Brazil is the largest and also the most populous country in South America. Formerly colonised by the Portuguese, its official language is to this day still Portuguese, and due to its sheer size, it is an extremely diverse country in the geographical sense. Its capital Brasilia is located inland, but its cities Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Florianopolis are very much at the centre of the country’s tourism industry.

I visited Brazil at the end of February 2014 with my friend Christian. We would end up spending two weeks there, visiting several different places in the process.

Brazil is a huge landmass and occupies a large proportion of the South American continent: its coastal and southern areas are in general its most inhabited areas, whilst inland the amazon rainforest makes for quite inhospitable territory.

Christian and I flew into São Paulo from Santiago de Chile with LAN airlines, a journey of approximately 4 hours. One thing to note is that flights in between South American countries are in general quite pricey, so if at all possible logistically, it is quite often cheaper to travel by coach.

São Paulo is termed as a megacity due to its sheer size, with a population of approximately 22.6 million. This makes for quite a chaotic city, as most of the city is extremely densely populated. Safety is another thing that has to be brought up when talking about Brazil, as it is advisable to plan in advance and to be careful where you go at night in order to lower the potential for being robbed.

The centre of São Paulo is like any large city, and is home to many museums, shopping centres, bars and cafés, and in general the city’s underground system works extremely well.

From São Paulo, we travelled inland to the Minas Gerais region where we would be spending carnival. Carnival is an amazing experience in Brazil, and was definitely the highlight of my trip there! My friend Christian had some Brazilian friends who had invited us over to spend carnival with them in their town and we went to a local arena with our three day wristbands, which gave us access to the carnival parade, as well as evening entertainment made up largely of Brazilian music. The whole experience was amazing and a particular highlight for me was the unlimited beer that came with our wristbands!

From Minas Gerais, we continued south to Illhabela, which is a stunning island off the south coast of São Paulo state, and its name literally translates as “beautiful island” from Portuguese. Upon arriving into Illhabela, we had to hike for three hours through the dense rainforest in order to reach our hostel, which was located in a remote village by the beach. The walk through the rainforest was quite treacherous and put us in close proximity with some of the local wildlife! Illhabela is an amazing place for swimming and surfing, and in general has some breathtaking landscape! Being so far away from civilisation also allowed us to recharge our batteries somewhat.

The final stop on our trip to Brazil, was a trip to Rio de Janeiro, perhaps the most touristy city in the country. We arrived into the city by coach and the favelas are quite an imposing sight when arriving into the city for the first time. Particularly highlights of our time in Rio were visiting the sugar loaf mountain, as well as the Copacabana beach. After such a hectic time at carnival, it was nice to have some time to unwind a bit!

After Rio de Jainero, we briefly returned back to São Paulo by coach, and from them flew back to Santiago de Chile.