TABATINGA and LETICIA: a (too) short stop

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Tabatinga in Brazil, Leticia in Colombia and Santa Rosa in Peru are the towns at this three-countries border in the Amazon. Not part of the initial plan, leaving Brazil through Tabatinga and entering Colombia through Leticia turned to be the best route to skip Venezuela considering cost, time and also flexibility to flight to Lima via SantaRosa/Iquitos if the situation required as my father was at the hospital and it wasn't clear for how long.
Fortunately he recovered fast and I could continue travelling keeping my stay in Tabatinga and Leticia very short, too short perhaps.

MANAUS: a big city in the middle of the Amazon rainforest

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With a population close to 2 million inhabitants, Manaus is not longer a town but a big city located at the north back of Rio Negro in the middle of the Amazon rainforest close to the confluence of the Negro and Solimoes rivers.
Also known as "Paris of the Tropics", Manaus was once considered the richest city in south merica. This happened at the end of the 19th century, during the rubber boom years.

BELĖM DO PARÁ

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Belém do Pará is a busy port and capital city of the Brazilian state of Pará. It is located close to the Amazon river's delta, becoming its main entrance gate. Sugar trade, cattle ranching, coffee and  rubber plantations caused the region importance to alternately rise and fell. Today, the main income is obtained from aluminum, iron and other minerals, nuts, pineapples and other tropical fruits as well as hardwoods.
Belém is not one of Brazil's World Cup cities and most inhabitants of Belém are happy about this.

TIANGUÁ and UBAJARA NATIONAL PARK

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Without Venezuela in the plan, my new route to Colombia should go from Pantanal to Fortaleza, Belém, Manaus and Tabatinga. This change also removed some of the time pressure that had accumulated, allowing for longer stays or even new places. 

I was therefor glad when Inés, a good old friend from Magdalena del Mar, and her husband Jim invited me to their place in Tianguá. To get there I took a 5 hours van from Pantanal to Campo Grande, stayed overnight, flew to Brasilia, then to Fortaleza and took a 6 hours bus to Tinguá. I'm very good on all these by now and my friends and the fresh and mosquito free air in Tianguá more than compensated the effort.

PANTANAL: camping next to a cayman family

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Pantanal, one of the largest wetlands in the world, is located in southwest Brazil, close to the bolivian and paraguayan borders. It is a remote location, and arranging tours can be a real adventure by itself.
There is a big offer but also many complains so you don't know which operator to choose; I didn't want to repeat the Uyuni experience.  The safest was to take that what other travelers just completed and were satisfied. The HI Hostel in Bonito helped by having a travel arrangements desk onsite.

BONITO: an area that deserves this name

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Located in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul in southwest Brazil, the Municipality of Bonito is developing into an eco-tourism attraction. My way to Bonito was an adventure as there are no direct buses from Asunción, and nobody could tell me for sure how to get there.

IGUAZU: nature's wonder between Brazil and Argentina

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Good bye big city; back to nature!  I was happy to visit Sao Paulo after such a long time, but was even more happy when I left it. Not because it was disappointing, but the next stop is nothing less than Foz de Iguacu, the brasilean city close to the famous waterfalls.

It was Good Monday the day I left and the Easter holidays were just finishing; you could see this in the roads. Fortunately for me, the traffic jams were in direction to Sao Paulo and we could drive in the opposite way without any problems.

SAO PAULO: 20 million people, southamerica largest metropoly

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And here I'm, 37 years later visiting Sao Paulo to see and feel what has happened to this big and not so popular city in all these years. It's actually curiosity finding out what has changed and not special expectations what motivates me to come.

It is Easter weekend, and I had chosen to flight instead of taking the 20 hours bus from Porto Alegre. Flights were of course more expensive and I ended up flying on Good Friday, saving 250 USD by doing this.

PORTO ALEGRE: Bom Dia Brasil, tudo bem?

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As already the case with Bolivia and Chile, it's now time to say good bye to Uruguay for this trip. Next stop is Porto Alegre in Brazil. Did I say Brazil? already? Yes!  that's how time goes.

The change from the spanish speaking to the portuguese speaking world was not that hard, probably because of the many brazileans that I met in the previous days. To my surprise the border cross was completely handled by the overnight bus drivers and had not impact in our schedule. Finally!