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São Paulo is the largest city by population in Brazil, and it is indeed a busy place. We stayed in an area called Itaim Bibi, a place with residential buildings and offices, full of restaurants and bars, but with very little shopping. At the back of the hotel was a food court, which was good as it was rather unsettled weather with many heavy showers, making it difficult to go out and walk around. Our city tour took us to the older parts of the city, and we visited an area f

We have been surprised by Brazil. Nature is much more varied and interesting than we thought, and the cities are impressive with many huge buildings and excellent infrastructure. Everywhere is clean and tidy, footpaths are easy to walk along, and there is space for pedestrians to move even though there most certainly are a lot of cars! The hotels have been the cleanest we have been in so far, and we manage to make ourselves understood with a mix of body language, Portugues

This was just another border crossing, we thought, and by now we would know what was required and how to manage it. Well, not so fast! The crossing was from Paraguay, and entering via the Mundo Novo crossing. Leaving Paraguay was easy, and entering Brazil seemed to not happen. It didn't help that Portuguese is not a language we master, and in addition there wasn't anyone to ask. There was after a while, and we were told that the immigration was in the next city. At custo

Just outside Ciudad del Este is a hydroelectric installation, in fact the third largest in the world. It was built jointly by Paraguay and Brazil, and of course we had to see it!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu_Dam It is big, and impressive, and the visit was well organised and free. From there we started on our zigzagging through the country. It felt like going back west was returning to the Paraguay we liked so much. The countryside is nice, and the people are fri