The Brazilian tourism authorities recently launched the website Brasil 360° Experience, with versions in Portuguese, English and Spanish.

While most travelers are familiar with panoramic and 360° photos, 360° videos will be a novelty for many. As the image moves, the viewer can change the angle of vision and point the camera in whichever direction he chooses. It is a technology that produces surprising and fascinating results. Brasil 360° Experience aims at surprising the views with moving images of a handful of Brazilian tourist destinations.

The website contains videos of Rio de Janeiro, Cuiabá and the Pantanal, Curitiba and Foz de Iguazú, Manaos and the Amazon and Salvador de Bahía.

The page contains a link “Know more about…” that takes the reader to the Brazilian Tourism Portal, a true liability for the promotion of Brazil as a tourist destination. At the portal, when the tourist tries to find out more information about, say, tourist attractions in Rio de Janeiro, he or she will find the following screen:

Worry not. If you want more info on the destinations covered by the new website, you can check our very own entries for those destinations:

• destination: Rio de Janeiro
• the Pantanal handbook
• destination: Curitiba
• destination: Iguazu Falls
• destination: Manaus
• destination: Salvador
• the Amazon: an index of blog posts

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Here’s our annual rewrite of our list of our list of favourite places in Brazil (previous editions include Top 10: favourite places in Brazil and 10 must-see places in Brazil).

Here is the 2011 ranking of my 10 must-see places in Brazil. Click on the names of the places to go to their full destination cards here at the blog, and find out more about them. Some of the destinations are really well-known. Others fall within the hidden jewel description. I have only included places I have been to (places I’ve read/heard about but I haven’t visited didn’t make it into the ranking).

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1. Fernando de Noronha (Pernambuco)

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2. Paraty (Rio de Janeiro)

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3. Lençóis Maranhenses (Maranhão)

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4. the Pantanal (Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul)

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5. Alter do Chão and the river Tapajós (Pará)

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6. Iguaçu falls (Paraná and Argentina)

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7. Ilha Grande (Rio de Janeiro)

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8. Brasilia (Distrito Federal)

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9. Boipeba (Bahia)

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10. Curitiba (Paraná)

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RELATED POSTS:
10 must-see places in Brazil (2010 edition)
10 must-see places in Brazil (2009 edition)
Brazil 12 months 12 destinations
top 10 Brazilian beaches – 2009 edition
São Paulo’s top ten

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Our Accommodation in Brazil has a new listing, this time with hotels and pousadas in Foz do Iguaçu. Foz do Iguaçu is your base for exploring the awesome Iguazu Falls.

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I am presenting my very own personal list of 10 moments lived in Brazil filled with emotion. They do not follow any particular order.

1. a huge turtle (up until then you had never stopped to think how large turtles can be) swimming placidly next to you, in complete silence; suddenly a shoal of fish swims by right in front of you while you approach a sunken ship where thousands of colourful fish rejoice. Diving in Noronha has to be one of the most intense experiences you can live in Brazil.
   
2. up to four or five dolphins jumping out of the water simultatenously, while dozens of them follow the small boat from where you contemplate the amazing display. Encountering dolphins in Noronha is joy at its purest.
3. in spite of the pushing and shoving; of the endless queue of tourists all waiting to take exactly the same snapshot in front of the statue, arms opened; in spite of the awful mood of the professional photographers; in spite of the street vendors; when you reach the balcony of the Corcovado mountain and the whole of Rio unfolds in front of your very own eyes, your heart and mind are transported somewhere else.
   
4. the ceaseless rhythm of the percussion, the tune you will not stop humming even after you’ve gone to sleep, the festival of colours and dazzling costumes, the bumba-meu-boi festival in São Luís is pure magic.
   
5. from the top of the sunset dune in Jericoacoara there is a terrific panoramic view of the sea and the dunes. When the moon is full, it will appear right at the same time as the sun goes down, turning the experience into an unforgettable moment.
   
6. think of the wildest rollercoaster your mind can imagine and then take all safety devices out of the picture. That’s what a buggy ride on the Genipabu dunes feels like. Your stomach will turn, you will bid farewell to friends an family endless times, you will swallow tons of sand, and your heart will be tested to the limit.
   
7. everything in the village is special, but watching the sun go down behind the Serra do Mar from the harbour in Paraty is an unforgettable moment that can open the door to never-ending passions.
   
8. an endless succession of dunes and green lagoons, absolutely no one around, the merciless sun being your only companion. A walk through the Lençóis Maranhenses is intense to the extreme.
   
9. there is something unreal about that intense red colour. Because of that, contemplating the scarlet ibises near the Baronesa beach in Alcântara is an activity where the notion of time quickly vanishes.
   
10. the roaring of the waters and its spray are felt from afar, but the real power of the place is only truly manifested when you reach the mighty Devil’s Throat at the Iguazu Falls. Don’t be surprised should you find yourself leaning dangerously towards, such is the power of the enchanment [the observation deck for the Devil's Throat is actually in Argentina, but most of what you see from there it's on Brazil].
    

I want to close my list with a very special emotion, that can be experienced anywhere on Brasil, but only once in a long while. In terms of strong emotions, few things can compare to the explosion of joy that follows the conquest by Brazil of a soccer World Cup. The last time it happened I was lucky to be here to witness it, it was 2002.

Here are all the Top 10 lists published in the blog so far.

Brasil has 62 National Parks, and the list grows every year. Out of those, 22 are not opened to the public, as the government lacks the funds to run them, and only a very small amount of those parks opened for visitation have an infrastructure that remotely resembles what we understand for a National Park in the northern hemisphere.

The best known and most visited of all the parks is the Parque Nacional do Iguaçu.

Having 22 parks no one can visit is, of course, a contradiction, as the raison d’être of a national park is to exist so people can visit it. Worse than that are the very real threats hovering over all the parks -whether opened or not, a threat that comes in multiple shapes: illegal forest fires, deforestation, hunting, plantations, illegal mining and trafficking of wild animals.

To see the complete list of National Parks you need to visit the website of Ibama, the Brazilian government’s body supposedly responsible for the protection of the enviroment. There, click on Mapa do Site on the top bar and then, on the very last section of the following page, Unidades de Conservação, select Parques Nacionais. There isn’t a direct link to the page (the Brazilian government urgently needs someone to redesign all its webpages). Ibama have information pages on only six parks:

• Parque Nacional da Chapada dos Veadeiros
• Parque Nacional da Serra dos Orgãos
• Parque Nacional do Caparaó
• Parque Nacional do Itatiaia
• Parque Nacional do Iguaçu
• Parque Nacional Marino dos Abrolhos

The Folha de São Paulo published in 18 March an article on the fall on the number of visitors to the national parks, a fall due to different factors (the draught in Iguaçu, lack of safety in the Parque da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro). On the article there was a table with the number of visitors to most of the parks in 2006, information I am reproducing here:

• Abrolhos – 6.326
• Aparados da Serra – 47.676
• Caparaó – 31.472
• Chapada dos Guimarães – 112.260
• Chapada dos Veadeiros – 17.441
• Emas – 2.486
• Fernando de Noronha – 49.568
• Iguazú – 954.039
• Itatiaia – 79.458
• Lençóis Maranhenses – 21.000
• Jaú – 778
• Serra da Bocaina – 5.481
• Serra da Canastra – 34.979
• Serra da Capivara – 9.505
• Serra do Cipó – 13.675
• Serra dos Órgãos – 97.333
• Serra Geral – 29.286
• Sete Cidades – 16.993
• Tijuca – 744.425
• Ubajara – 51.440

It is surprising to see the tiny amount of visitors some of the parks receive, a result of the total lack of infraestructure together with the lack of interest from the authorities in promoting an alternative kind of tourism.

In spite of grandiloquent and bombastic speeches from Embratur and other official bodies responsible for the promotion of Brazil as a tourism destination, information continues to be one of the unresolved matters of tourism in Brazil – it would cost so little to do something on this field! I search on the Portal Brasileiro do Turismo (belonging to the Brazilian Ministry of Tourism) for information on the national parks and discover only six of them are mentioned.

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List-based books are definitely the flavour of the moment. And travel guides have joined in as well: with the royalties earned from the sales of 1,000 places to see before you die Patricia Schultz can retire and spend the rest of her life travelling around the globe. It is now the Rough Guide‘s turn. On their 25th anniversary, they have released a series of books of lists, one of which is called 25: Wonders of the World. On the list we find the usual suspects (the Forbidden City in Beijing, the Taj Mahal, the giants of Easter Island, Angkor Wat, the Perito Moreno glacier and other equally wonderful places). Bottom of the list, a surprising, if not not baffling, presence: Itaipu dam, in Foz de Iguazu.

To include Itaipu dam in a list of 25 wonders of the world can only be explained in two ways: first, less likely, whoever chose to include the dam is an engineer in love with megavats and the power of water in motion; my second theory, much more likely, is that whoever included Itaipu simply never visited the place.

This entry has only one purpose: to alert visitors to the area not to waste a single minute of their time visiting the dam and devote all their time in Iguazu to the truly wonderful falls. Visually, Iguazu dam is horrible. Do not expect to find a Hoover Dam and even less a Three Gorges Dam. Iguazu dam is flat and wide. When the spillway is closed (most of the time) it’s no more than a huge amount of concrete without any redeeming feature. There are no mountains around, there isn’t a spectacular gorge in the middle of which the dam was built. Nothing. It is not worth your time.

A few days ago I informed in this blog that the visit to the dam was no longer free.

Shame on you, Rough Guides! I strongly feel all lists are debatable. But I also feel there is a clear distinction between what can be argued and what is just blatantly ridiculous. To add insult to injury, the authors of the guide didn’t considery the mighty Iguazu falls worthy of inclusion on the very same list.

[read the 2010 update: 10 must-see places in Brazil]

This is a list of my top 10 favourite places in Brazil. It only includes places I have visited – for that reason you will not find on the list potential jewels such as Ilha Grande. Click on the names of the places to find out more about them.

1. Fernando de Noronha (Pernambuco)

Noronha is where you will find the most beautiful beaches in the whole of Brazil, and crystal-clear waters of unparalleled beauty. A place like no other in Brazil.

2. Paraty (Río de Janeiro)

Atlantic rainforest, desert beaches and the best preserved colonial architecture in the country come together to make of Paraty a very special destination. On top of that, Paraty is close to Rio and São Paulo.

3. Lençóis Maranhenses (Maranhão)

While it’s not easy to get to the Lençóis, the reward more than makes up for the long journey. A unique landscape of dunes and lagoons where mass tourism hasn’t left its mark yet.

4. Jericoacoara (Ceará)

Another destination with a nearly-mythical status among travellers. Captivating sand dunes in a remote setting.

5. Iguazu falls (Paraná and Argentina)

The breathtaking beauty of the falls will captive you the moment you set your eyes on them.

6. Arraial d’Ajuda (Bahia)

Hard to believe you would find a charming place like Arraial d’Ajuda so close to Porto Seguro.

7. Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro)

Rio is a city like no other, not just in Brazil, but throught the world. Its serious problems do not allow for a higher place on the list.

8. Bonito (Mato Grosso do Sul)

In the southernmost point of the Pantanal lies Bonito, a mecca for ecotourism and fun in close contact with nature.

9. Trancoso (Bahia)

Trancoso is near Arraial d’Ajuda and shares with its neighbour a series of wonderful beaches and a relaxed atmosphere.

10. Ouro Preto (Minas Gerais)

In spite of the sorry state of conservation of its World Heritage, Ouro Preto makes it to the top 10 because of the truly mesmerizing historical riches found in its churches.

MyMaps!: mash-up that will allow you to locate of all the places listed above at GoogleMaps!

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Another piece of news coming from Iguazu. I’ve just read in La Voz de las Cataratas (in Spanish) that a group of self-appointed religious leaders from Foz de Iguazú want to change the name to the Devil’s Throat, the most impressive of all the falls at Iguazú. Among the arguments for the change (if you can call that an argument) the news item quotes that “if this is the Devil’s Throat then the Devil itself is there, and a marvel created by God can’t have that name.”

The news would give rise to much hilarity if it wasn’t for the fact that it fits in a context of unstoppable advance of religious fundamentalism worldwide, from Washington to Teheran, going through Brazil. In the case of Iguazu, it seems behind the iniative there is a group of evangelical priests – the local Catholic church would have distanced itself from the initiative.

As for the authorship of the falls, it would be a good idea to make it clear that they are the result of erosion. Just in case.

Update: the evangelicals are proposing that the fall be named “The Voice of God”.

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RELATED POSTS:
destination: Iguazu Falls

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From 1 June visitors will have to pay R$15 to do the basic tour round the Itaipu dam, near Foz do Iguaçu. Up until now, the visit was free. Notas do Turismo contains the information with a link to a detailed press release by the management of Itaipu detailing the different types of visits to the dam.

In my opinion, the basic tour of Itaipu – the one done by the vast majority of tourists – is of marginal interest. Visitors are shown a video presentation where they learn about the wonderful effect the construction of the dam had on the environment – any mention to the monstrous external debt resulting from the construction of the dam is conspicuous by its absence. After the presentation, there is a quick tour around the external part of the dam.

If the gigantic spillway is closed on the day of the visit (and it only opens when the dam is bursting at the seams) the visit is, to be honest, quite boring. It was free, though. That is not the case any longer, and for any engineering fans, I would recommend the Circuito Turístico Especial visit, where you do enter inside the dam and visit the turbines.

The Buddhist temple near Foz is very near and entrance is free.

To get from Rio or São Paulo to Foz do Iguaçu you can either fly or take the bus.

The main airlines (TAM and Gol) fly to Iguazu both from Congonhas and Guarulhos in São Paulo, and from Galeão and Santos Dumond in Rio. You can check timetables and prices for your dates of travel at their websites.

The bus trip takes 16 hours from São Paulo and 24 hours from Rio. The companies going to Foz do Iguaçu are Expresso Kaiowa and Pluma Internacional. Prices and timetables can also be checked online.

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RELATED POSTS:
Destination: Iguazu Falls
Accommodation in Foz do Iguaçu
from Curitiba to Foz do Iguaçu
Enough water at the Iguazú falls?

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