Brazil

Brazilians often say they live 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 neighbours, but in every other respect it has all the scenic - and cultural - variety you would expect from so vast a country.

Rio de Janeiro

Nearly five hundred years have seen RIO DE JANEIRO transformed from a fortified outpost on the rim of an unknown continent into one of the world's great cities. Its recorded past is tied exclusively to the legacy of the colonialism on which it was founded. No lasting vestige survives of the civilization of the Tamoios people, who inhabited the land before the Portuguese arrived, and the city's history effectively begins on January 1, 1502, when a Portuguese captain, André Gonçalves, steered his craft into Guanabara Bay, thinking he was heading into the mouth of a great river. The city takes its name from this event - Rio de Janeiro means the "River of January". In 1555, the French, keen to stake a claim on the New World, established a garrison near the Sugar Loaf mountain, and the Governor General of Brazil, Mem de Sá, made an unsuccessful attempt to oust them. It was left to his son, Estácio de Sá, finally to defeat them in 1567, though he fell - mortally wounded - during the battle. The city then acquired its official name, São Sebastião de Rio de Janeiro, after the infant king of Portugal, and Rio began to develop on and around the Morro do Castelo - in front of where Santos Dumont airport now stands.

São Paulo
In 1554, the Jesuit priests José de Anchieta and Manuel da Nóbrega established a mission station on the banks of the Rio Tietê in an attempt to bring Christianity to the Tupi-Guarani Indians. Called São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, it was 70km inland and 730m up, in the sheer, forest-covered inclines of the Serra do Mar, above the port of São Vicente. The gently undulating plateau and the proximity to the Paraná and Plata rivers facilitated traffic into the interior and, with São Paulo as their base, roaming gangs of bandeirantes set out in search of loot. Around the mission school, a few adobe huts were erected and the settlement soon developed into a trading post and a base from which to secure mineral wealth. In 1681, São Paulo - as the town became known - became a seat of regional government and, in 1711, it was made a municipality by the king of Portugal, the cool, healthy climate helping to attract settlers from the coast.

Brasilia
Imagine what it would be like touching down on another planet, and you'll have some idea of what confronts you when you first arrive in BRASÍLIA : there is a clinical, science-fiction logic at work in the city. Other visitors have had less kind things to say about the city. Simone de Beauvoir, visiting in 1963 with Jean-Paul Sartre in tow, described the place as "elegant monotony", while the Royal Institute of British Architects poked fun by renaming Brasília "The Moon's Backside".

Belém
Strategically placed on the Amazon river estuary close to the mouth of the mighty Rio Tocantins, BELÉM was founded by the Portuguese in 1616 as the City of Our Lady of Bethlehem (Belém). Its original role was to protect the river mouth and establish the Portuguese claim to the region, but it rapidly became established as an Indian slaving port and a source of cacao and spices from the Amazon. Such was the devastation of the local population, however, that by the mid-eighteenth century a royal decree was issued in Portugal to encourage its growth: every white man who married an Indian woman would receive "one axe, two scissors, some cloth, clothes, two cows and two bushels of seed".

Carnival Dates 2005-2014 (Parade days in red)
2005 February 5, 6, 7, 8 - Winner's Parade February 12
2006 February 25, 26, 27, 28 - Winner's Parade March 4
2007 February 17, 18, 19, 20 - Winner's Parade February 24
2008 February 2, 3, 4, 5 - Winner's Parade February 9
2009 February 21, 22, 23, 24 - Winner's Parade February 28
2010 February 13, 14, 15, 16 - Winner's Parade February 20
2011 March 5, 6, 7, 8 - Winner's Parade March 12
2012 February 18, 19, 20, 21 - Winner's Parade February 25
2013 February 9, 10, 11, 12 - Winner's Parade February 16
2014 March 1, 2, 3, 4 - Winner's Parade March 8

Best travel time:
It all depends on what you are expecting!

North of Rio the weather is always warm, and hot December through March.

Rio itself can get cool in July. For a few days, the maximum temperature can fall below 20°C. The rainy season is January through March. This does not mean that it rains more often, the rain just brings more water!

São Paulo and the South are much like Southern Europe with the opposite seasons. A bit chilly indeed June through August (with a bit more rain) and quite hot and a bit humid in the Summer (January through March).

The Northeast, of which Salvador is the main city, is warm along the coast year round. Inland the differences between day and night are more accentuated. Hot during the day and cooler at night.

And the Amazon is tropical: Humid and up to 35°C warm, year around, more or less. There is never much time between rainshowers. But then again, those showers, although violent at times, are usually over after an hour.

A special word about the second most popular place in Brazil. When going to Ouro Preto (as on our Gold Route tour), bring a sweater. Due to the high altitude it often gets extremely cool at night, even after a very hot Summer day in January.