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Brazilians often say they lie in a
continent rather than a country, and that's an excusable
exaggeration. The landmass is bigger than the United States if you
exclude Alaska; the journey from Recife in the east to the western
border with Peru is longer than that from London to Moscow, and the
distance between the northern and southern borders is about the same
as that between New York and Los Angeles. Brazil has no mountains to
compare with its Andean neighbors, but in every other respect it has
all the scenic - and cultural - variety you would expect from so
vast a country.
Despite the immense expanses of the interior, roughly two-thirds of
Brazil's population lie on or near the coast; and well over half
lie in cities - even in the Amazon. In Rio and São Paulo, Brazil
has two of the world's great metropolises, and nine other cities
have over a million inhabitants. Yet Brazil still thinks of itself
as a frontier country, and certainly the deeper into the interior
you go, the thinner the population becomes. Nevertheless, the
frontier communities have expanded relentlessly during the last
fifty years, usually hand in hand with the planned expansion of the
road network into remote regions.
Other South Americans regard Brazilians as a race apart, and
language has a lot to do with it - Brazilians understand Spanish,
just about, but Spanish-speakers won't understand Portuguese. More
importantly, though, Brazilians look different. They're one of the
most ethnically diverse peoples in the world: in the extreme south,
German and Italian immigration has left distinctive European
features; São Paulo has the world's largest Japanese community
outside Japan; there's a large black population concentrated in Rio,
Salvador and São Luís; while the Indian influence is most visible in
the people of Amazônia and the Northeastern interior.
Brazil is a land of profound economic contradictions. Rapid postwar
industrialization made Brazil one of the world's ten largest
economies and put it among the most developed of Third World
countries. But this has not improved the lot of the vast majority of
Brazilians. The cities are dotted with favelas, shantytowns which
crowd around the skyscrapers, and the contrast between rich and poor
is one of the most glaring anywhere.
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There are wide regional diversity, too: Brazilians talk of a "Switzerland" in the
Southeast, centered along the Rio-São Paulo axis, and an "India"
above it; and although this is a simplification, it's true that the
level of economic development tends to fall the further north you
go. This throws up facts which are hard to swallow. Brazil is the
industrial powerhouse of South America, but cannot feed and educate
its people. In a country almost the size of a continent, the extreme
inequalities in land distribution have led to land shortages but not
to agrarian reform. Brazil has enormous natural resources but their
exploitation so far has benefited just a few. The IMF and the greed
of First World banks must bear some of the blame for this situation,
but institutionalized corruption and the reluctance of the country's
large middle class to do anything that might jeopardize its
comfortable lifestyle are also part of the problem.
These difficulties, however, rarely seem to overshadow everyday life
in Brazil. It's fair to say that nowhere in the world do people know
how to enjoy themselves more - most famously in the annual orgiastic
celebrations of Carnaval, but reflected, too, in the lively
year-round nightlife that you'll find in any decent-sized town. This
national hedonism also manifests itself in Brazil's highly developed
beach culture ; the country's superb music and dancing; rich
regional cuisines ; and in the most relaxed and tolerant attitude to
sexuality - gay and straight - that you'll find anywhere in South
America. And if you needed more reason to visit, there's a strength
and variety of popular culture, and a genuine friendliness and
humor in the people that is tremendously welcoming and infectious.
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Brazil
guide
Brazil
Where To Go
Weather
Average temperatures
Getting there
visas,
consulates
Insurances
travelers with disabilities
Costs, Money And Banks
Getting Around
Eating And Drinking
Street foods, snacks
Restaurants
vegetarian /natural
Soft drinks, hot drinks
traveling with
Kids
Robberies, hold ups, drugs
Women travelers
Gays and
lesbian
Best of Brazil
Health,
vaccinations
Info and
maps
Media
Holidays
-Carnaval
-World
Cup, Festas Juninas
Soccer, football
-Going
to a football match
-Football
teams, clubs, shirts
Nature and
Amazon
Brazilian
music
-Bossa nova
-Bahian
sound
-Contemporary
singers, musicians
-Brazilian
rhythms
-Discography
-Lie
and recording |
