 2007-08-10 05:29:19 The official dates
for the Carnival
2008 go from the 2nd to the 5th of February.
Still quite far way in time, though early birds are already making enquiries about accommodation.
For the time being there is no official information on either the Rio (Rio Turismo) or the São Paulo carnival. The carnival industry in Salvador seems much better organized, you can find more details on the Carnaval there (it begins on 31st January) at Central do Carnaval and at É Folia.
As more details emerge, I will keep you posted.
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There is a queue in São Paulo 2007-08-14 05:30:47
Until September 9 you can witness at the Avenida Paulista a queue that seems to be going nowhere. A very funny and stress-free queue totally unconnected to the long queues at the airports.
The artists Gigi Manfrinato and Sandra Lee have modelled 26 figures, using papel, glue, plaster and ciment.
With their exhibits, the artists make a humorous portrayal of that unwanted passion of the Brazilian nation: the queue.
Queues at the bank (long queues!), queues at the post office, queues at the supermarket, queues at every single public department and, if that wasn’t enough, now queues at the airports too. There’s even time for a game of dominoes.
The exhibition is right in front of the SESC Avenida Paulista, on Avenida Paulista no. 119. The nearest underground station is Brigadeiro (line 2, green).
SESC Avenida Paulista on GOOGLE MAPS
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New presentation of the photographs 2007-08-13 05:15:30 From now on, my photographs
have a new presentation
I have been working on over the last few weeks. The reason for the change is twofold. On the one hand, I wanted to be able to upload larger photograps for the enjoyment (I hope) of those with larger monitor screens. On the other hand, I had to do something to make it more difficult for those that are stealing my photographs (in the case of other bloggers, I’m sad but not too worried; in the case of multinational companies, I’m pretty pissed off).
The new elements of the presentation are:
on the upper part of the photograph, a black stripe with the address of deviajeaBrasil.com (self promotion!).
on the bottom left, the symbol of the Creative Commons licence under which all my photographs are. For those in the know, they will be able to tell right away the conditions of use of my photographs (can be used and reproduced freely for as long as it’s not done for commercial purposes, the authorship of the work is attrib
GP Brazil 2007 - Formula 1 2007-08-16 05:18:44 The Brazil
ian Grand Prix at Interlagos will be the last race of the season, and will take place in São Paulo on October 21. The sporting event draws thousands of fans every year to the Brazilian race course.
There is complete information on the race at the official website of the GP de Brasil.
When the date approaches I will write more details on how to get to Interlagos, which is a bit far away from most hotels and touristic areas of São Paulo.
Interlagos on Google Maps.
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Reviews: Pousada Erva Doce, Arraial d’Ajuda 2007-08-22 05:14:17
NAME: pousada Erva Doce
WHERE: Arraial d’Ajuda, Bahia
WEBSITE: www.ervadoce.com.br
IN ENGLISH: yes
PRICES ON THE WEBSITE: yes
LOCATION: right on the Estrada do Mucugê, the most charming thoroughfare of Arraial; the Estrada do Mucugê is where it’s at. The main entrance to the pousada is surrounded by a coffee shop and a few restaurants and shops. The location is unbeatable for those travelling to Arraial during the low season, but can turn into a nightmare during the high season, as the music from the street can be heard on most of the rooms.
THE BUILDING: the rooms are distributed in several two-storey houses around a smallish pool, surrounded by lush vegetation everywhere.
THE ROOMS: largish and quite different from each other. The first room where we stayed had no space for our luggage. Simple decoration. With a small TV set and a minibar.
PRICES IN MAY 2007: $130 each room per night.
BREAKFAST: included in the price. A bit on the dissapointing side, specially taking
Accommodation reviews 2007-08-21 05:08:10 Before I continue with a few more accommodation reviews
- I will publish a new one tomorrow, I would like to make a couple of comments.
It’s becoming increasingly more and more difficult to accept an opinion from places like Trip Advisor without a healthy dose of scepticism. Interested parties have entered the arena of accommodation reviews, whether to extol the virtues of their businesses or to critize the competition. This participation has introduced an ever-increasing noise to the communication process. Recently, there was a pitched battle at Lonely Planet’s travel forum fought by travel agencies based in the region of the Pantanal. The moderation of the forum did not intervene, causing, in my opinion, serious damage to the credibility of the forum in the short and middle term.
[For those interested on the topic, a team from a university in Texas published in February a very interesting article on travel reviews and their impact on travel planning; you can download the Read more:Accommodation
Cachaça 2007-08-20 05:21:59
To refer to cachaça as the national drink of Brazil might seem a bit of an exaggeration, but the truth is that there is no other alcoholic beverage as popular in Brazil as pinga is - another popular name for cachaça. Cachaça is a cane spirit with a strength from 38% to 51%. It is an essential ingredient of caipirinha.
Small distilleries all throughout Brazil produce cachaça. The top-quality ones have traditionally come from the state of Minas Gerais.
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Reviews: Pousada Capim Santo, Trancoso 2007-08-27 05:09:28
NAME: pousada Capim Santo
WHERE: Trancoso, Bahia
WEBSITE: www.capimsanto.com.br
IN ENGLISH: no
PRICES ON THE WEBSITE: yes
LOCATION: unbeatable location, in a quiet cul-de-sac a few meters from the Quadrado, the historic square of Trancoso.
THE BUILDING: a number of houses and the pool are scattered in the middle of a lush garden.
THE ROOMS: the suite master where we stayed - the best room in the pousada - is a large room, really nice, very pleasant and quiet, all painted in white, with a very comfortable bed and an ample bathroom. The room has TV, DVD, air conditioning, a fan, a safe and a minibar. And a mosquito net with no holes in it! A real treat.
PRICES IN MAY 2007: During the high season the suite master costs R$300 per room and night. In the low season, R$250. As we got there in the very lowest season, a couple of days before the pousada closed its doors for its annual break, we ended up paying R$190 for the room. Add a 10% taxa de serviço to all the rooms.
BREAKFAST: include
New blog layout 2007-08-26 14:37:35 I’m working at the moment on the implementation of the new layout
of the Brazil Travel Blog. The main changes are already in place, with a new sidebar on the right. Over the coming days I will be rearranging the content of the blog.
Top 10: Brazilian music (B-sides) 2007-08-24 05:31:14 This is an entirely personal list with Brazilian
musicians that feature often on my playlists. I have deliberatedly omitted from the list the big names of Brazilian music. I love the music of Marisa Monte and Chico Buarque, I enjoy very much the music of so many Brazilian artists of worldwide fame. But with this list I want to talk about other artists, most of them very popular in Brazil, but hardly known outside the borders of this country. The list is by no means restrictive. No list could do justice to the seemingly inexhaustible source of musical talent Brazil harbours. The artists featured in this top-10 are listed in alphabetical order.
ANTONIO NÓBREGA (website). From Pernambuco, Antonio Nóbrega is a unique artist: singer, dancer, circus performer, an authority on Brazilian folklore. His records contain wonderful compilations of Brazilian musical folk traditions nearly extinguished. He’s based in São Paulo and his shows are a must. A record: Madeira que cupim não roi.
New flight São Paulo-Paris-Rome 2007-08-30 06:18:48 On September 20 the Brazilian airline Varig will begin operating a new intercontinental flight from São Paulo
(leaving Guarulhos at 23:59) to Paris
(arriving in Charles de Gaulle at 16h20) and then onto Rome (arriving in Leonardo da Vinci at 19h15). On the way to Brazil, flights will leave from Rome at 20h50, arriving in Paris at 22h45 and then in São Paulo at 06h50.
Along with the announcement of the new flight, the company declared its intention to operate flights to London and Madrid before the end of the year.
We read the news first in Aquela Passagem!, Rodrigo Purisch’s always up-to-date blog - he published the news days before the rest of the media. Rodrigo has further details of the flight on his blog (in Portuguese).
Quite interesting, hardly a month has gone by since the Congonhas crash, and many of the announcements made by the government on the aftermath of the disaster have either been forgotten (new airport for São Paulo) or been completely ignored (”no new
September desktop calendar 2007-08-30 05:17:27 The desktop calendar for the month of September
is already available for download at the calendars section of this blog. We are going to the beach, to Arraial d’Ajuda and the outlandish characters walking along its beaches.
Beaches on the state of São Paulo 2007-08-29 05:21:59 The distance from the city of São Paulo
to the shore is relatively short, and there is no shortage of beaches along the coastline.
The coast of the state of São Paulo is divided in two large regions:
the north coast (litoral norte), from Ubatuba, on the border with the state of Rio de Janeiro, to Bertioga. It includes the towns of Ubatuba, Caraguatatuba, São Sebastião and Bertioga, as well as the island of Ilhabela.
the south coast (litoral sur), from Guarujá to the Ilha do Cardoso, on the border with the state of Paraná. It includes the cities and towns of Guarujá, Santos, Praia Grande, Mongaguá, Itanhaém, Peruibe and Cananéia.
The nearest beaches to the city of São Paulo are Santos and Guarujá. They are urban beaches, with high rises right by the sand. The kind of beaches unlikely to make foreigners fall in love with.
Going north, as soon as we pass Bertioga, the first beautiful beaches appear: Juquehy, Barra do Saí, Camburí, Maresías. The jewels on the crown are f Read more:Beaches
Rates on the websites, please 2007-08-28 06:12:01 It’s happened again. I’m looking for accommodation for several short breaks and I’m finding again and again websites belonging to hotels and pousadas where rates are nowhere to be found.
I suppose there must be powerful reasons for a hotel not to publish their rates on the internet. But from the customer’s point of view, this non-disclosure policy is a disaster. In a globalized and competitive world where many hotels do publish their rates online, those who don’t are at a disvantage. A single click separates one pousada website from another.
Gone are the times when the travel agent was the middleman between the traveller and the industry. More and more travellers are planning their trips using the information found on the internet. And cost, I’m sure you will all agree, is one of the most valuable pieces of information for anyone about to embark on a trip.
There is a further unforgiveable sin. The vast majority of those who do not publish their rate Read more:Rates
Spring is in the air! 2007-09-22 13:42:06 Spring
has just arrived in the southern hemisphere! Although the unusually high temperatures of winter here in São Paulo could led you to believe season changes are a thing of the past.
The air we breathe 2007-09-21 07:44:58 The Folha de São Paulo publishes today the results of a study on air quality on six large Brazilian capitals: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte e Recife. The findings of the study won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has spent any reasonable amount of time at a large Brazilian city and are a stark reminder of the high price we pay for living in Brazil: the air quality in all the six cities is below the limits set by the World Health Organization. The most polluted of the six cities is São Paulo.
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Brazil in pictures: Consolação cemetery 2007-09-19 05:31:00
São Paulo has its own Recoleta cemetery, although smaller than its Buenos Aires counterpart, and far less known. The Consola
ção cemetery [Wikipedia] is quite close to the avenida Paulista, and even so, few people come by to visit it. It’s a pity, as the cemetery contains excellent works of art in the form of tombs, mausoleums and pantheons.
Among the artists whose work can be seen at the cemetery, the name of the Italian-Brazil
ian sculptor Victor Brecheret [Wikipedia] stands out. The photograph shows the work he did for the grave of Olívia Guedes Penteado, an close friend of the artists of the Brazilian Modernist movement. Entrance to the cemetery is free.
See larger map
This week 2007-09-18 05:18:31 I’m sorry it’s been a quite time here at the blog. We were off for four days at the end of last week and then this is a kind of special week, as we are celebrating the first year online of De viaje a Brasil, the Spanish counterpart of this blog. It will be another quiet week here at the Brazil Travel Blog, but we’ll come back in full force next week.
In the meantime, this is what an ipê tree near home looked like last week.
Three budgets for a trip to Brazil 2007-09-13 04:57:45 Ariel, a reader of De Viaje a Brasil, suggested the idea of an entry with the draft of three different budgets for the traveller preparing a trip to Brazil
. In spite of the difficulties inherent to a entry of this kind, I have accepted the challenge. I won’t bore you with lengthy explanations on why it is very difficult to make general statements on a country the size of Brazil or why those generalizations are made even more difficult by the simple fact that different travellers have different needs and tastes. What you will find here is just an approximate idea of costs. Yes, there are cheaper places than the ones quoted here. And yes, there are (much) more expensive places as well. And yes, within Brazil there are places where everything is quite cheap and places where everything is quite expensive.
Prices on this entry are in Brazilian reais. On the right sidebar of the blog, under the Categories section, you will find the current exchange rate of the dollar and the euro.
Bef Read more:Three
Soccer championship 2007 - calendar 2007-09-11 05:16:23 For those of you keen on attending a soccer (futebol) match while in Brazil, here’s the 2007 League calendar, including the scores of the games that have already been played. An up-to-date table is found here: Brasileirão - classificação.
A few clarifications:
the Brazilian league is known as the Brasileirão
unless there is another ongoing competition (Libertadores, Copa Sudamericana) there is usually a round of games during the week (Wednesdays or Thursdays) and another one during the weekend (Saturdays or Sundays). During the weekend all matches are usually played at the same time, either four o’clock or six o’clock.
unlike the European national championship
s, the Brasileirão begins in May and ends in December. Halfway through the season, coinciding with the beginning of the European leagues, there is a real exodus of players, bought by European and Asian clubs. Often the squad that begins the league is quite different from the one that finishes it.
at local Read more:Soccer
Bonito - trip report 2007-09-10 05:04:55 Bonito
is an eco-tourism destination quite popular among Brazilians and little known among foreigners. It is located in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, in the southernmost tip of the Pantanal region. There is an entry for Bonito on this blog, destination: Bonito. From the trip made in 2001 I uploaded a handful of snapshots (taken with a 1MP digital camera and with a reflex camera and then scanned at home) at Photo album: Bonito.
Now Emília, a Brazilian friend of this blog, has began her own blog: A Turista Acidental. Her first trip report
is about Bonito, where she went recently. The entries of her blog are quite extense and filled with useful information and plenty of photographs. It is in Portuguese, though. No language skills needed to look at the pictures but you will need some basic linguistic skills to understand the texts.
Emília’s trip report begins at Bonito: Páginas Amarelas and going back in time takes us to Anhumas abyss, snorkelling on the rio da Prata, water
Destination: Ilha do Marajó 2007-09-07 05:18:52 [from our special guest Daniel]
The island of Marajó, in the state of Pará, north of Brazil, is the largest island to be completely surrounded by freshwater in the world. It is larger than Switzerland. The main touristic points of the island are found near the towns of Salvaterra and Soure, on the east of the island, separated by the river Paracauari. The symbol of Marajó are its buffalos, a species that adapted perfectly to the large flooded plains of the island. They are tame and you will find huge herds of them. The local police force mount on them!
WE LIKE THE MOST: the wide variety of landscapes on a lush environment. Peace, quiet and safety. Buffalo cheese and meet. The really sweet pineapples of Salvaterra.
WE LIKE THE LEAST: the distance and the terrible communication system, with truly uncomfortable boats. The non-existent tourist infrastructure. The erosion that is finishing Salvaterra up while the powers-that-be do nothing to prevent it.
HOW TO GET THERE: by sea there Read more:Destination
Fare check update 2007-09-06 05:46:42 I’ve just updated the Fare check page of this blog, where you will find a small sample of routes and prices of flights with the two most important airlines in Brazil. The bad news is that the prices of domestic flights have increased quite a lot over the last couple of months. Rather than an actual price increase, what has happened is that promotional fares have all but vanished. A return ticket from Rio to Iguaçu will now set you back an amazing R$1.000!
Sambadrome ticket prices 2007-09-05 10:57:25 The umbrella Association for all the Escolas de Samba from Rio, LIESA, has just published on its website the prices of tickets for carnival parades at the Sambadrome in 2008 : Ingressos Sambódromo 2008. For most tourists the interesting part are the Arquibancadas, the stands. On the same page there is a map of the Sambadrome (click on the link on the top right hand-side corner of the page).
The escolas de samba enter the sambadrome through the bottom side of the map (the bit labeled Área de Armação, and known as Concentração). Tickets for Setor 1 are cheap because you don’t get to see the schools parading - only their preparations.
The parade finishes on the top side of the map, on the part known as Praça da Apoteose (not labeled as such on the map). Tickets for this part of the sambadrome are also cheaper as you only get to see the end of the parade, when the escolas are already tired after a performance of more than one hour.
SEE ALSO:
Escolas de samba Parades in Rio 2
Reviews: Pousada do Paturi, Caburé 2007-09-27 04:20:25
NAME: pousada do Paturi
WHERE: Caburé, Maranhão
WEBSITE: www.pousadadopaturi.com.br
IN ENGLISH: no
PRICES ON THE WEBSITE: yes
LOCATION: between the river Preguiças and the Atlantic ocean [Google Maps].
THE BUILDING: two rows of chalets around a central patio and the dining room. The pousada is surrounded by sand in all directions, and during the windy season the staff of the pousada spends the day cleaning the sand from the patio.
THE ROOMS: bare and simple, with an electric fan and a bathroom (no hot water).
PRICES IN JUNE 2006: We paid R$75 the room, it was low season.
BREAKFAST: included in the price. Acceptable, given the extreme conditions and isolation of Caburé.
FOOD: the pousada has a restaurant where abundant food is prepared. Considering the limitations imposed by the lack of fresh vegetables, the restaurant provides an excellent chance to feast on freshly caught fish.
RECEPTION: very friendly. After a few days, we were treated as if we were part of the family.
OUR OPIN
Tim Festival 2007 2007-09-26 05:10:11 The TIM Festival
is one of the most important dates on the calendar for music fans. The festival will take place at the end of October simulatenously in Rio de Janeiro (October 26 and 27), São Paulo (October 25 to 29), Curitiba (October 31) and Vitória (October 27 to 29). Among the line-up, people like Björk, Arctic Monkeys, Neneh Cherry and The Killers. Do not expect affordable tickets, you won’t find them. Complete info on the festival on its website.
Brazilian snacks 2007-09-25 05:11:24 While on the supermarket last week, we came across a new type of snack. Packed in the same bag as traditional crisps [chips], you now have the choice of mandioca (cassava, manioc) and inhame (yam). We bought a bag of each to find out what they tasted like.
Mandioca (also known as aipim and macaxeira) is part of the staple diet on several parts of Brazil. What we found inside the bag had an excellent appearance, with hints of the real texture of mandioca. A pity the taste was quite bland. We couldn’t help but recall all those fried mandiocas we’ve eaten so many times at the beach!
Inhame is an edible root vegetable quite popular in the north and northeast of Brazil, as well as in the Caribbean. The contents of the bag had an elaborate appearance as well. As I hadn’t tasted real inhame before, I can’t compare it to the industrial thing. However, the taste was much nicer than the mandioca in the other package. The cool beer we had on stand by went down really w Read more:Brazilian
, snacks
Embu das Artes 2007-09-24 05:00:54
Less than 30 kilometers from the center of São Paulo there is a small town, Embu das Artes
, where evey weekend its streets are host to an open-air arts and crafts fair. Thousands of visitors are drawn to the town every Saturday and Sunday.
Embu is reached via the Régis Bittencourt (BR 116) motorway. A good piece of advice: get there early, after midday it’s quite difficult to find a place to park.
Embu das Artes in Google Maps.
Guide to the places of interest in Embu.
More photos of Embu.
The perfect (and desert) beach 2007-10-03 05:41:12 [if you are reading this on a website other than www.braziltravelblog.com be aware it is a site violating the Creative Commons licence that applies to the content of this site]
Six long years of experiments, measurements, field work and such nonsense have allowed the team behind this blog - that is, myself, produce a valuable thesis. It will not grant you eternal happiness but it will get you closer to the most wonderful beaches in Brazil. If you want to find out more about the path to the perfect desert beach, keep reading.
The main secret in the magic formula to find the perfect beach usually has four wheels, pollutes the environment, and transforms perfectly normal people in real lunatics: the car. I’ve written about the car before - here in this blog and elsewhere. Suffice it to say that complex genetic mutations have transformed the average Brazilian DNA (especially the townie’s), that now contains the nucleotid of car dependency. There are no other worlds there wher
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