Brazil is the biggest country in South America. And it is actually the 5th largest country in the world, bigger than Australia. Here they don’t speak Spanish, but Portuguese, and for us it sounds very different than Spanish. However, the Spanish that Kilian used was usually good enough for Brazilians to understand… Most Brazilians are very friendly and they try to be helpful.
The first destination was the Pantanal, a very beautiful area. But to get there, We had to drive already close a 1000km through a boring landscape: endless fields of, corn, wheat and cotton. There is not so much car traffic, but there are a lot of trucks to haul all that stuff. And these trucks are extra long because they pull two trailers. Like a small road train.




Still, despite the boring long distances Brazil has nice things to offer. Some of the places that we visited:
- Holambra ( Dutch settlements)
- Sao Paulo
- Rio de Janeiro
- Careiva
- lagoa Dourada (Canaveiras)
- Salvador (old city center)
- Jalapao (Fervedouros, close to Palmas)
- Canions do Viana
- Gruta do Racho do Boi (Bom Jesus)
- Lagoa e Dunas do Portinho
- Lencois pequenas
- Sao Luis
- Santarem and the Rio Tapejas
- Rio Amazonas
- Macapa
if you want to read more or see more pictures of the above list, a good place to start would be our first monthly blog for Brazil.




The boring landscape and huge distances would be a reoccurring item while we travelled through Brazil from south to north. Virtually all the land is owned, either by companies or private persons, which made it hard for us to “wild” camp. Usually we would end up close to -or in- a city, on a balneario. Or on the tiny piece of land between the sea and land that was not private property. The “wild” beaches were another disappointment (sadly). They were almost never remote, there would always be some other people and they usually had (a lot) of trash on them. The entire Atlantic coast was extremely windy (6Bft would be the average) and most of the coast is pretty barren. In a few locations we had palm trees.



Another significant down side was the abundant presence of waste. Everywhere we went we would see bags full of waste, left by other (weekend) travellers or locals. It is a bit strange, because Brazilians are usually proud of their country and it’s beauty, and they are not shy in letting other people know. But alas, this feeling does not extend into keeping their country clean.




in retrospect I think we travelled through Brazil in one of the driest and hottest periods of recent times: we encountered many bush fires and temperatures above 40°C. At first we thought that the bush fires were all accidental, but while travelling north we started to realise that many might have been started on purpose to clear land for agricultural use. Meanwhile the Brazilian media and city people complained about the many bushfires… Even when we reached the Amazonian forest we saw too much drought and to many fires. This country really is a natural disaster. Of course we have all heard of the threats to the Amazon, but its different when you see it for yourself.




Fuel and Currency
Diesel is easily available. Gasoline too, and of course -being Brazil- they have Ethanol which is produced from the sugar cane waste. Sometimes in cities the smaller fuel stations only have gasoline and ethanol, but there are so many fuel stations that it should no be a problem. LPG is not available here, but in the south I noticed some cars have a yellow GNV tank.
in Brazil they have the Brazilian real. But in this country you rarely need cash, its almost always possible to pay by card. At he time of writing one US dollar is about 6 reals. It’s a relatively strong currency. Prices of goods vary per area as do the variety of goods. The south is clearly wealthier and also more populated than the north. In big cities they have a big problem with homelessness, especially Sao Paulo. This obviously leads to more crime, fortunately we didn’t have any issues. While travelling -and paying- in Brazil you will, sooner or later, be asked for your CPF number. This is a tax number. As a traveller you of course don’t have this number. But it can be a problem when purchasing sim cards, online purchases and maybe some other cases too.





