The Wonders of Brazil revealed during a whirlwird trip from Rio to Iguacu Falls.

The Wonders of Brazil revealed during whirlwind trip from Rio to Iguacu Falls

I recently went to Brazil with four colleagues all of us on the board of an international travel organization. The current president just happened to be the sales representative in the U.S. for the Brazilian airline, and she at short notice had four business class seats available so of course, we jumped at the chance to explore with her as our guide. Our goal was to inspect then hotels a day and rate them as to value and location, and go on as many tours as our energy would allow.

There are two climates in Brazil. Hot, and hotter. It provides the tourist with the greatest diversity of landscape, wonderful beaches and its people love music. Rio is a wonderful city, bathed by the quite Atlantic Ocean, and its beaches are spread for 90 miles along the coast.

Copacabana was busy with people of all ages but I liked Ipanema better. The two must for people are to go up Sugar Loaf Mountain which terrified me. Even though I am a skier and used to going up mountains on aerial trams, this one was steep. The train ride up to the top of Corcovado to see the famous landmark, the statue of Christ the Redeemer was easier to take and is one of the most photographed spots in the world.

Rio has a bad reputation for crime and the police have made great efforts to address this problem. Like we do anywhere in the world, we travelled without any good jewelry, and put valuable items in the hotel safe.

Since the country is famous for its jewelry and gemstones, we did a tour of Sterns, the large jewelry store and Janice, leader also took us to a private wholesaler which was absolutely breathtaking. There were more guards around this home than the Queen has, and what we saw was out of this world. He laid out millions of dollars worth of emeralds, then sapphires, and showed us the different between various qualities. Several of my colleagues bought some Ruby earrings, which were lovely and the price was wholesale. We next went to a leather market, and I bought some shoes and a handbag at bargain prices.

Brazil is so vast, you don’t want to drive anywhere. Only one percent of the roads are paved and few people spoke English. We were glad we had an interpreter in Janice. It is best that you fly between regions.

We went next to Salvador, Bahia, which is 1,000 miles northeast of Rio. Salvador’s colonial city is the largest collection of Baroque architecture in Latin America. Steeped in history with the slave trade, its people sing and dance to the rhythms of the purest Afro-Brazilian music. The cuisine is very different, but enjoyable.

We then flew to the boarder of Argentina and Uruguay to see Iguacu Falls one of the three most spectacular falls in the world. We stayed in a hotel on the Brazilian side and the windows of the hotel shook all night with the vibration of the water. We saw 275 waterfalls along the walk on the Brazilian side and you are looking up. When we drove over the order into Argentina to have lunch and inspect a hotel on the other side, we got a totally different view since we were looking down on the falls. Even with a plastic raincoat on, you get absolutely soaked with the spray from the falls.

I would recommend the itinerary the opposite way to what we did and leave Rio until the end of the trip.

One important point is that flying north and south you get no jet lag. After an 15 hour flight, I went straight into the office and worked for several hours. I am usually like a dead duck when I come back from Europe after a shorter flight time, so this was a nice bonus to the trip.

Maureen Jones

All Horizons Travel/Frosch

825 Santa Cruz Avenue

Menlo Park

650-941-5810

Maureen.Jones@Frosch.com