People: Brazilians were generally friendly, but often difficult to interact with – not speaking any other language than Portuguese. I was seriously surprised by the low level of English and even Spanish, which is so similar. I ended up just speaking Spanish to people anyway, they would respond in Portuguese and we would understand each other somehow. We didn’t meet a lot of other travellers as we stayed in AirBnBs, but we didn’t feel like there are lots of international backpackers around.

Food: No lasting memory – not in a bad way, but also not in a good way. We cooked a lot for ourselves, but also ate out here and there.

Weather: Hot, hot, hot! We sweated a lot in Brazil, the sun was burning down most days. Unfortunately, we had some rainy days towards the end in Rio and Sao Paulo, but we managed to see most important sights in good weather.

Costs: Brazil was not cheap: accommodation and transport were the main cost drivers. Overall, we spent slightly over 44€/person/day.

Accommodation: We only stayed in AirBnBs which was still the cheapest option for the two of us – dorms and of course double rooms in hotels would have been more expensive. We did meet some nice locals this way (even though there was always a language barrier), so all in all it was good even if not cheap.

Infrastructure: Very good with a big choice in busses and affordable flights. We took one internal flight and otherwise bussed it around Brazil. For the first time, we also took lots of taxis (Uber!), especially in Rio and Sao, to stay safe. It was a bit annoying as we usually would have walked everywhere – but especially after my backpack drama, we just wanted to stay safe and not have any further issues.

Illnesses: All in all, everything was fine.

Safety: I didn’t feel very safe walking around in Rio and Sao Paulo – mostly due to the stories you hear, but there were also some genuinely weird people around and we called Sao Paulo „the city of the homeless“… We did everything we could to improve our safety, and luckily nothing happened.

Itinerary: We travelled Southern Brazil: Foz do Iguacu – Florianopolis – Rio – Ilha Grande – Paraty – Sao Paulo. Typical places to visit on a first visit in the South. I would love to see 1 or 2 national parks further North and some beaches up North, but maybe at a later stage in life, when the safety will hopefully have improved.

Highlight: Cute little Paraty.

Lowlight: Sao Paulo, potentially the world’s ugliest city.

Click on the photos below to see our full photo album of Brazil:

Paraty is a cute little town with an old colonial center full of picturesque streets and houses. We spent 2 nights here, during which we must have walked down each and every one of these streets three times or more.

I was happy that after the boring Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay, this was finally a really nice colonial town again. Sure, it’s quite touristy, but not in a cheesy way.

Every time we walked the streets, there was a different light and the houses looked seemingly even prettier than last time. We really enjoyed our time here, even though there is not much to do other than walk around.

As a last stop, we then made our way to Sao Paulo…