Ola Brazil! From Buenos Aires, I took a 2 hours flight to Sao Paulo and began my short trip to Brazil. I traveled on Turkish airlines as it is the cheapest flight that I could find. Surprisingly, it was my first time taking Turkish airlines and I am not even traveling to Europe. The seats were kind of old, but the service and food were good. Brazil is the largest country in South America. It shares borders with every other South American country except Chile and Ecuador. From west to east it stretches nearly 2,700 miles from the Andean foothills eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. Its official name is the Federal Republic of Brazil, or, in Portuguese, the Republica Federativa do Brasil.

Brazil occupies almost half the area of South America and is the world’s fifth largest country. Since I was in South America already, I must definitely visit Brazil.Most Brazilians live in the densely populated areas of eastern Brazil. Although urbanization has not produced actual declines in rural population, internal migration has caused cities to grow much faster than rural areas.The largest cities are Sao Paulo (16 million people), Rio de Janeiro (11 million), Belo Horizante (3.8 million), Salvador (2.3 million), Recife (1.8 million), and Porto Alegre (3.1 million).

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil and the world’s seventh largest city by population. It is a sprawling metropolis that never sleeps, one can never get bored here. Since I arrived slightly after midnight and I heard that it is dangerous to roam the streets at night, I did not want to take the risk, so I stayed overnight at the airport and waited until the first bus to the city.  São Paulo is such a sprawling city indeed, the metro is very convenient, but more expensive than in Singapore. So traveling in South America is not that cheap after all, especially in ABC – Argentina, Brazil, Chile. I also took the opportunity to meet up with my Brazilian friends Cassio and Davi, whom I met in Vietnam while they were on their round-the-world trip. They could not host me at their place and were busy studying for their final exams, but they took some time off to bring me cycling at Ibirapuera Park and for dinner. It was wonderful catching up with them on the other side of the world.

meet up with Cassio and Davi in their city

On the other hand, Rio de Janeiro is a relaxing beach and mountain destination, but it was unfortunate that when I visited, it was raining. Hence I saw the foggy version of the city from Chirst the redeemer statue and there was no one at the beach to oogle at. Brazil is indeed the land of havaianas, I bought 15 pairs of havaianas and drank Caipirinhas like free haha. Oh and how can I forget about churrascaria? It is a buffet of loads of meat, I ate until I was super full and stayed off meat for the next few days.