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| Why it’s Dream Brasil |
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Brazil has always represented the dream to escape. In the primordial age it was the escape of the asian populations that, forced to search for new hunting territories, crossed the no longer existing Bering land bridge, colonizing the american continent all the way to the land that is now Brazil. This was followed from 1500 onward by the portuguese colonization and other great expeditions from Europe that challenged the unknown looking for new lands and riches. At the beginning of the 20TH century then there was the phenomenon of immigration from many other countries wordwide, with the escape from poverty and starving looking for fortune or simply dignity represented by work. Nowadays it is the escape from the daily routine and its lacking in human relations, looking for a life more man-friendly where sometimes it is also possible take a break. |
Brazil is the land where all the world’s races melds. Maybe is this that makes it one of the most beautiful and fascinating countries as the mix of races has made of Brazil a culturally rich and at the same time unique nation. This melting pot began with the native indios, then it was the portuguese colonizers that brought with them the african slaves, and later, immigrants from all around the world began to arrive: europeans, asians, jews and arabs. The result of all this fusion of races is certainly the main reason for the friendliness and kindness of the brazilian people who extend a warm welcome to anyone visiting their country as brazilians are happy people enjoying the simple things of life and always open to everything new, a people only found in Brazil. |
Therefore because of this tremendous diversity Brazil is one of the last places on earth where no one is a foreigner, where anyone can change their own destiny without losing his/hers identity and where each and every brazilian has a little of the entire world in his or her blood. This may be the reason why brazilians receives so well anyone from another land. "Brazilian" more than just a simple name for someone born in Brazil, is a lifestyle and a state of mind. To be a brazilian is to have a light spirit, to be naturally happy, receptive, friendly and well. Formal and informal ranking puts brazilian people in a privileged position on a world scale. So if you have all these characteristics, you can become a brazilian, even if you were born in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, Japan etc ... |
Infact anyone visiting Brazil gets comfortable with the people, cities, samba, music places, clubs and discos, the sea, beaches, churrascarias, etc. It’s normal to relax all day on the beaches, make new friends easily, engage in plenty of funny sporting activities (which is one of the best ways to hook up) such as futebol de area (beach soccer), voley de praia (beach volley), swimming, footing, drink coconut water, beer and caipirinha, sit on a restaurant by the sea and taste all the variety of great local fish and meat dishes, and when the sun goes down then plunge into the world’s most animated nightlife that offers countless chances to meet new people and be happy together, either for one night only or possibly for life too. The concept of Brazil began in the 1300s and slowly grew in the minds of europeans. The origin of the myth is unclear, but in simple terms Brazil was a small island (or several islands) in the Atlantic Ocean. The legendary Isle of Brazil had a little bit of Eden, Shangri-la and Utopia. According to the Irish legend, Brazil was a mystical island with fabulous cities covered in gold. A real paradise. The trouble was that it was either always covered in myst or it would only appear above the waters every seven years. Early christian writers also got into the act, identifying Hy-Brazil with the Garden of the Hesperides, where "the sadness of life could be escaped" or "the Promised Land of the Saints". |
But not only was Brazil hard to describe and hard to name, it was also hard to find as it was nowhere and it was everywhere. It was usually west of Ireland, but sometimes was to be found south of Ireland, near Greenland, close to the mid-Atlantic and as part of the Azores Island chain. Sometimes Brazil was one island, sometimes two close together, and again it could be several islands, or two or three different Brazils on the same map. |
The real story (at least the european story) of Brazil begins in 1500 when Pedro Alvares Cabral, on his way to Africa, sighed the coast of Bahia. He set foot in Porto Seguro, greeted the natives and took possession of the land for Portugal before sailing off. Some researchers contend that the portugueses already knew Brazil was there, as they were very secretive about their discoveries, so this may be true because there is evidence that Portugal possessed maps of the entire world by 1480. The original name given to the discovered land was Vera Cruz (True Cross) before it was later changed to Brazil, originating from the Pau Brasil, a tree that grew all along the coastline at the time of the portuguese colonization. Brazil is a land of profound economic contradictions. Rapid postwar industrialization made of Brazil one of the world’s ten largest economies and one of the most developed Third World countries. But this has not improved the life of the vast majority of brazilians. The cities are dotted with favelas, shantytowns that crowd the skyscrapers, and the contrast between rich and poor is one of the most glaring anywhere. There are wide regional differences too: brazilians talk of a “Switzerland” in the Southeast, centered along the Rio-São Paulo axis, and an “India” above it. Brazil has enormous natural resources but their exploitation so far has benefited just a few. Institutionalized corruption and the reluctance of the country’s middle class to do anything that might jeopardize its comfortable lifestyle are also part of the problem. |
These difficulties however rarely seem to overshadow everyday life in Brazil. Infact it’s surprising the way brazilians face life with joy, simplicity, hope, and hospitality and nowhere in the world do people know how to have fun and enjoy themselves more, most famously in the annual orgiastic celebrations of Carnival that takes place all over the country and during which almost every other activity in Brazil literally stops for a few days so brazilians can party all day and night long. This national hedonism also manifests itself in Brazil’s highly developed beach culture for which every brazilian aims to have a perfect body to show it off, flirt and seduce, the country’s varied music styles (from the traditional samba, pagode, choro, frevo and forró, to the modern bossa nova, samba-reggae, axé, brazilian pop, rock and brazilian funk), with its rich regional cuisines, the strength and variety of popular culture, and in the very transgressive, open and most tolerant attitude to sexuality - either straight and gay or lesbian. |
Brazilians often say they live in a continent rather than a country, and that’s an excusable exaggeration. The landmass is bigger than the United States if you exclude Alaska, more than 8,514,877 km2/3,287,612.39 square miles in terms of area, occupying almost half of South America, and a population of over 190 million, Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world after Canada, Russia China and the U.S.A., The distances from north to south (4394.70 km/2730.73 miles) and from east to west (4319.40 km/2683.95 miles) are greater than from New York to Los Angeles and from Moscow to Lisbon. Brazil covers an area equivalent to 16 Frances, 23 Germanys or 28 Italys. Across this landmass almost entirely located in a low altitude inter-tropical zone, average temperatures are mainly above 20° celsius/68 fahrenheit. For the tourist this means the all year round opportunity to enjoy one of the thousands of beaches that are scattered along the coastline, with wind systems that are ideal for sailing and activities to suit all tastes: white sandy beaches, beaches with waves that are ideal for surfers, popular city beaches or semi-wild beaches where few have ever stepped. There are no private beaches in Brazil. |
Despite the immense expanses of the interior roughly two-thirds of Brazil’s population live on or near the coast; and well over half live in cities - even in the Amazon. Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are two of the world’s great metropolises, and 17 other cities have over one million inhabitants. Yet Brazil still thinks of itself as a frontier country, and certainly the deeper into the interior you go the thinner the population becomes. Nevertheless, the frontier communities have expanded relentlessly during the last fifty years, usually hand in hand with the planned expansion of the road network into remote regions. |
Other south americans regard brazilians as a race apart, and language has a lot to do with it - as brazilians understand Spanish, just about, but other latin americans hardly understand Portuguese. More importantly though brazilians look different since they’re are one of the most ethnically diverse peoples in the world: in the extreme south, german and italian immigration has left distinctive european features; São Paulo has the world’s largest japanese community outside Japan; there’s a large black population concentrated in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and São Luís; while the indios influence is most visible in the people of Amazônia and the northeastern interior. |
Brazil is one of the most beautiful and fascinating countries in the world and the place where all dreams come true. Nature, culture, tradition, music, the people, sun and sea: these are just some of the main features of this fantastic country. |
Rio de Janeiro , capital of the same state located in the Southeast and the second brazilian capital from 1763 until 1960, is arguably the most wonderful city in the world (no wonder it is also called A Cidade Maravilhosa, the Marvelous City) and captures everybody’s dreams and imaginations with the world’s most famous Carnival and the fabled beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema that represents the natural background of the unconfondible silhouette of the Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf) and the Cristo Redentor that blesses the whole Guanabara Bay from the Corcovado mount. If in Rio you can breath the atmospehere of the samba, the sounds and rhythms changes in the Northeast to the no less contagious axé in Salvador, which was the first brazilian capital from 1549 to 1763. Salvador is the country’s cradle for history, culture, music, traditions and new trends and the imprinting of the afro-brazilian heritage is alive everywhere, with the rituals of the candomble religion, the beautiful harmony of the capoeira dance-fight, the wonderful long beaches all along the city extention and the very laid back and relaxed way of life of the baianos. |
Other important cities in the Northeast (that was the most important region of Brazil for its first two centuries until the sugar cane plantations economy was replaced by the most profitable gold and coffee businesses that were located in the Southeast) are: Porto Seguro, the town in the south of Bahia where in 1500 the portuguese colonizers first set foot on brazilian soil, that offers a rich historical background of Brazil along with paradise-like beaches and a contagiously endless party athmosphere; known as the sun capital, Natal in Rio Grande do Norte has become one of Brazil’s top tourist destinations thanks to its beautiful beaches, well preserved monuments and a very animated nightlife; in Pernambuco we have the colonial jewel of Olinda and nearby Recife, the homeland of frevo dance and one of the best Carnivals of Brazil, where the brief dutch government left lasting cultural traces; Fortaleza in Ceará is famous for its long beaches and very intense nightlife, and for the rafts that slice through the sea which are one of the city's landmarks; and São Luís in Maranhão, also known as Ilha do Amor (Island of Love, for its location on an island in front of the coast) is the only brazilian state capital that was not founded by the portugueses but instead by the french colonizers during their brief failed attempt to conquer Brazil, and which reflects in its rich architectural influence. |
Brasília, comprised in the Federal District located in the Center-West of the country, is one of the newest cities in the world, having been planned and built in just 4 years and inaugurated in 1960 with the specific purpose to be the new capital of Brazil in order to develop the interior of the nation. The result is a modern and functional city for the people, with futuristic buildings conceived by the famous architect Oscar Niemeyer and generous open spaces everywhere planned by landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx, and where men can see the horizon, feel the breeze and be part of the environment. In the Southeast São Paulo, capital of the same state, is the economic and financial centre of Brazil and South America and with over 20 million inhabitants also the country’ biggest city and the fifth largest megalopolis in the world. Just like New York São Paulo too never sleeps and with its rich cultural agenda and tireless nightlife offers something for anybody to suit all tastes and budgets, as Brazil’s best shows, concerts, theatre plays and finest restaurants can all be found here with a higher standard that equals the best anywhere in the world. The other main city of the region is Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais, that forms with Rio and São Paulo the main economic triangle of Brazil. One of the few brazilian cities that were planned, Belo Horizonte can be regarded as a landmark because of its neoclassical and modern architectural features. |
The most important city in the South is Porto Alegre, homeland of the gaúchos (which are the brazilian inhabitants of the Pampas plans that covers the southern part of Brazil, north of Argentina and most of Uruguay) and capital of Rio Grande do Sul, a vibrant and modern town considered one of the best places in Brazil for living, and where are still present strong cultural bonds with the nearby countries of Argentina and Uruguay. Other important cities of the region are Florianópolis that is also called Floripa, located in an island in Santa Catarina and famous for its beautiful beaches perfect for surf and as one of the best vacation places in Brazil for youngsters and families too; and Curitiba in Paraná, that has become world renowned for its innovative urban solutions that managed to harmonize colonial mansions and daring architectural projects with the nature, and also for the quality of life enjoyed by its inhabitants. |
For those who instead prefers ecological vacations to embrace the nature this giant country offers plenty of options with its very contrasting ecosystems: in the North the Amazon Rainforest (that covers the whole state of Amazonas with its capital Manaus), is the planet’s biggest forest and main supply of fresh water accounting for more than 50% of all the world’s rainforests, in the Northeast there are the Lençóis Maranhenses in Maranhão, one of the most marvellous and unique places in the world, a desert by the ocean of blinding white dunes with thousands small lakes of crystal clear water that formes in the rainy season in each depression between the dunes; the Chapada Diamantina in Bahia, with its huge plains, rocky mountains, enchanting caves and high waterfalls; the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, a natural paradise located around 354 km/220 miles offshore from the coast of Pernambuco, and where to preserve the environment no more than 450 tourists are allowed at the same time; and the Dinosaur Valley, one of the world’s most important archeological sites in the Sertão desert of the Paraiba state, with fantastic wild landscapes and fossils dating back to 143 million years ago. |
In the Center-West and more specifically in Mato Grosso there is the Pantanal (Marshland), one of the most diversified natural reserves of the planet with its flood plains teeming with an amazingly rich chain of animal species. In the South state of Paraná instead are located the world’s biggest waterfalls, the Iguaçu Falls which are one of the most overwhelming shows of the nature that marks the natural border between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. And finally we have the incredibly luxuriant Mata Atlantica, the Atlantic Forest that at the beginning of the portuguese colonization covered the whole brazilian coastline and of which large areas are still preserved in variuos parts of Brazil, for example the Pataxò de Jaqueira Reserve in Bahia. |
So for all these reasons there are really plenty of excuses to spend in this fascinating and unique country your Dream Brasil holiday. But beware because when you will board on your flight to go back home you will start to feel the “saudade” which is the nostalgia of Brazil and the feeling of missing it that won’t go away until you will return because once you have visited this wonderful country you will never forget it. And just like the Cristo Redentor Brazil is always waiting for you with open arms ... |
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