Advantages: Fasinating experience Disadvantages: Not for the Niave
\"Mister\" I look down, and there is a young boy, no older than 6 or 7, with big brown eyes, and messy hair, dressed in blue shorts, a ripped Bucks Fizz T Shirt, barefooted, arms outstretched, hands cupped, begging for money. Accross the street, a business man smokes his Cigar and laughs with a colleague, both dressed in suits, better placed in saville row, rather than this dusty street.
This is Brazil, a land of culture, experience, scars, and ... ...in my life.
Rich in aesthetics and adventure, the would be James Bond will have a field day slipping in and out of decadance and modern lux, to extreme poverty and crime.
Flying in to Aeroporto Galeão in Rio de Janeiro with Varig, Brazil\'s international airline from New York, I knew what to expect. Rio is great, but, I dont like the nice and great, I like the rough and traditional, I like like to be away from it all, where I can only access the ...
gt5952 24.11.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of General: Brazil
Advantages: breathtaking scenery, beautiful people, lots of fun.... Disadvantages: long, long bus journeys, quite expensive for a backpacker
We spent six weeks travelling around Brazil which was not nearly long enough, six months would have been more like it! We travelled there from Argentina and our first stop was the world famous Iguazu Falls which were an amazing sight, as was the surrounding forest, although the Argentinian side of the falls has more wildlife and more places to explore. From here we travelled overnight to Sao Paulo by bus and arrived at 3am. We were quite apprehensive ... ...about crime, muggings and so on and being in such a huge city was quite daunting, especailly as our Portuguese was pretty appalling at that stage. However, we found people in the bus station were extremely friendly and helpful and were able to direct us to Chinatown via the subway system which was where we had chosen to stay, as it had the cheapest accomodation. We only stayed one night in Sao Paulo and then we flew to Manaus in the Amazon, another ...
starman30 13.03.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of General: Brazil
Advantages: Breathtaking nature, cheap, multi-cultural Disadvantages: high criminality, bad health institutions (hospital etc.),
Now I live since nearly two years in Brasil and my opinion about this country is still conflicting: on one side its for sure one of the most impressing countries concerning the nature, on the other side also one of the countries with enormous social differences, and this always means: criminality and violence. I don’t want to talk here about attractions like Ouro Preto, an Unesco-city, the spectaculous waterfalls of iguacu, the cities Salvador de ... ...every travel guide, and this is good so, they are worth the visit. And yes, the people in Brasil are really amazingly friendly, the country itself,a quasi-continente, shows so many different sides from the black-african north to the european south like only few others. As a conclusion I would say: YES, you should visit Brasil, and visit besides the mentioned travel-guide attractions especially the amazing wonders of nature this country has, and NO, ...
AlexanderS2 31.03.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of General: Brazil
Advantages: food, beaches, exchange rate, friendly people, sights Disadvantages: internal flights are expensive, internal coach travel is very long!
Leaving UK soil at 6am on the 30th of June, I was prepared to arrive in Porto Alegre, Brazil 22 hours later. However, a delayed flight meant I missed the last connecting flight of the day from Rio de Janeiro. Fortunately, I was put up in a very posh hotel in the airport, where the waiter was convinced I was prince William!
My first impression when finally arriving in Porto Alegre, the south's capital city at 12am local time, was of a rundown America. ... ...- from the traffic lights and overhead electricity transformers to the drive through banks (and of course McDonalds). The City’s infrastructure was much more developed than I had expected – many of the buildings were small skyscrapers – a majority of the people living in apartment blocks of 15 stories high, all with security personnel in little ‘guard towers’ behind high fences. The Brazilian’s appeared paranoid regarding their security; many shops ...
thewiz 17.09.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of General: Brazil
Advantages: Everything you dream of Disadvantages: hard to get to
I was lucky and arrived just for the carnival where every ones is hyped up and exited, but this is Brazil for you. The weather is hot and every one is in a good mood, you put on your shades and you party day and night.
I loved Brazil; I loved the food, beaches, city and the women. We got meet very nice people there and they were even nice enough to show us places where your average tourist will never find. Beautiful waterfalls, rainforest and exotic ...
Al 05.07.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of General: Brazil
Advantages: it is ver beautiful Disadvantages: it is being spoiled
Brazil is one of the largest country in South America. It occupies nearly one-half of the continent. It has borders with ten countries: Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Uraguy, argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. Brazil is the fith largest country in the world, the others in front being Russia, Canada, China and the United States. The area of Brazil is 8,511,966 sq km. The capital is Brasilia and in 1991 it was estimated that ... ...cities in Brazil Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. In São Paulo there are two main parts. The centre is a very rich and us the business centre for Brazil, however the outskirts are very very poor and is a big shanty town (favela).
The people living ther try to scrape a living by selling sandals(made of tyre rubber) or by begging and by many other ways. The families there are usually very large as they think that the more children that they ...
mudvein 06.05.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of General: Brazil
Advantages: BEAUTIFUL,, FRIENDLY, CHEAP Disadvantages: SOMETIMES CRAMPT..
I am Brazilian so I am sorry if this short piece about Brazil is a little biased. I am writing it to say that Brazil is a really, really great country. I know that the country has had an awful lot of economic problems and crime problems in the past - let me just say that a lot of the little things that annoyED me about Brazil have gone. The city of Rio de Janeiro is simply beautiful - it is such a charming AND friendly place. The streets are clean ...
DRHamilton 12.07.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of General: Brazil
Advantages: Great country Disadvantages: None, but be careful
I have visited spent few months travelling in Brazil in 1994. This has been an experience I will never forget. For anyone going there, I would suggest trying to learn Portuguese, this makes a huge difference to your trip. People are generally very friendly. I never had any problem with robberies or violence, partly because I was most of the time together with local people/friends. If you only have a limited period, I would recommend a visit to Rio ... ...the beaches in the North and a trip to the more European south. This should be enough to give you an idea of the diversity and still sameness of this country. There are quite a few companies offering airpasses, which are worth considering if you do not have an unlimited amount of time. ...
CICLISTALOCO 19.07.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of General: Brazil
Advantages: Good transport cheap hotels Disadvantages: Food and poverty
There was absolutely no doubt! Gunshots! My God they are starting a revolution. They were shooting all night and people were screaming and shouting. That was our first night i Rio and we knew it wasn't the carneval. Leaving the room wasn't easy but it had to be done sooner or later. There was still quite a lot of noise in the streets so I wasn't feeling to good about the whole situation. I went down to the reception and tried to ask about the 'revolution'. ... ...as if our assumptions about the revolution were right. But no it was all about 'Footeball and Carneval'. Apparently Rio had lost an important match against Recife. And the fans form Recife were running around in the streets partying or basically humiliating the losers - RIO. This went or for about three days. Our plan was to go up the coastline to Belem and then Manaus. That's a long way - too long to tell you the truth. But one thing was the long ...
vilumdeluxe 09.03.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of General: Brazil
Advantages: beautiful, new experiences Disadvantages: personal disadvantages for me: difficulties with travel; language issues
My roommate and I went on a fantastic tour of Rio, Salvador, the Amazon and Iguassu Falls! The best part was definitely the Amazon where we had really nice accommodations (compared to what we expected in the Amazon, especially) and got to play with monkeys! The worst part was when we found out two days before we were supposed to leave that we didn't have a flight home booked. Because we didn't speak Portuguese, it was very difficult for us to get ... ...(Brazil Nuts) got our messages at the office in the United States but ignored them and would not call us back. The contact for them in Rio didn't fully understand our problem (because of some language issues) and then just stopped responding to us as well. The whole problem with our travel company though just made us aware that we had made a horrible choice in travel agencies. We would still go back to Brazil (maybe skipping Salvador, which was not ...
kmo7 01.12.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of General: Brazil
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