Best places to visit
It depends what you are looking for - if you want to relax by the beach in a five star hotel with other tourists, Rio de Janeiro is great. Ipanema beach is a classy neighbourhood and is recommended. Copacabana beach is a tourist trap of the highest order, and the only people here are tourists, prostitutes and all the people who feed off them - thieves, beggars and general scabs. You won't really find too many Brazilians who like to hang out here unless they like gringos. ('A Foreigner' in Brazil is a gringo, though in the rest of South America this name is reserved for residents of the good old US of A, and is derogatory.)

Obviously if you enjoy parties, festivals and parades, the biggest party on earth, Brazilian Carnaval, is held in Brazil from February 6th - 14th. Carnaval really is fantastic, the costumes and dancing, and wild partying that goes on is second to none. Brazilians love to dance, and their local flavours of dance include the Caipoeira, which is an old dance invented out of necessity, so that the young men held captive could learn to fight; they had to pretend they were dancing so they wouldn't get caught. The Samba is also a wonderfully shuffly sexy dance; it actually makes men look good if they do it well, unlike say, disco dancing. Brazilian Funk dancing is normally a sexually charged performance with a lot of butts getting stuck out and gyrated, body twisting and rolls creating a very energetic, blatantly sexy dance. There is certainly nothing subtle about it, but then again, Brazilians aren't exactly subtle either!

Carnival
Most of Brazil celebrates Carnival, Salvador seeming to take the cake for the best, then Rio de Janeiro. I suspect these two are on par with one another, and a fantastic though reasonably expensive time to be had by all. Prices inflate dramatically at this time, and it is when a lot of businesses make the money that will tide them over for the rest of the year. If you want to go there, book a room and make all your travel plans well in advance or you might find yourself out of luck.

Carnival itself is fantastic with the parades, costumes or painted skin and if you are lucky you can attend a carnival ball. Some balls are very extravagant, but this is an opportunity to rub shoulders with some of Barazil's rich and maybe famous. If you are in bed before dawn, you have missed a lot and to wind down after it's all over, sitting on the beach to watch the sunrise is awesome.

Florianopolis is fantastic, with beautiful unspoilt beaches and a very cruisy atmosphere. Sao Paulo is good for museums and history if that is your thing. Sao Paulo is famous for its night life, and this massive sprawling city of 18 million people certainly deserves this title. But, there is nothing else really fun here, just people, smog, rubbish and noise. The general consensus has been, unless you know someone here, avoid it. It is a grimy horrible city, though is the financial capital of Brazil.

The Amazon Forest.
Then there is the fantastic Amazon forest - if you are going to the Amazon forest make sure to get your shots for yellow fever and TB, and anti-malaria medication. The amazing Amazon (is that where that word came from?) is full of interesting things to do and see. If you will be heading for the forest to photograph rare bird species or giant insects, slush your way through tropical trees and camp out with your local guide in the bush, take sensible shoes! The forest is simply amazing; there is no other way to describe it. There are huge amounts of information on the internet; the forest is so big (millions of square kilometres) that it is impossible to describe any one part of it without omitting an entire library of other equally fascinating aspects.

There are local people still living in the forests and it is known that some of them have inhabited the forest for many centuries and never actually bumped into one another. It is also estimated that at any one time, there are 60,000 fires burning in the Amazon, contributing drastically to ozone depletion, despite the massive donation of 50% of the world’s oxygen.

The Amazon River
The largest waterway in the world. To start exploring here, head to Balem on the coast or Manaus which is up river. From either of these cities you can take tours or hire guides or a boat to explore further.

Iguassú Falls
The Iguassú Falls are world famous and are located in the Iguassú National Park, on the border of Brazil and Argentina.  To get to Iguassú Falls, take a flight from Sao Paulo to Foz do Iguassú and then a local bus or tour. The Iguassu Golf Club & Resort is situated 9 kilometres from the city centre. It is 7 kilometres away from the airport. The resort has a golf course and a lake for fishing. The resort has 67 rooms and 4 bungalows, all equipped with amenities such as mini bar and in room safe. It has a restaurant and a pool bar for its guests and a convention centre. Iguassú Falls Accommodation.