Brazil Travel Blog

Here’s a quick look at the main topics we wrote about on the blog during the month of March.

The Brazil Travel Blog is finally geolocated, which means you can now check on the map the entries published for a given destination.

After our trip to Florianópolis, we published a destination card (Destination: Florianópolis), links to the photo albums resulting from the trip (Brazil in pictures: Florianópolis) and a GoogleMaps resource (Map of Florianópolis).

We completed our coverage of Belém, in the state of Pará, with a complete map of Belém.

On cangas we wrote about the quintessential garment for Brazilian beach-goers.

We reviewed the Pousada Tanto Mar, in Arraial do Cabo.

Gave a few explanations on the taxis at Guarulhos int’l airport in São Paulo.

And dedicated a few lines to the headline dominating the news in Rio for the last few months: the dengue fever epidemic.

Yes, the Brazil Travel Blog is one year old today. During that time, we’ve seen 326 posts about Brazil, and the pages of the blog have been loaded 75,749 times by 31,609 unique visitors.

The photograph I’ve chosen for today has everything to do with football-crazy Brazil. There is no such thing as a bad place to play football. Even if it’s only a minute sand bar and the tide is rising.

Thanks to all the blog readers for sharing this journey with me.

It has been no mean task, but the Brazil Travel Blog is finally geolocated. I have prepared a GoogleMaps mash-up with locations throughout Brazil and links to blog entries related to those locations.

View Larger Map

You can check the map from within the blog or you can click on View Larger Map for a full screen view.

We made the most of a longer than usual month of February and managed a five-day trip to a very popular tourist destination that will generate a handful of entries on the coming weeks. For the record, that’s me at work on the picture.

Let’s have a look at the most important entries published on the blog during February. We heard of a recent Rio craze, the temakis (cones). Brazilian summer time came to an end, and we learned how to adjust our watches accordingly.

On Região dos Lagos: a summary I put together links to the entries published recently on a region that includes the popular beach destinations of Arraial do Cabo, Buzios and Cabo Frio, all of them in the state Rio de Janeiro.

There was a new destination card: Destination: Belém.

Two lenghty blog entries on issues of the utmost importance: 10 facts about dengue fever in Brazil and Brazilian coral reefs: a handbook for the environmentally conscious tourist.

And to end the month, a word of advice to those worrying too much about the weather forecast: Come rain or shine

The Brazil Travel Blog brings you every month a calendar for you to use on your computer desktop.

Here is the March 2008 calendar, a spectacular sunrise as seen from my office window here at home in São Paulo.

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Remember, a new calendar every month!

I thought it would be interesting for occasional readers of the blog to prepare a summary of what’s been published here over the last few weeks.

The priority on this blog is to give the visitor useful information to help plan their trip to the country. In this context, we learned how to find out what’s the time in any part of Brazil at any given moment in What time is it in Brazil?. We also learned about the Abbreviations of the names of the Brazilian states - Brazilians use them the whole time. We mentioned a useful tool to find out about Petrol [gas] prices in Brazil and another tool to check out Tide charts. I prepared a full listing of Youth hostels in Brazil which will be of help to those seeking for affordable accommodation.

The blog took us to diverse places, like Fernando de Noronha, the Brazilian paradise for which I prepared a detailed map, the Costa dos Alcatrazes in the state of São Paulo, or PETAR, a pot-holer’s paradise, also in the state of São Paulo. We also learned more about Rio bus station: Terminal Novo Rio

Health issues are very important and that’s why we paid special attention to yellow fever in Yellow fever alert and Ten facts about yellow fever in Brazil.

Quite a few people must have been quite surprised to find out there is a large Japanese community living in Brazil. 2008 is a very special year for them as it is the celebration of 100 years of Japanese presence in Brazil. Previous to that, we saw pictures of the Toyo Matsuri in São Paulo.

For those interested on domestic flights at reduced prices we mentioned the TAM Airpass 2008.

At the end of last year we visited the Região dos Lagos, resulting on a wealth of information on the area: Destination: Arraial do Cabo; Destination: Búzios; Brazil in pictures: Arraial do Cabo; Brazil in pictures: Búzios; Prices in Búzios; Map of the beaches of Arraial do Cabo, Búzios and Cabo Frio; Transportation between Arraial do Cabo, Cabo Frio and Búzios; Rua dos biquinis, Cabo Frio; The most beautiful beach in Brazil?.

A view of spectacular Praia do Forno in Arraial do Cabo is our calendar for the month of February. The calendar is available for download at the calendars section of this blog.

New year, new calendar. We begin the year with surfers on the Praia Grande in Arraial do Cabo. The calendar is available for download at the calendars section of this blog.

To the readers of this blog who celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas to you!

The photograph portraits the Christmas decorations of rua Normandia, in São Paulo.

The first year of calendars in the Brazil Travel blog comes to an end with a little birdie that found its way onto the calendar page. It was pictured in the Atlantic Rainforest, in Barra do Sahy, state of São Paulo. For the birders, it’s a Green-headed Tanager (Tangara seledon). The calendar is already available for download at the calendars section of this blog.