Derek and Ann’s Travels in Brazil
November/December 2005 Some time ago our friend from London Joan brought a young Brazilian girl to stay with us for the weekend this made us think of going to Brazil for a holiday. We had a very full on holiday with lots of interesting places to see. We started our holiday in Salvador in the North where we hired a car to drive to the town of Lencois (10 hrs away). We have never ever driven on such a dangerous road full of potholes and huge lorries. Ann thought several times we would die and Derek thought he was a Schumacher!! The scenery around Lencois was amazing. Lencois is in the Paque Nacional da Chapada Diamantina, it’s a beautiful part of Bahia in the North East of Brazil. Pretty little town with virtually no tourists. Luckily we met a English speaking Brazilian who told us of a better road back to Salvador .Lencois was famous for alluvial diamonds Local flight to Manaus the main town in the Amazon. Booked a few days on a boat up the Amazon with 5 others no beds, just hammocks on deck. We walked in the jungle, slept one night (or tried to ) in hammocks on trees, swam in our clothes, fished for Piranhas with odd bits of meat and enjoyed our experiences. Manaus is not a particularly nice town, but the Opera House is wonderful. Near Manaus we saw the meeting of the two rivers, the Rio Solimoes (white river) and Rio Negro (black river). Our next stop were the Foz do Iguacu Falls. These are simply amazing. We stayed at a very nice hotel, a change after the boat. It was nice to get some clean clothes. We have seen the Victoria Falls but the Iguacu Falls are as good, if not better. Onto Curitiba to meet our friend Giselle who had stayed with us in the UK. It was lovely to see her. We drove the 5 hours to her home town to meet her mother (her parents are divorced) it was an interesting drive, lots of mango trees and sugar plantations. Later we met up with her father and he took us to one of his farms. Walking around a Brazilian farm with Giselle, her father and the two of us seemed almost unreal. Pedro had several farms and travelled about 52,000 miles a year. Back to Curitiba to get our things together as Giselle had arranged for us to go with her sister and husband by train to Paranagua and ferry to Ilha Do Mel. It’s a small island with no cars and very few Europeans. We just relaxed, swam and walked along the sandy virtually deserted beaches. . We were sad to leave but had to get a flight back to Rio. We stayed at a well situated hotel in Rio, went up to the cross on the train, watched the sunset at Pao De Acucar and walked on the famous Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Flight back to London after another wonderful holiday full of experiences and funny stories.
Our Travels in:
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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2022 Having talked to friends we decided to book a tour in the Pantanal to see the Jaguars, one of the big cats which we had not seen in the wild. This trip was booked for a special birthday in 2020, but due to the pandemic, we were not able to go until 2022. We had booked the Pantanal trip for 10 days and we decided to extend our holiday to 5 weeks. Derek organised the rest of our trip which involved 11 take off and landings for our international and internal flights. We started our holiday in Curitiba where our friends Gisele and John live. We stayed with Gisele last time we were in Brazil. John took us down to the coast for a few days to stay in his house as Gisele was working. We then flew to Cuiaba to meet our guide for the Pantanal trip. We moved from lodge to lodge which was quite tiring. However, we saw many different animals, particularly jaguars, and birds. We went out every day either in a van or a boat. On the river at Porto Jofre. we had over the three days of 8 sightings of six jaguars. An organisation has named all the jaguars to help them to keep track of the individuals, their numbers and movements. We then flew to Recife in the Northeast of Brazil. Very little English is spoken in the North and so we found our Translator app on our phone invaluable. We stayed outside Recife in the older part of the town of Olinda. The streets were all cobbled and all the outside of the front of the house’s painted in different colours, yellow, blue, and red etc. We happened to be there for the night of the Presidential election. The voting is completed at 8 p.m. and it’s the only country to have electronic voting so result was in by 9 p.m. Many celebrations in the streets and surrounding bars near where were stayed. We took a flight of about 2 hours to the island of Fernando de Noronha. Being an island and considered paradise, it was very expensive. We stayed 4 nights seeing found the island, swimming and snorkelling etc. It did not quite live up to our expectation, but it was relaxing, and we were glad we went. Back to the mainland to stay for a few nights in Natal. Here we had a couple of days out, one going on a dune buggy ride, which was fun. The next day we went to see the largest Cashew nut tree in the world. Cashew nut trees have lots of red and yellow fruit like peppers and this is attached to the tree by the nut. It was time to leave the North which we loved and fly south to Rio. We got a bus to Buzios for a couple of nights. Buzios is a lovely place by the sea and really one we can recommend people going there to chill out before going back to Rio to fly home. Our final 2 days were spent in Rio with a visit to the Favelas and part of the Atlantic Rainforest boarding Rio. We walked along the Copacabana beach (too cold to swim) followed by a flight back to the UK. THOUGHTS Lovely holiday with friendly people.
2022 2005
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November/December 2005 Some time ago our friend from London Joan brought a young Brazilian girl to stay with us for the weekend this made us think of going to Brazil for a holiday. We had a very full on holiday with lots of interesting places to see. We started our holiday in Salvador in the North where we hired a car to drive to the town of Lencois (10 hrs away). We have never ever driven on such a dangerous road full of potholes and huge lorries. Ann thought several times we would die and Derek thought he was a Schumacher!! The scenery around Lencois was amazing. Lencois is in the Paque Nacional da Chapada Diamantina, it’s a beautiful part of Bahia in the North East of Brazil. Pretty little town with virtually no tourists. Luckily we met a English speaking Brazilian who told us of a better road back to Salvador .Lencois was famous for alluvial diamonds Local flight to Manaus the main town in the Amazon. Booked a few days on a boat up the Amazon with 5 others no beds, just hammocks on deck. We walked in the jungle, slept one night (or tried to ) in hammocks on trees, swam in our clothes, fished for Piranhas with odd bits of meat and enjoyed our experiences. Manaus is not a particularly nice town, but the Opera House is wonderful. Near Manaus we saw the meeting of the two rivers, the Rio Solimoes (white river) and Rio Negro (black river). Our next stop were the Foz do Iguacu Falls. These are simply amazing. We stayed at a very nice hotel, a change after the boat. It was nice to get some clean clothes. We have seen the Victoria Falls but the Iguacu Falls are as good, if not better. Onto Curitiba to meet our friend Giselle who had stayed with us in the UK. It was lovely to see her. We drove the 5 hours to her home town to meet her mother (her parents are divorced) it was an interesting drive, lots of mango trees and sugar plantations. Later we met up with her father and he took us to one of his farms. Walking around a Brazilian farm with Giselle, her father and the two of us seemed almost unreal. Pedro had several farms and travelled about 52,000 miles a year. Back to Curitiba to get our things together as Giselle had arranged for us to go with her sister and husband by train to Paranagua and ferry to Ilha Do Mel. It’s a small island with no cars and very few Europeans. We just relaxed, swam and walked along the sandy virtually deserted beaches. . We were sad to leave but had to get a flight back to Rio. We stayed at a well situated hotel in Rio, went up to the cross on the train, watched the sunset at Pao De Acucar and walked on the famous Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Flight back to London after another wonderful holiday full of experiences and funny stories.
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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2022 Having talked to friends we decided to book a tour in the Pantanal to see the Jaguars, one of the big cats which we had not seen in the wild. This trip was booked for a special birthday in 2020, but due to the pandemic, we were not able to go until 2022. We had booked the Pantanal trip for 10 days and we decided to extend our holiday to 5 weeks. Derek organised the rest of our trip which involved 11 take off and landings for our international and internal flights. We started our holiday in Curitiba where our friends Gisele and John live. We stayed with Gisele last time we were in Brazil. John took us down to the coast for a few days to stay in his house as Gisele was working. We then flew to Cuiaba to meet our guide for the Pantanal trip. We moved from lodge to lodge which was quite tiring. However, we saw many different animals, particularly jaguars, and birds. We went out every day either in a van or a boat. On the river at Porto Jofre. we had over the three days of 8 sightings of six jaguars. An organisation has named all the jaguars to help them to keep track of the individuals, their numbers and movements. We then flew to Recife in the Northeast of Brazil. Very little English is spoken in the North and so we found our Translator app on our phone invaluable. We stayed outside Recife in the older part of the town of Olinda. The streets were all cobbled and all the outside of the front of the house’s painted in different colours, yellow, blue, and red etc. We happened to be there for the night of the Presidential election. The voting is completed at 8 p.m. and it’s the only country to have electronic voting so result was in by 9 p.m. Many celebrations in the streets and surrounding bars near where were stayed. We took a flight of about 2 hours to the island of Fernando de Noronha. Being an island and considered paradise, it was very expensive. We stayed 4 nights seeing found the island, swimming and snorkelling etc. It did not quite live up to our expectation, but it was relaxing, and we were glad we went. Back to the mainland to stay for a few nights in Natal. Here we had a couple of days out, one going on a dune buggy ride, which was fun. The next day we went to see the largest Cashew nut tree in the world. Cashew nut trees have lots of red and yellow fruit like peppers and this is attached to the tree by the nut. It was time to leave the North which we loved and fly south to Rio. We got a bus to Buzios for a couple of nights. Buzios is a lovely place by the sea and really one we can recommend people going there to chill out before going back to Rio to fly home. Our final 2 days were spent in Rio with a visit to the Favelas and part of the Atlantic Rainforest boarding Rio. We walked along the Copacabana beach (too cold to swim) followed by a flight back to the UK. THOUGHTS Lovely holiday with friendly people.
2022 2005
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