Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro is Brazil's best known postcard. Its image is closely linked with the Sugarloaf and Corcovado Mountains, football, samba, and the attractive tanned and vivacious people known as "Cariocas."
The Rio of the postcards is also the capital of the state of the same name - an exuberant state with a captivating natural beauty, shaped by its unusual geography and by the effervescence of its inhabitants who manage to combine the art of working and playing to the absolute maximum.Tucked between the mountains and the sea, Rio de Janeiro is an unusual city on account of its geography and is certainly the part of Brazil that is best known worldwide.
At the very mention of the country even those with only the slightest knowledge of Brazil, automatically associate it with the "fabulous city". The capital of Rio de Janeiro is endowed with a natural beauty that ranges from the beaches that indent the coastline, such as Arpoador, Ipanema, and Copacabana, to the peaks that punctuate its landscape, such as the Corcovado and Sugarloaf Mountains. Rio contains the largest urban forest in the world, the Tijuca Forest, which was completely replanted during the second half of the nineteenth century.
The city is still one of the main sources of national culture and is the cradle of three types of Brazilian music - the choro, the samba, and the bossa nova. Many attribute the exuberant and infectious gaiety of Rio's citizens to the city's pulsating nightlife, just as they attribute the poetry that springs from its corners and the flourishing of the arts to Rio de Janeiro's privileged geography. Some of the best nightlife can be found in the Copacabana, Impanema & Leblon areas.
Side by side with this picture postcard city is another one set on the hillsides - the land of the overcrowded favelas and poverty but also the birthplace of Brazil's most popular festival, the annual carnival, known as Carnival. Carnaval draws together rich and poor and all races to enjoy themselves in the clubs and on the streets with the added attraction of the world's largest samba parade that takes place in the Sambódromo.The capital has more than one hundred and fifty districts. Some of these are of the traditional kind such as Santa Teresa, which is reached by crossing an ancient aqueduct known as Arcos da Lapa. Other neighborhoods are modern urban centers such as Barra da Tijuca on the waterfront.
In the downtown area, the monuments and public buildings dating back to the time when Rio was the capital of the Colony, the Empire, and the Republic of Brazil are amongst the country's finest cultural inheritances. The golden age of the city of Rio de Janeiro has left a legacy in the form of numerous major works of art and public buildings, such as the former headquarters of the Bank of Brazil, nowadays a dynamic cultural center, the Municipal Theatre, the National Museum of Fine Art, the Itamaraty Palace, once seat of the republican government as well as the Foreign Office, the National Museum at Quinta da Boa Vista (former imperial residence), the National History Museum, and the National Library, as well as monuments and beautiful examples of religious architecture, such as the Candelária and the São Bento Monastery.

Carnival in Rio de Janeiro

The world wide known Carioca Carnival has his high point at the parades at the Passarela do Samba known as the Sambódromo. Officially, Carnival is programmed to happen from Saturday to Holy Wednesday at mid day. The most important Carnival parade happens on Sunday and Monday, when the samba schools make their parade in one of the greatest shows in earth. The Carnival Balls are costume parties which start around 11 pm and goes all the way to 5 am or latter. The Street Parades are one of the most common aspects from this traditional party. Ipanema bands such as Simpatia é Quase Amor, Carmem Miranda, Sovaco de Cobra between others makes Carnival a more democratic party that puts together the rich and the poor, the young and the old, visitors and local people. But Carnival is not an exclusive party from Rio de Janeiro, is celebrated all over Brazil. The Olinda Carnival is considered on of the most cheerful, where the rhythm that does enchant the city is the Frevo. At Salvador, an animated crowd follows the Trios Eletrcos, a truck where the singers are at the top with the band and they play their music and go all the way trough the city. And there’s no doubt that at this period of the year, that Brazil becomes more fascinating them ever.

Southern Brazil

The Brazilian story comes to a close in the South, an area that is home to countless European immigrants who have flourished in their small communities copying life as their forefathers knew back home. Germans, Italians, Swiss, and Poles have all made their mark on the South, a region that is responsible for Brazil’s fine wines and much of its outstanding meat which is reared by the Brazilian cowboy, the “gaúcho”.
The South’s main attraction is physical and is found at a point close to where the borders of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet, a place called Foz do Iguaçu.
At Foz, visitors are treated to a spectacle of over 275 waterfalls, some more than 100 meters (300 feet) high, a natural formation five times larger than its more famous American cousin, the Niagara. And, as if to prove that man can take on the challenge set by nature, visitors can also call on the site of the nearby Itaipu Dam, the largest hydroelectric plant in the world.
The South covers 7% of Brazil and contains 15% of the population who live in the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.

Amazon

Amazon Rainforest- the great Amazonia rainforest constitutes a vast ecosystem in which plants and animals of almost unbelievable diversity are interlinked in a complex network of ecological relatioship. There are three main types of Amazon forest:
The unflooded is characterized by sparse undergrowth and very tall trees that form a high canopy. The "Igapos" occasionally flooded forests, have a dense swampland vegetation consisting mainly of bushlike plants, palms, and ferns. The" Varzea", or flood plain, and the river are inhabited by 3,000 species of fish such as piranhas, tucunare, pirarucu, and aquatic mammals such as manatees and river dolphins.
There are many ways to visit the jungle. It is possible to arrange anything from an excursion of few hours or a short stay at a comfortable jungle lodge to trip of up to several weeks using more basic accommodations, camping in the jungle, or sleeping on hammocks by river boats. Standard activities on trips with at least one overnight stay include piranha fishing, walking in the jungle, visiting the local village, and night time alligator-catching. You'll probably see dolphins along the way and witness abundant waterside bird life.

Sao Paulo

São Paulo’s capital is a place full of surprises. Is faraway from the time when it was just called as the raining “Terrada Garoa”, the working, and concrete city. The capital is a another monumental place with tons of options for tourists, where there are some places you have to visit when you are there. The “Bela Vista” (Italian neighborhood), the “Liberdade” (Oriental neighborhood), and other commercial streets such as: March 25 (Arabian) and “José Paulino”. At these places you will have a good notion of the variety of immigrants that came to install their selves to help the development of the city even more. The intense cultural life of São Paulo received a major boost during the 1920s when it hosted the Modern Art Week, the landmark for a movement to encourage renewal within Brazilian art. Nowadays, that dynamism is expressed in the capital's well-appointed museums, the range of options offered and a certain guarantee for artists that to achieve success in São Paulo signifies general acclaim. In the state of São Paulo, leisure is as varied as job opportunities, especially in the capital where there are many options to suit all tastes and budgets. There are a number of options ranging from exhibitions and open-air shows to museums with theaters putting on highly sophisticated performances. And as Paulistas also have the right to enjoy life, their capital city has a range of restaurants running from the simple and delicious to establishments that equal the sophistication of the best anywhere in the world.

Iguazu Falls

Located along Paraná's eastern border, this region's unlimited features are really beyond compare.

For starters, there's the flora and fauna of Iguaçu National Park, the incredible grandeur and beauty of Iguaçu Falls themselves, the giant Itaipu Hydroelectric dam, plus the unique birdlife of Parque das Aves.
The Paraná and Iguaçu Rivers offer terrific boating and sport fishing, and the area is also where you'll find the cultures of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina existing side by side. The area is best known for the mighty Uguacu Falls, or Foz do Iguaçu. Formed by the Iguaçu River, the 275 waterfalls, which spill over the towering cliffs, are simply one of the world's great spectacles and tourist attractions.
Iguaçu National Park houses one of the most unique wildlife reserves in southern Brazil, serving as a habitat for countless species of plants and animals. More adventurous visitors can travel through the middle of a subtropical forest along the rustic routes leading to the Macuco waterfall, or Salto do Macuco. Bird watchers should definitely visit the aviaries in Parque das Aves, which display over 500 species of birds from South America and other continents.
The strength of human technical endeavor can certainly be seen in the Amizade and Tancredo Neves Bridges, but more dramatically so in the Itaipu Hydroeletric Power Station. One of world's largest such facilities, it generates energy for the south, southeast, and mid-east regions of Brazil.

After viewing the region's many unforgettable sights, you should complete your trip by stopping in Iguaçu Falls City, where you can try your luck in the casinos, and check out the shopping bargains just across the border in Argentina or Paraguay, where you'll find a wide selection of imported products on display. The city also features artistic shows and good choices of local and international restaurants.

Brasilia -DF

Brazil’s Central-West is an area of striking contrasts that vary from the futuristic designs of the nation’s capital, Brasilia, through to the untouched and unexplored backwaters of the Pantanal Matogrossense, the savannah of Mato Grosso.
Brasília is the “dream city” of the future, a city born to be a nation’s capital, a city designed to open up the untouched interior of Brazil to the 20th century.
The Pantanal Matogrossense, on the other hand, is an area only relatively recently discovered and explored by man. Once a vast inland sea, it is today one of the largest and richest reserves of wildlife known to man and the Araguaia River is considered to hold the planet’s most abundant source of fish as well as the Bananal Island, the largest river-island in the world. The Central-West covers 24.93% of Brazil and contains 7% of the population who live in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do