The Beast in Brasil

BRASIL

THE LAND OF CARNAVAL, SAMBA AND RAINFOREST

Welcome to Brasil/Brazil...

The Brasilian flag: the green is for the forest, the yellow is for the sun, the blue is for the sea and the stars are the southern cross, the stars the Portuguese saw when they landed in Brasil. There is a banner across the centre of the flag that says 'Ordem e progresso' - order and progress.

The Brasilian numberplate

SP - Sao Paulo

RS - Rio Grande de Sul

The Brasilian numberplates have the state with the city listed afterwards. Red numberplates are for vehicles licensed to carry cargo and people.

Brasilian money, the Real, which comes in the form of 10c, 25c, 50c, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 denominations. All the money has a different animal on it. At 2007 exchange rates R$4.2 = £1.

PORTO ALEGRE

Rubber Roads - The Government of Rio Grande do Sul are experimenting with laying down recycled rubber from car tyres to stop the rutting on the roads from heavy lorries.

Porto Alegre

BENTO GONCALVES - BRASIL'S WINE VALLEY

SERRA DA QUEBRADA

Butia seller at the side of the road

Butia is the fruit of a palm tree. The fruit is edible by itself or can be made into a juice or a tasty liquor.

FLORIANOPOLIS

There are some enormous sand dunes that you can enjoy by sandboarding down.

We met up with Audrey Drummond and Victor, his cousin for an extremely drunken night.

Brasil has a renewable fuel resource to run its vehicles on - Alcohol. The alcohol is made from cane sugar. When petrol prices are too high, they produce more alcohol for their cars, which in turn influences the world sugar prices.

SAO PAULO

The enormous city of Sao Paulo is home to 17 million people and stretches for over 100 km. It is the third largest city in the world.

Rush hour is less rushing than sitting in stationary traffic!

TROPICAL BREAKDOWN

About 40km outside of Sao Paulo, we had to sleep at the side of the motorway when we lost the use of all gears. The following day we were towed to the nearest mechanic.

One gearbox ... destroyed!

These two parts had worn through meaning that we could not engage any gear without the low/high gear ratio popping out.

The ugly and beautiful! The part on the right is what the part on the left should look like!

Four days of waiting at the petrol station garage!

The wonder brothers, Alexon and Mauricio, who worked magic in reconstructing our gearbox and gave us a great insight into the life of petrol station mechanics. They had to get the parts made from scratch as there are only three Land Rover 101s in the whole of Brasil and there are no spare gearboxes lying around!

PARATI

The national monument town of Parati/Paraty is currently applying for UNESCO protection.

Paraty was historically a very important town in the history of Brasil. It was the start of the Caminho do Ouro (the Gold Trail). In the 18th century, gold was discovered in Minas Gerais and Rio state. Slaves from Africa were imported to mine the gold and to construct the Gold Trail that runs from Diamantina in Minas Gerais to Paraty, a length of 1200 km (741 miles). Unfortunately most of it has been lost or is inaccessible.

RIO DE JANIERO

Christ the Redeemer overlooking Rio

Pao de Acucar

Copacabana Beach

Ipanema Beach

The force of Brasilian sun. Half an hour out in the painful rays!

Wet Season in Brasil

When wet season arrives in Brasil, it is wet! Roads get washed away..

...Landslides wash houses away and in 2007, over 30000 people lost their homes.

TIMOTEO

Alexis's Brasilian family, Os Drummonds who were their usual amazing hosts an showed The Beasts around the area and allowed us to chill out for a few days.

Muito muito obrigado, meus amigos!

Alexis also visited the place where she worked when she lived in Brasil. The environmental education centre, Oikos, works to teach kids and adults about their natural environment as well as about nutrition and recycling programmes.

We passed through coffee zones

The Pantanal

The Pantanal is the largest wetland in the world and is located in Mato Gross do Sul, Mato Grosso do Norte in Brasil and overlaps into Bolivia and Paraguay.

Fazenda San Fransisco is a eco farm in the centre of the Pantanal. We stayed there for a a night and got taken out on a night and day time safari where we saw a wonderful selection of birds, ocelots, capivara, jacare, foxes and even some puma prints. The Fazenda have been researching the population and movement of pumas withing the Pantanal for the past 30 years.