BT7: Correios 2

Not surprisingly, the Brazilian mail service has the same name as the Portuguese one - but their mailboxes look quite different.


We did not see many private mailboxes in São Paulo - not of the free-standing variety at least. Most places we saw mailboxes built into the houses. But of course, we are talking about a city where lots of people surround their homes with tall walls topped with barbed wire.

BT6: Cataratas do Iguaçu

When it was time for us to pick the main destination for spare time in Brazil, the decision was easy: both of us really wanted to go to the big waterfalls - Iguaçu Falls - located on the border between Brazil and Argentina.

The distances in Brazil are quite big, so we flew from São Paulo (and back again). But we did set aside a good amount of time for exploring the waterfalls from both sides of the river. The Brazilian side allows for a panoramic view over most of the falls (as in the picture above), but it is also possible get up close using the installed walkways - that's a rather wet experience!


In Argentina there is the option of looking along and down the falls - one of the main attractions is walking to the top of the largest single waterfall, Devil's Throat, and looking down into it. Again, a rather wet experience when the wind suddenly changes direction. Apart from that it is hard to describe the sheer force and the deafening roar of the falls. These factors don't really come across so well in pictures. You have to go yourselves to get the full experience!

The day we visited the Argentinian part the sun was burning from a cloudless sky, so we had the bonus of seeing lots of rainbows in the mist from the waterfalls.

BT5: Feliz Natal

It was just around the transition from November to December that we were in Brazil - so of course they were busy decorating the city for the approaching holiday season. Interestingly, in Brazil they associate Christmas with the same symbols as we do in our own, more northern, region: snow, rotund Santa Clauses in heavy, red coats, decorated Christmas trees, and polar bears (?!). Snow undoubtedly seems exotic and alluring in these latitudes - in a country where snow and frost is hardly ever seen (except in the mountains in the southernmost states). But when sweating profusely in the early subtropical summer a couple of wads of cotton in the hedge just don't appear very convincing.



On Avenida Paulista it seemed a bit like the large banks were trying to outdo each other with opulent Christmas decorations. It is possible that more came up after we left the area, but otherwise our first prize goes to the establishment pictured below. In broad daylight it merely appeared a bit overloaded with Christmas decorations, but starting in late November and every evening between 6 and 10 pm for the rest of the year they put on their Christmas show with talking mechanical puppet dogs, a dancing and Christmas-medley-singing choir, and snow machines every twenty minutes.


Did we mention the Christmas trees? A metropolis the size of São Paulo unsurprisingly requires a large and impressive Christmas tree - never mind if it is actually a single large real tree.

But it was certainly big: looking closely one can just make out the man standing near the top - just by the ladder leading up to the large Christmas star.

BT4: Butterflies

National parks obviously have certain wishes for the behaviour of the visitors, but it wasn't particularly easy to avoid touching the butterflies in Iguaçu - both because there were overwhelming swarms of them in some spots and because the more adventurous of them didn't hesitate to park themselves on backs, hats, backpacks etc.

BT3: South American wildlife

One of the most important reasons for choosing to splurge on the hotel INSIDE Iguaçu National Park was the anticipation that early morning walks in the park would provide us with good opportunities for wildlife sightings. And we were by no means disappointed in this regard - here follows some of those we managed to snap photos of.


This (extended) family of coatis (a South American relative of the raccoon) let themselves be observed quite unperturbed so long as we didn't try to get MUCH too close to them. The four parents were busy eating and didn't appear to pay any attention at all to the kids. This resulted in one of the small ones standing at one side of the road looking quite lost and sad when it missed crossing the road together with the rest of them. Fortunately a sibling came halfway back across the road to lead it on the right track - then it bolted across the road at top speed!


When we saw something behind us on the road the following morning we expected it to be another coati, so we were quite surprised when we realised it was an armadillo. These should be nocturnal, so we hadn't counted on seeing any. It disappeared in the bushes before we got a good look at it, but it was kind enough to re-emerge shortly after to cross the road again. What a strange creature!


Another animal which might not seem very exotic at first was this guinea pig which we saw in the Argentinian part of the national park(s). But it was truly surreal for us to see this common pet sitting on a lawn grazing like some squirrel or other wild animal!


Last but not least we were amazed at our first sighting of the South American swan. We both knew of the black swans of Australia, but neither of knew that there was a specific South American variety of swans. But there is - and it can best be described as looking like a cross between black and white swans...

BT2: Phone booths

While the trend most other places is for phone booths to decay and disappear, Brazil is obviously still putting up new ones. In smaller towns one often finds but a single phone booth, but otherwise two or three are mounted on the same pole - and as seen here one of them is usually mounted lower down on the pole to facilitate use for disabled persons. The phone booths are clearly also being used - even though in this case we are puzzled as to why the caller didn't chose one of the other two...

In central São Paulo there's still a couple of well-preserved phone booths from a somewhat different era.

BT1: São Paulo

For the past couple of weeks we have been mainly blogging about Swedish Christmas traditions, snow and ice. But we actually started the holiday season with a serious dose of summer and sunshine. So in order to recap our trip to Brazil we are going to start a little series of blog entries which we have decided to call Brazilian tales.


Our starting point on this trip was São Paulo. Even though we have been to large cities before we must admit that São Paulo's extensive area littered with high-rises surpasses all we have previously seen. Lisbeth flew in over the city in broad daylight and seeing from above just how far the city stretched was incredible. Flying in over Los Angeles one is flying over the city for quite a while as well, but most of it are villas. In Los Angeles there can be no doubt as to the location of the city centre - that feeling of orientation is lost in the concrete jungle of São Paulo.

The vast majority of the buildings are of course concrete monstrosities, but in between those there were a number of older, colonial style houses and mansions. In the central business districts a little more attention had been paid to architecture - both in the form of interesting details and mirror facades:


São Paulo isn't a city with any particular 'must-see' sights; the experience consists largely of simply being there and experiencing such a dense and complex city. They do have a beautiful monument commemorating the 'Bandeirantes' who explored (enslaved and colonised would be another way to describe it...) the inner regions of present-day Brazil in the 16th-18th centuries.
Does it look a bit like something which has been seen in another - and certainly related - place?!


And if anyone should be in doubt as to whether or not we went to the tropics, we submit this evidence: