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Latest Rio Carnaval Trend: The Pocket Potty?
Photo © Michael Sommers.
Yesterday I was out in the center of Salvador and as I walked by all the boarded up buildings, I noted to myself that it looked as if a hurricane were coming. Then I remembered that next week is the beginning of Carnaval.
I can still vividly recall the experience of my fir
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Where The Buffalo Roam… in Brazil
Water buffalo are a common sight on Ilha de Marajó. Photo © Celso Abreu, licensed Creative Commons Attribution.
In The New York Times last week, “Frugal Traveler” Seth Kugel posted about a trip to a region of the Brazilian Amazon that runs counter to the images most people conjure
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Notes on Brazilian Hangovers
Cocktail bar photo by Henrik Chulu licensed Creative Commons Attribution.
In Brazil, there are three main types of ressacas (hangovers):
Ressaca clássica – this classic hangover is what one experiences after having “caído em águas” (“fallen into waters”), i.e. gotten loaded on beer, cachaça, sangu
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Flying Down to Rio with the Obamas
Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro. Photo © Celso Diniz/123rf.
During the Bush years, anti-Americanism in Brazil was at an all-time high; at the height of the Iraq War, only 50 percent of Brazilians claimed to have a “good opinion” of the United States. All that changed when Barack Obama wa
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The Perfect Gift
Last week when president Obama made his first-ever visit to Brazil, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff gifted him with a glossy picture book rife with alluring images of Rio de Janeiro. Although it’s customary for the receiving heads-of-state to gift the visitors, Brazilians were hoping that Obama
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Gaddafi’s Brazilian Features
Famed for its cutting-edge technology and affordable prices, Brazil has long been known as the plastic surgery capital of the world. For years now, Rio de Janeiro (a city where appearances matter enormously) has been a mecca for celebrities from around Brazil and the world in search of a little ni
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Beulah, Peel Me a Drink Caipirinhas in Brazil
Photo © Michael Sommers.
In recent years, caipirinhas—the quintessential Brazilian cocktail of cachaça, sugar, crushed lime and ice—have become as synonymous with Brazil as margaritas with Mexico and sangrias with Spain.
However, long before gaining international acclaim as a refreshing and potent
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Sun, Sand, and Seclusion in São Paulo
Photo © Michael Sommers.
Visitors to São Paulo who pity the fact that its residents are landlocked in a seemingly never-ending urban jungle shouldn’t feel too sorry for them. After all, within a couple of hours by car (a couple more by bus) Paulistanos can easily access some of the most beautiful
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Rocking Out between Rio and NYC
Photo © Michael Sommers.
Those who peruse this blog with some regularity might recall a piece I posted at the beginning of the year entitled “The Little Things” in which I waxed rhapsodic over the unexpected joy of coming across home-made waffles on a secluded Bahian beach.
Earlier this week I was
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Message in a Bottle
One of the most renowned Brazilian regions, the Sertão is also one of the least frequently visited – this in spite of the fact that this semi-arid region, stretching up from northern Minas Gerais into western Bahia and all the way up to the interiors of Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, and
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Novos Turistas
Several weeks ago I wrote a post about the new Open Skies commercial aviation agreement that was signed between Brazil and the United States. The agreement removes restrictions on all flights between the two nations, which should result in an increased number of flights between the two largest air
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TAM Offers 4 Flights for the Price of 1
Brazil’s largest airline, TAM, has come up with an ingenious, not to mention, inexpensive way to hop, skip, and fly your way across this enormous country. TAM’s Giro program allows you to purchase a round-trip plane ticket from one end to another of Brazil and make stops at three cities along the
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Let There Be Light
Photo © Michael Sommers.
Foreign travelers who check into Brazilian hotels and pousadas might notice that no matter what the size, or price, of the establishment, when it comes to lighting, there is a definite predilection for bulbs of a fluorescent nature.
Brazil’s Fluorescent Revolution dates ba
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Let Them Eat Meat
One of my favorite Brazilian national traits is irreverence. It often goes hand-in-hand with a collective talent for taking a serious gripe, beef, complaint, or protest and turning it into a subversion-fueled excuse for Carnaval.
Both irreverence and the carnavalesque were on display this week in
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Brazil's B-movie-worthy Exploding Zombie Ants
In the 1950s and early ‘60s, the Brazilian Amazon was a favorite setting for many Hollywood B movies. The vast primeval rainforest proved to be an extremely fertile tabula rasa onto which the loopiest cinematic imaginings could be projected.
Among some of the more fantastical inhabitants of Hollyw
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Following the Stars
Photo © Michael Sommers.
One of my earlier travel memories is of a family trip to France in which I discovered not only pain au chocolat and chestnut trees, but stars. I don’t mean stars as in celestial bodies, but stars as in the precise and pointed symbols, assembled in ones, twos, and threes, t
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Black in Brazil
A few months ago, I was over at my friend Myra’s house, when she mentioned that she was going to be interviewed by Henry Louis Gates, the eminent Harvard intellectual and professor of black culture for a documentary about the black diaspora in the Americas. Myra is an author and professor of Bahia
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Best and Worst Brazilian Highways
Photo © Michael Sommers.
Driving around Brazil’s highways and byways is not for the faint of heart. Although some estradas (Portuguese for roads) are top-of-the-line, others leave a lot to be desired. Torrential rains, scorching heat, floods and landslides, trucks and buses, all take their toll. T
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The World’s Most Overvalued Currency
The cost of living is rising in Brazil. Photo © Michael Sommers.
I don’t need to read an article to tell me how expensive Brazil has become – especially, for those who come bearing American dollars. Having lived in Brazil for 12 years now – and earned the major part of my livelihood in greenbacks,
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Uncontacted Indian Tribe Surfaces in the Amazon
Long before I ever moved to Brazil, I was in a relationship with a Brazilian anthropologist who, at the time, did a lot of field work with Brazil’s indigenous peoples. I remember being quite awestruck when he confessed to me that deep within the Brazilian Amazon there were “uncontacted” Indian gro
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