Brazil History

Brazil's recorded history begins with the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, although it had been discovered and settled by Indians many centuries before. The importation of millions of African slaves over the next four centuries completed the rich blend of European, Indian and African influences that formed modern Brazil and its people. Achieving independence from Portugal in 1822, Brazil's enormous wealth in land and natural resources underpinned a boom-and-bust cycle of economic development that continues to the present day. The eternal "Land of the Future" is still a prisoner of its past, as industrialization turned Brazil into the economic giant of South America, but sharpened social divisions. After a twenty-year interlude of military rule, the civilian "New Republic" has struggled, with some success, against deep-rooted economic crisis and has managed to consolidate democracy. Although social divisions remain, the current economic and political outlook is the best it has been for a generation

Early history
Very little is known about the thousands of years that Brazil was inhabited exclusively by Indians . The first chroniclers who arrived with the Portuguese - Pedro Vaz da Caminha in 1500 and Gaspar Carvajal in 1540 - saw large villages, but nothing resembling the huge Aztec and Inca cities that the Spanish encountered. The fragile material traces left by Brazil's earliest inhabitants have for the most part not survived. The few exceptions - like the exquisitely worked glazed ceramic jars unearthed on Marajó island in the Amazon - come from cultures that have vanished so completely that not even a name records their passing.

The Indians fascinated the Portuguese, and many of the first Europeans to visit Brazil sent lengthy reports back home. The most vivid account was penned by a German mercenary, Hans Staden , who spent three nervous years among the cannibal Tupi after being captured in 1552. He tells how they tied his legs together, "? and I was forced to hop through the huts, at which they made merry, saying ?Here comes our food hopping towards us.'" Understandably, his memoirs were one of the first bestsellers in European history, and contained much accurate description of an Indian culture still largely untouched by the colonists. The work of Staden and the first explorers and missionaries is a brief snapshot of Indian Brazil in the sixteenth century, a blurred photograph of a way of life soon to be horribly transformed.

It was unfortunate that the Portuguese first landed in the only part of Brazil where ritualized cannibalism was practised on a large scale; away from the Tupi areas it was rare. Nowhere was stone used for building. There was no use of metal or the wheel, and no centralized, state-like civilizations on the scale of Spanish America. There are arguments about how large the Indian population was: Carvajal described taking several days to pass through the large towns of the Omagua tribe on the Amazon in 1542 but, away from the abundant food sources on the coast and the banks of large rivers, population densities were much lower. The total number of Indians was probably around five million. Today there are two hundred thousand in Brazil.

Conquest
The Portuguese discovery of Brazil, when Pedro Alvares Cabral landed in southern Bahia on April 23, 1500, was an accident, an episode in Portugal's thrust to found a seaborne empire in the East Indies during the sixteenth century. Cabral was blown off course as he steered far to the west to avoid the African doldrums on his way to Calcutta: after a cursory week exploring the coast he continued to India, where he drowned in a shipwreck a few months later. King Manuel I sent Amerigo Vespucci to explore further in 1501. Reserving the name of the continent for himself, he spent several months sailing along the coast, calendar in hand, baptizing places after the names of saints' days: entering Guanabara Bay on New Year's Day 1502, he called it Rio de Janeiro. The land was called Terra do Brasil, after a tropical redwood that was its first export; the scarlet dye it yielded was called brasa, "a glowing coal".

Portugal, preoccupied with Africa and the lucrative Far East spice trade, neglected this new addition to its empire for the first few decades. Apart from a few lumber camps and scattered stockades, the Portuguese made no attempt at settlement. Consequently, other European countries were not slow to move in, with French and English privateers using the coast as a base to raid the spice ships. Finally, in 1532, João III was provoked into action. He divided up the coastline into sesmarias , captaincies fifty leagues wide and extending indefinitely inland, distributing them to aristocrats and courtiers in return for undertakings to found settlements. It was hardly a roaring success: Pernambuco, where sugar took hold, and São Vicente, gateway to the Jesuit mission station of São Paulo, were the only securely held areas.

Irritated by the lack of progress, King João repossessed the captaincies in 1548 and brought Brazil under direct royal control, sending out the first governor-general, Tomé da Sousa , to the newly designated capital at Salvador in 1549. The first few governors successfully rooted out the European privateers, and - where sugar could grow - wiped out Indian resistance. By the closing decades of the century increasing numbers of Portuguese settlers were flowing in. Slaves began to be imported from the Portuguese outposts on the African coast, as sugar plantations sprang up around Salvador and Olinda. Brazil, no longer seen merely as a possible staging point on the way to the Far East, became an increasingly important piece of the far-flung Portuguese Empire. When Europe's taste for sugar took off in the early seventeenth century, the Northeast of Brazil quickly became very valuable real estate - and a tempting target for the expanding maritime powers of northern Europe, jealous of the Iberian monopoly in the New World.

Portuguese Language

Of the languages with a European origin, Portuguese possesses one of the more fascinating histories. Because of the Portuguese naval expeditions in the XV and XVI centuries, the language has become one of the very few spoken across Africa, South Africa, Asia and Europe.

It has been estimated that between 190 and 230 million people speak Portuguese throughout the world. Portuguese is the eighth most spoken language on the planet, and after English and Spanish (or Castilian), the third most spoken language of the West.

Portuguese is the official language of the following eight countries spread across four continents:

Angola (10.9 million inhabitants)
Brazil (185 million)
Cape Verde (415,000)
East Timor (800,000)
Guinea-Bissau (1.4 million)
Mozambique (18.8 million)
Portugal (10.5 million)
Sao Tome and Principe (182,000)

Since Portugal joined the organisation in 1986, Portuguese has been one of the official languages of the European Union, or EU (which was formerly known as the European Economic Community, or EEC). Furthermore, in the countries that form a part of Mercosul, although with the exception of Brazil where it is the official language, Portuguese is taught as a foreign language in accordance with the agreement that was signed by the member nations to create the Common Market of Southern Latin America. In 1996, the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (with the acronym of CPLP in Portuguese) was formed with the aim of increasing co-operation and cultural interchange between members, as well as standardising and diffusing the Portuguese language itself.

Sounds

There is a maximum of 9 vowels and 19 consonants, though some varieties of the language have fewer phonemes (Brazilian Portuguese has only 7 oral vowel phonemes). Five of the vowels have nasal allophones. There are also 10 oral diphthongs, and 5 nasal diphthongs.

Writing system

Portuguese is written with the Latin alphabet, and makes use of the acute accent, the circumflex accent, the grave accent, the tilde, and the cedilla, to denote stress, vowel height, nasalization, and other sound changes. Brazilian Portuguese also uses the diaeresis mark. Accented letters and digraphs are not counted as separate characters.

When to go to Brazil?

Brazil splits into four distinct climatic regions. The coldest part - in fact the only part of Brazil which ever gets really cold - is the South and Southeast , the region roughly from central Minas Gerais to Rio Grande do Sul, which includes Belo Horizonte, São Paulo and Porto Alegre. Here, there's a distinct winter between June and September, with occasional cold, wind and rain. However, although Brazilians complain, it's all fairly mild. Temperatures rarely hit freezing overnight, and when they do it's featured on the TV news. The coldest part is the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, in the extreme south of the country, but even here there are many warm, bright days in winter and the summer (Dec-March) is hot. Only in Santa Catarina's central highlands does it occasionally snow.

The coastal climate is exceptionally good. Brazil has been called a "crab civilization" because most of its population lives on or near the coast - with good reason. Seven thousand kilometres of coastline, from Paraná to near the equator, bask under a warm tropical climate. There is a "winter", when there are cloudy days and sometimes the temperature dips below 25°C (77°F), and a rainy season, when it can really pour. In Rio and points south the summer rains last from October through to January, but they come much earlier in the Northeast, lasting about three months from April in Fortaleza and Salvador, and from May in Recife. Even in winter or the rainy season, the weather will be excellent much of the time.

The Northeast is too hot to have a winter. Nowhere is the average monthly temperature below 25°C (77°F) and the interior, semi-arid at the best of times, often soars beyond that - regularly to as much as 40°C (104°F). Rain is sparse and irregular, although violent. Amazônia is stereotyped as being steamy jungle with constant rainfall, but much of the region has a distinct dry season - apparently getting longer every year in the most deforested areas of east and west Amazônia. And in the large expanses of savanna in the northern and central Amazon basin, rainfall is far from constant. Belém is closest to the image of a steamy tropical city: it rains there an awful lot from January to May, and merely quite a lot for the rest of the year. Manaus and central Amazônia, in contrast, have a marked dry season from July to October.

Average temperatures (°C) and rainfall

The first figure is the average maximum temperature; the second the average minimum ; and the third the average number of rainy days per month.

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Belém 31
23
24 30
23
26 30
23
25 31
23
22 31
23
24 32
23
15 32
22
14 32
22
15 32
22
13 32
22
10 32
22
11 32
22
14

Belo Horizonte 27
18
15 27
18
13 27
17
9 27
16
4 25
12
4 24
10
2 24
10
2 25
12
1 27
14
2 27
16
10 27
17
12 26
18
14

Brasília 27
18
19 28
18
16 28
18
15 28
17
9 27
15
3 26
13
1 26
13
0 28
14
2 30
16
4 29
18
11 27
18
15 27
18
20

Manaus 30
23
20 30
23
18 30
23
21 30
23
20 31
24
18 31
23
12 32
23
12 33
24
5 33
24
7 33
24
4 32
24
12 31
24
16

Porto Alegre 31
20
9 30
20
10 29
19
10 25
16
6 22
13
6 20
11
8 20
10
8 21
11
8 22
13
11 24
15
10 27
17
8 29
18
8

Recife 30
25
7 30
25
8 30
24
10 30
23
11 29
23
17 28
22
16 27
21
17 27
22
14 28
22
7 29
23
3 30
24
4 30
24
4

Rio de Janeiro 30
23
13 30
23
11 27
23
9 29
21
9 26
20
6 25
18
5 25
18
5 25
18
4 25
19
5 26
20
11 28
20
10 28
22
12

Salvador 29
23
6 29
23
9 29
24
17 28
23
19 27
22
22 26
21
23 26
21
18 26
21
15 27
21
10 28
22
8 28
23
9 29
23
11

São Paulo 28
18
15 28
18
13 27
17
12 25
15
6 23
13
3 22
11
4 21
10
4 23
11
3 25
13
5 25
14
12 25
15
11 26
16
14

Getting Around Brazil

Local travel in Brazil is always easy. Public transport outside of the Amazon is generally by bus or plane, though there are a few passenger trains, too. However you travel, services will be crowded, plentiful and, apart from planes, cheap.

Car rental is also possible, but driving in Brazil is not for the faint-hearted. Some international car rental companies have local agencies and there are quite a few reliable Brazilian ones as well. Hitchhiking, over any distance, is not recommended

Buses
The bus system in Brazil is excellent, as good as anywhere in the Americas, and makes travelling around the country easy, comfortable and economical, despite the distances involved. Intercity buses leave from a station called a Rodoviária , usually built on city outskirts.

Buses are operated by hundreds of private companies, but prices are standardized, even when more than one firm plies the same route, and are very reasonable: Rio to São Paulo is around $20, Rio to Belo Horizonte $35, Rio to Foz do Iguaçu $35, São Paulo to Brasília $50, Recife to Salvador $35 and Fortaleza to Belém $55. Long-distance buses are comfortable enough to sleep in, and have on-board toilets (which can get smelly on long journeys): the lower your seat number, the further away from them you'll be. Buses stop every two or three hours at well-supplied postos, but as prices are high it's not a bad idea to bring along water and some food to last the journey. Some bus companies will supply meal vouchers for use at the postos on long journeys.

There are luxury buses, too, called leitos , which do nocturnal runs between the major cities - worth taking once for the experience, with fully reclining seats in curtained partitions, freshly ironed sheets and an attendant plying insomniacs with coffee and conversation. They cost about a third of the price of an air ticket, and between two and three times as much as a normal long-distance bus; they're also less frequent and need to be booked a few days in advance. No matter what kind of bus, it's a good idea to have a light sweater or blanket during night journeys as the air-conditioning is always uncomfortably cold.

Planes
It's hardly surprising that a country the size of Brazil relies on air travel a good deal; in some parts of Amazonia air links are more important than either the roads or rivers. Any town has at least an airstrip, and all cities have airports, usually some distance from the city but not always: Santos Dumont in Rio, Guarulhos in São Paulo and Guararapes in Recife are all pretty central. The main domestic carriers are VASP ( www.vasp.com.br), Varig ( www.varig.com.br), Transbrasil ( www.transbrasil.com.br) and TAM ( www.tam.com.br); important regional airlines include the Varig subsidiaries RioSul (mainly serving the south) and RioNordeste (covering the Amazon region), together with Viabrasil , which connects São Paulo with Fortaleza, Natal, João Pessoa and Recife in the Northeast.

Flying to the Northeast or Amazonia from southern Brazil can be tiresome, as many of these long-distance routes are no more than glorified bus runs, stopping everywhere before heading north again. In planning your itinerary, it's a good idea to check carefully how many times a plane stops - for example, between São Paulo and Fortaleza a flight may stop as many as four times or as few as one. On scheduled domestic flights you should check in an hour before take-off, but expect delays if the plane you're catching is arriving from elsewhere.

A word of warning : in many parts of Amazonia air travel in small planes, or aerotaxis , is very common - the regional word for these flights is teco-teco. Before taking one, you should be aware that the airstrips are often dangerous, the planes routinely fly overloaded and are not reliably maintained, and no checks are made on the qualifications of pilots - some don't have any.

Trains, ferries and boats
You probably won't be taking many trains in Brazil. Although there's an extensive rail network, much of it is for cargo only, and even where there are passenger trains they're almost invariably slower and less convenient than the buses. Exceptions are a few tourist journeys worth making for themselves, in the South and Minas Gerais especially.

Water travel and ferries are also important forms of transport in parts of Brazil. Specific details are included in the relevant parts of the Guide, but look out for the ferry to Niterói, without which no journey to Rio would be complete; Salvador , where there are regular services to islands and towns in the huge bay on which the city is built; in the South between the islands of the Bay of Paranaguá and most of all in Amazonia.

City transport
Shoals of local buses clog city streets: you enter at the back - where route details are posted - and move through a turnstile as you pay your fare. Fares are all flat-rate, and rarely more than 50¢. Buses often get unbelievably crowded, and in large cities are favourite targets for pickpockets. It's safer to go immediately through the turnstile even when there are seats at the rear, as assaltantes prefer the backs of buses where they can make a quick getaway through the rear door. There are also good modern metrô systems in Rio, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre and Recife. Again, they're cheap and efficient, and they're also relatively safe - but, since they weren't built with tourism in mind, their routes are not always the most useful.

Driving and car rental
Driving standards in Brazil hover between the abysmal and the appalling. Brazil has one of the highest death tolls from driving-related accidents in the world, and on any journey you can see why, with thundering trucks and drivers treating the road as if it were a Grand Prix racetrack. City driving would make even an Italian blanch, and takes a lot of getting used to. Fortunately, inter-city bus drivers are the exception to the rule: they are usually very good, and many buses have devices fitted that make it impossible for them to exceed the speed limit.

Road quality varies according to region: the South and Southeast have a good paved network; the Northeast has a good network on the coast but is poor in the interior; and roads in Amazonia are by far the worst, with even major highways closed for weeks or months at a time as they are washed away by the rains. Around half of Brazilian cars now run on álcool - a mixture of petroleum-based fuel and alcohol - which is half the price of gasolina, but which works less efficiently. Outside of the towns and cities, service stations can be few and far between, so keep a careful eye on the fuel gauge. Service stations do not accept international credit cards, so make sure you always have sufficient cash.

Red Tape And Visas

Citizens of most Western European nations, including the UK and Ireland, only need a valid passport and either a return or onward ticket, or evidence of funds to pay for one, to enter Brazil. You fill in an entry card on arrival and get a tourist visa allowing you to stay for ninety days. Australian, New Zealand, US and Canadian citizens need visas in advance, available from Brazilian consulates abroad; a return or onward ticket is usually a requirement.

Do not lose the carbon copy of the entry card the police staple into your passport on arrival, as you may be fined when you leave if you don't present it. A sensible precaution is to photocopy it and also keep a record of your passport number in case it is lost or stolen. If you do lose your passport, report to the Polícia Federal and then obtain a replacement travel document from your nearest consulate. You'll then have to return to the Polícia Federal who will put an endorsement in your passport giving you 72 hours either to return to your original point of entry into Brazil for a replacement entry card or to leave the country altogether. So, for example, if you lose your documents in Rio and entered Brazil here, the formalities don't present too much of a problem. However, you may be hundreds of kilometres from your point of entry and far from a land border, in which case you'll have to decide whether to remain in Brazil illegally or leave the country earlier than planned.

A tourist visa can be extended for another ninety days if you apply at least fifteen days before it expires, but it will only be extended once; if you want to stay longer you'll have to leave the country and re-enter. There's nothing in the rule book to stop you re-entering immediately, but it's advisable to wait at least a day. For anything to do with visas you deal with the federal police, the Polícia Federal. Every state capital has a federal police station with a visa section: ask for the delegacia federal. A $10 charge, payable in local currency, is made on tourist visa extensions.

Consulates
Foreign countries are represented at embassy level in Brasília and most also maintain consulates in Rio and São Paulo. Elsewhere in this vast country, consulates, vice-consulates or honorary consulates are found in many major cities, from Manaus to Porto Alegre. Levels of service will vary depending on the nature of the particular post, but at the very least you can count on some immediate advice. Addresses and telephone numbers of embassies and consulates can be found in the "Listings" section of the cities in the guide. Where their country doesn't have a representative, a Commonwealth national can seek help at a British mission, and a European Union citizen at another EU mission.

Longer stays: Academic visits
Academic visitors and researchers making a short trip or attending a conference are best advised to enter on a tourist visa, which cuts down on the bureaucracy. If you're staying for a longer period, or intend to do research, you need to get a special visa, known as an " Item IV " before you leave home. To obtain this, you'll need to present a letter from a Brazilian institution of higher education saying it knows about, and approves, your research, and you will be formally affiliated to the institution while you do it. Visas are issued for six months, a year or two years; if in any doubt about exactly how long you're going to stay, apply for the two-year visa. One-year visas can be extended for a further year inside Brazil, but only after months of chasing up the police, and often involving a trip to the Ministry of Justice in Brasília.

Communications in Brazil

Postal services within Brazil are cheap, though sending airmail abroad is expensive. The phone network, too, is impressive, especially considering the size of the country: public phones are everywhere, most places can be dialled direct and rates are low. Brazil is fast hooking up to the Internet, and you'll come across cybercafés and Internet cabins in the most unlikely of small towns

Post offices and letters
A post office is called a correio : they have bright yellow postboxes and signs. An imposing Correios e Telégrafos building will always be found in the centre of a city of any size, and from here you can send telegrams as well; but there are also small offices and kiosks scattered around which only deal with mail. Because post offices in Brazil deal with other things besides post, queues are often a problem. Save time by using a franking machine for stamps; the lines move much more quickly. Stamps ( selos) are most commonly simply available in two varieties - either for mailing within Brazil or abroad. A foreign postage stamp costs around 60¢ for either a postcard or a letter up to 10 grammes. It is very expensive to send parcels abroad - if you plan to cross into Paraguay consider sending packages from there, as it has much lower postal rates.

Mail within Brazil takes three or four days, longer in the North and Northeast, while airmail letters to Europe and North America usually take about a week or sometimes even less. Surface mail takes about a month to North America, and three to Europe. Although the postal system is generally very reliable, it is not advisable to send valuables through the mail.

Telephones
Public telephones are called orelhões, "big ears", after their distinctive conch-shaped covers. They come in two varieties: red for local calls and blue for inter-urban. These days, phones are operated mostly by phonecards ( carta telefônico) which have replaced tokens ( fichas) and are on sale everywhere - from newspaper stands, street sellers' trays and most cafés. For local calls a 5 reis card will last for several conversations; for long-distance or international calls, higher-value phonecards come in 10, 20, 50 or 100 reis denominations. Calls to the USA or Europe cost about $2.50 per minute. Lift the phone from the hook, insert the phonecard and listen for a dialling tone before dialling direct. Note that long-distance calls are cheaper after 8pm.

The dialling tone is a single continuous note, engaged is rapid pips, and the ringing tone is regular peals, as in the USA. The phone system in Brazil is continually overloaded. If you get an engaged tone, keep trying - nine times out of ten, the phone is not actually engaged and you get through after seven or eight attempts. The smaller the place, the more often you need to try: be patient.

Long-distance and international calls can also be made from a posto telefônico , which all operate in the same way: you ask at the counter for a chave and are given a numbered key. You go to the booth, insert the key and turn it to the right, and can then make up to three completed calls. You are billed when you return the key - around $2.50 a minute to the USA or Europe. To make an inter-urban call you need to dial the trunk code, the código DDD (pronounced "daydayday"), listed at the front of phone directories. For international calls, ask for chamada internacional; a reverse-charge call is a chamada a cobrar. Reversing the charges costs about twice as much as paying locally, and it is much cheaper to use a telephone charge card from home. Except in the most remote parts of Amazonia and the Northeast, everything from a small town upwards has a posto, though note that outside large cities they shut at 10pm.

Email and the Internet
Like most rapidly developing nations, Brazil has latched on to the Internet, with many hotels and businesses now online. Public access is not so widely available, although all cities and many towns do now have cybercafés (listed in the "Listings" sections throughout the guide, and many hotels offer Internet access too. There's a surprising paucity of access in the Amazon region and parts of the Northeast, although both Manaus and Belém are well served by Internet facilities, as is Salvador. The general hourly rate for Internet access in Brazil is between $2 and $4.

Costs, Money And Banks

Up until 1994 when the famous Plano Real was introduced, Brazilian inflation was astronomical, and the country was a very cheap destination for anyone who had hard currency like the dollar. At a stroke, the Plano Real stabilized inflation, and the tightly controlled exchange made Brazil no longer cheap to foreigners. In early 1999, however, the global markets lost confidence - virtually overnight - in the Brazilian economy, sending ripples of hardship throughout the country as prices of imported goods shot up, in some cases doubling, and property values dropped, along with the value of the real against the dollar. As a consequence, Brazil has once again become a relatively inexpensive destination for foreigners, certainly noticeably cheaper than Europe or the USA.

US dollars are easy enough to change in banks and exchange offices anywhere, and are also readily accepted as payment by luxury hotels, upmarket restaurants, tour companies and souvenir shops in the big cities. Given the current instability of the real, we quote prices in this book in US dollars; this should give a reliable idea of what you'll be paying on the spot. At the time of writing, the Brazilian real is worth just over half a dollar - R$1.75=US$1 and R$2.80=£1 - but it is strengthening against it.

Money and prices
The Brazilian currency is the real (pronounced "hey-al"), plural reais (pronounced "hey-ice"). It's written as R$ and is made up of one hundred centavos, written ¢. Notes, all the same size but different colours, are for 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100 reais; coins are 1, 5, 10, 25, 50 centavos and 1 real. Coins are irritatingly similar, and have to be scrutinized closely to tell them apart.

The cost of living in Brazil is higher than in most other parts of South America (Argentina excepted) but lower than in the Plano Real era. Some things, fortunately, are still cheap by European and North American price levels, particularly budget and mid-range hotels, most foodstuffs (including eating out in most restaurants), clothes and bus travel. Other things are more expensive: plane tickets (unless part of an air pass), film, sun cream and anything electrical. One hangover from hyperinflation is that prices are still not quite standardized from place to place, and you can still find bargains if you have the time and patience to shop around.

All the same, Brazil is very much a viable destination for the budget traveller, especially in urban areas. The cheapness of food and budget hotels - and the fact that the best attractions, like the beaches, are free - still makes it possible to have a very good time for under $50 a day. Staying in good hotels, travelling by comfortable buses and not stinting on the extras will cost you from around $100 a day

Changing money
In large cities, only the head offices of major banks (Banco do Brasil, HSBC, Banco Itaú, Banespa) will have an exchange department (ask for câmbio); whether changing cash, travellers' cheques or making a credit card withdrawal, you'll need your passport, unless you're simply using an ATM. You can also change cash and travellers' cheques in smart hotels and in some large travel agencies. The best rates, however, are usually to be found in a casa de câmbio , but these only operate on any scale in Rio and São Paulo.

Exchange departments of banks often close early, sometimes at 1pm, although more often at 2pm or 3pm, and it can take up to two hours to complete all the necessary paperwork. Some banks will only change a minimum of $100 per transaction. Airport banks are open seven days a week, others only Monday to Friday. You'll find life much easier if you bring only US dollar banknotes and travellers' cheques . Only in casas de câmbio in Rio and São Paulo will you be able to change other currencies.

Outside large cities it can sometimes be difficult to change money at all, but an ever-increasing number of branches of the Banco do Brasil provide this service. If you get stuck, travel agents or smart hotels are worth a try, though most will only accept dollar banknotes; if they don't buy themselves, they will know who does.

The main credit cards are all now widely accepted in Brazil, even in rural areas. Mastercard and Visa are the most prevalent, with Diners Club and American Express also widespread. Even so, don't expect to rely entirely on cards, as some businesses - even ones you would expect to - don't accept them or accept only a very limited range. And when hotels offer low-season discounts, they may make a condition that the bill is paid with cash. If you do pay by card in a shop which doesn't have an automatic swipe register, the shop will have to use chronically overloaded phone lines to check the balance, which can take an inconvenient amount of time. Note also that Brazilians are quite fussy about your signature matching that on your card.

You can obtain cash advances on all major cards at most bank branches in big cities; in smaller towns only the main branch of Banco do Brasil will do it. Visa is much the easiest card to get a cash advance on. Try to avoid joining the queues for the tellers, but look for a sign saying Cartão or Saques por Cartão; if there aren't any, wave your card at one of the managers behind a desk, and they will point you in the right direction.

Far easier and much faster is to use one of the ever-increasing number of ATMs . Again, Visa cards are the most widely accepted, Mastercard less so. Visa cards can be used at the ATMs of Banco do Brasil and Banco Bradesco; Mastercard at HSBC, Itaú and Banco Mercantil.

You should never rely entirely on credit card withdrawals, however; computers or satellite communications can sometimes be down for days, which can put a hold on all potential credit card transactions for several days at a time.

To change Brazilian currency back into dollars when you leave, you need to show bank exchange receipts to the value of what you want to change. These receipts are called comprovantes, and banks will type one out for you on request when you buy Brazilian currency - casas de câmbio do not issue them.

Exchange rates
You will see two rates being quoted for cash: the oficial, which is what a bank will pay you, and the turismo, which is what you will get in a hotel or travel agency; travellers' cheques have slightly lower rates, even in banks. The turismo is usually only two or three points less than the oficial and, unless you're changing large amounts of money, it's often worth living with this lower rate to avoid the inconvenience of changing your money in a bank.

Things To Take

A universal electric plug adaptor and a universal sink plug.
A sheet or two (if staying in youth hostels).
A small flashlight.
Earplugs (for street noise in hotel rooms).
High-factor sunscreen.
A pocket alarm clock (for those early morning departures).
An inflatable neck-rest, to help you sleep on long journeys.
A multi-purpose penknife.
A needle and some thread.
Plastic bags (to sort your baggage, make it easier to pack and unpack, and keep out damp and dust).
Items for a basic first-aid kit are listed under "Health".

Travelling with Kids

Travelling with kids is relatively easy in Brazil as they're made to feel welcome in hotels and restaurants in a way that's not always so in Europe or North America. South Americans hold the family unit in high regard, and kids not only act as a cultural ice-breaker between foreigners and nationals, but are also much appreciated in their own right by Brazilians.

Travelling around Brazil takes time, so try not to be too ambitious in terms of how much you aim to cover. Because of frequent scheduled stops and unscheduled delays it can take all day to fly from one part of the country to another. Long bus journeys are scheduled overnight and can be exhausting. Children pay full fare on buses if they take up a seat, ten percent on planes if under two years old, half-fare between two and twelve, and full fare thereafter. Newer airports have a nursery ( berçário) where you can change or nurse your baby and where an attendant will run your baby a bath, great on a hot day or if your plane's delayed. If you plan on renting a car , bring your own child or baby seat as rental companies never supply them and they are very expensive in Brazil. Cars are fitted with three-point shoulder seatbelts in the front, but most only have lap seatbelts in the back.

In hotels , kids are generally free up to the age of five and rooms often include both a double and a single bed; a baby's cot may be available, but don't count on it. It's rare that a room will sleep more than three, but larger hotels sometimes have rooms with an interlinking door. Hotels will sometimes offer discounts, especially if children share rooms and even beds with siblings or parents; the lower- to mid-range hotels are probably the most flexible in this regard. If you're planning on staying more than a few days in a city you may find it cheaper and more convenient to stay in an apartment-hotel , which will sleep several people and comes with basic cooking facilities. Baths are rare in Brazil, so get your kids used to showers before leaving home. Occasionally a hotel will provide a plastic baby bath, but bring along a travel plug as shower pans are often just about deep enough to create a bath.

Many of the mid- and upper-range hotels have TV lounges, TVs in rooms, swimming pools, gardens and even games rooms, which are often useful in entertaining kids. Most large towns also have cinemas, the best often being the new multiplexes found in shopping centres.

Food shouldn't be a problem as, even if your kids aren't adventurous eaters, familiar dishes are always available and there's always the ubiquitous comida por kilo option. Portions tend to be huge, often sufficient for two large appetites, and it's perfectly acceptable to request additional plates and cutlery. Most hotels and restaurants provide high chairs ( cadeira alta). Commercial baby food is sold in Brazilian supermarkets but is limited to a very small and expensive range of Nestlé products - bring your own. If your baby is on formula, bring enough with you as the Portuguese instructions on locally produced powdered varieties may be difficult to understand and, in any case, your baby may find a change unsettling. Pay special attention to water and either bring a water purifier or a travel kettle and boil mineral water rather than tap water. Washing out bottles can be awkward, so it makes sense to bring with you an ample supply of pre-sterilized disposable bottles (not available in Brazil). Medium-category hotels usually have a minibar ( frigobar) in the rooms where you can store bottles and baby food, but where there isn't one you will be able to store things in the hotel's refrigerator. A small cooler box or insulated bag is a good idea and, while ice compartments of frigobars are useless, you can always place your freezer blocks in the hotel's freezer ( congelador).

In general, Brazilian infants don't use disposable nappies/diapers ( fraldas), due to the high cost, around $12 for twenty. Brands such as Pampers are sold in pharmacies and supermarkets but it's worth bringing as many with you as possible.

Health shouldn't be a problem, but before planning your itinerary, make enquiries as to whether the vaccines recommended or required in some parts of Brazil (in particular the Amazon) are likely to have any unpleasant side effects for babies or young children. For most of Brazil, the only likely problem will be the strength of the tropical sun and the viciousness of the mosquitoes: bring plenty of sunscreen (at least factor 20 for babies and factor 15 for young children) and an easy-to-apply non-toxic insect repellent .

Gay and Lesbian Travellers

Gay life in Brazil still thrives in the large cities, despite the long shadow cast by AIDS. In general, the scene has benefited from a relatively relaxed tolerance in attitudes towards sexuality - certainly when compared to the rest of Latin America - and the divide between gay and straight nightlife is very blurred.

Attitudes, however, vary from region to region. Rural areas and small towns, especially in Minas Gerais, the Northeast and the South, are deeply conservative; the medium-sized and larger cities less so. The two most popular gay destinations are Rio and Salvador, though even here the scene is remarkably discreet when compared to many northern European, North American and Australian cities.

And even in Brazil's big cities, there's an ugly undercurrent of homophobia present and gay visitors are advised to be cautious. In 1999 alone 170 gay men and lesbians were murdered in Brazil, and in February 2000 there was a widely publicized gang murder of a gay man in São Paulo's Praça da República, one of the city's main cruising areas. Some of the culprits were apprehended by the police and are now awaiting trial: remarkable in a country where over the past twenty years only 4 percent of murders have led to criminal convictions. For an up-to-date view of gay- and lesbian-related issues in Brazil, check out the electronic magazine "G!Web" (in Portuguese) at www.gweb.com.br.

Opening Hours and Public Holidays

Basic hours for most stores and businesses are from 9am to 6pm, with an extended lunch hour from around noon to 2pm. Banks don't open until 10am, stay open all day, but usually stop changing money at either 2pm or 3pm; except for those at major airports, they're closed at weekends and on public holidays. Museums and monuments more or less follow office hours but many are closed on Monday.

Although plane and bus timetables are kept to whenever possible, in the less developed parts of the country - most notably Amazonia but also the interior of the Northeast - delays often happen. Brazilians are very Latin in their attitude to time, and if ever there was a country where patience will stand you in good stead it's Brazil. Turn up at the arranged time, but don't be surprised at all if you're kept waiting. Waiting times are especially long if you have to deal with any part of the state bureaucracy, like extending a visa. There is no way out of this; just take a good book.

Brazilian public holidays

There are plenty of local and state holidays, but on the following national holidays just about everything in the country will be closed:

January 1- Carnaval (Carnival) : The five days leading up to Ash Wednesday Good Friday
April 21 - Remembrance of Tiradentes
May 1 - Labour Day (Dia do Trabalho)/ Corpus Christi
September 7 - Independence Day (Dia da Independência)
October 12 - Our Lady of Aparecida (Nossa Senhora Aparecida)
November 2 - All Souls Day (Dia dos Finados)
November 15 - Proclamation of the Republic Day (Proclamação da República)
December 25 - Christmas Day(Natal)