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This involved a ferry ride, a surprise experience in Macapá, and a long drive on roads that were much better than their reputation. We spent a couple of days in Belém, the city on the edge of the delta of the Amazon River. This is the last city on the south end, and known for being a place where you have to be awake with what is going on around you. We arrived late on a Tuesday, organised a taxi to take us to buy ferry tickets on the Wednesday, and were ready to sail on the

Driving in Brazil is tough, the road is full of trucks - everywhere and all the time. Anything that is needed for supplies across the country goes on a truck. They are big, too, up to 30 meters long. Nature is very varied and beautiful. The weather changes all the time. We have enjoyed the trip a lot even though it has been scary at times. Here comes some photos from the drive from Belo Horizonte to Belém. We had our only two encounters with the Brazilian police on this

This capital city, built for the purpose of being just that, in the 1960's, was one of those we didn't want to miss. It took us a couple of days driving to get there as the roads are heavy with trucks. We found a hotel in the Hotel Area of the city, and learned later that the city is divided into clear parts according to the activity. So there is the financial area, the hotel area, the government functions each in their own building in their area, the army area, and so on.

Yes, we made it there! After being told we couldn't drive there, we took help from a travel agent to put together a trip from Belo Horizonte. It was very much worth it, and we had a few days with a really nice experience. It had been raining heavily for several days, and when we flew in it was cloudy and grey and we thought we had run out of our luck with the weather. The next day we went to see Sugar Loaf Mountain and Christ the Redeemer, with dry weather and almost no pe

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