We decided on a fairly whirlwind 9 night / 10 day trip to Brazil in May 2012, using overnight flights and one of the public holidays to fit this in to just over a week’s annual leave.
Due to our limited time, we selected just 3 places to visit – Rio, Iguassu Falls and the Pantanal (a wildlife & wetland area, which we selected over the Amazon, due to the wildlife being easier to spot, as it is a more open area).
For our international flights we made use of Star Alliance air miles we had accumulated to fly business class. With seats that were almost lie flat, this made the overnight flights so much more comfortable!
TIP: If you are in an air miles programme, it is worth checking (if you are short of miles) if can buy extra. We didn’t have to do this on this trip, but we did on a subsequent one, which allowed us to get business class flights at a fraction of the price.
To book the internal flights proved to be a little tricky. The sites were in Spanish with no translate option. We ended up going to Trailfinders, and for a £100 fee they booked the internal flights for us.
I am not going to go into any detail on costs for this trip as it was quite some time ago, and therefore giving the costs of travel, hotels etc wouldn’t prove to be very useful / current.
Something worth noting: I will say that in general it would be very beneficial to learn at least some tourist Spanish before you go! You can get by without it, we did, but it did make things a bit tricky at times, especially when travelling on local buses.
The thing with having English as your first language, is that (for us) it makes you lazy. You get used to getting by, as in most countries at least a bit of English is spoken. South American countries have proven for us to be the hardest ones to travel in without speaking the language.
So now a little detail about our trip….
Rio de Janeiro
We split our time in Rio in two. On arrival we spent 2 nights in the Santa Teresa district of the city. It is set on a hilltop, has a laid back vibe, with winding narrow streets, popular with artists and tourists alike.
However, what really sold this district to us was the view from our guest house, Altos de Santa Teresa where you could laze in the jacuzzi and look out all over the city to sugar loaf mountain, and all the small islands dotted about, then look up the hill to the right and see the Christo statue high above you.
Whilst chilling out on the balcony, we enjoyed the company of lots of cute little monkeys that resided in the forest next to the guest house.
The second time we stayed in Rio, was for 2 nights prior to our departure, and we chose to stay this time at Copacabana to get a different flavour of Rio. We chose a hotel with a room on a high floor, which gave us great views, and even better were the views from the rooftop swimming pool, especially at sunset!
Our time in Rio was fairly busy. There is a lot to see and do, and for us, we limited this to a trip up Sugar Loaf mountain, a visit to Corcovado mountain to see the famous Christ the Redeemer statue, where we enjoyed the views from late afternoon until dusk, walks along the beautiful Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, and a sailing trip (we hired the yacht and skipper for the day, and as we have sailing experience, we got to help out with the sailing). Unfortunately the person we chartered the yacht from no longer offers these trips, so I cannot add a link.
Oh, and don’t forget to try the caipirinhas! Our favourite cocktail, and so refreshing too.
Iguassu Falls
Iguassu Falls sit partially in Brazil & partially in Argentina, and can be visited from both countries. Both the Brazilian & Argentinian sides together make up the largest waterfall system in the world.
These falls are truly spectacular, especially on a sunny day where both the water and sunshine creates beautiful rainbows.
We had only one day at Iguassu Falls (an afternoon, evening and morning) but this gave us plenty of opportunities to see the falls in a different light, at different times of day.
Our best recommendation would be to splash out an stay at the Hotel das Cataratas which is situated within the park. Not only is it a beautiful hotel with the most sumptuous bed linen we have ever experienced, but the best part is it’s location. As it is within the park, you can take your time and see the falls after all the day tourists have gone and the park is “closed”. This is a really special experience!
As well as the falls, there is quite a lot of wildlife to be seen, below are just a few that we photographed …
Pantanal
As I had mentioned earlier, we ended up choosing to go to the Pantanal Wetlands rather than the Amazon. Pantanal is considered one of the world’s largest and most diverse freshwater wetland ecosystems and is also a major destination in Brazil for wildlife viewing, albeit slightly less well known than the Amazon.
Once we decided where, it was then time to decide how.
We googled “Pantanal tours” and ended up selecting a 4 day / 3 night tour with Pantanal Nature who we would definitely recommend. They are also on Facebook. To get there we flew to Cuiabá, booked a hotel for overnight, and our tour started the next morning with a pick up from our hotel.
During our 4 days we did walking tours, horse riding, a night safari & boat trips (including sunrise & sunset). The lodge we were based at was very nice, clean & comfortable with good food. Our guide was great and spoke good English. Mosquitoes were rife and repellent was most definitely needed!
We saw lots of wildlife, with the giant anteaters being the main creature we had hoped to see, but didn’t. Jaguars are also present in Pantanal, but require a longer trip that goes in deeper, so we knew we wouldn’t see them.
Here is a short slideshow to give you a taste of some of the wildlife we saw:
In summary, a trip to Brazil has a lot to offer – wildlife spotting, vast wetlands, beautiful beaches, stunning waterfalls, lush forest, islands, mountains, jungle. The scenery in Rio alone is absolutely stunning, but we would recommend each and every one of the places we visited if you have enough time.
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