Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil
Paraty, Brazil

Running the length of the state of Rio de Janeiro’s coastline, and spilling over to São Paolo’s shores as well, is Brazil’s magnificent Costa Verde (literally “Green Coast”, though I prefer “Emerald Coast”). It is a storybook place where blue tropical waters lap against the Serro do Mar mountain range, whose Atlantic rainforest-clad slopes reach … Read more

One last look

At a Glance: Tijuca National Park is one of the largest urban-surrounded forests on earth, taking up some seven percent of Rio’s area. It is not original growth, but is secondary re-planted and otherwise re-grown Atlantic rainforest. After it was realized that the cleared land had eroded and polluted the city’s water supply, Emporor Dom … Read more

Rio Panorama from Mirante Dona Marta

How much of an introduction does A Cidade Maravilhosa (The Marvelous City) really need? Dating to the early sixteenth century, Rio de Janeiro was Brazil’s capital until the move to Brasilia in 1960. Today’s 6 million cariocas, as Rio’s residents are called, make it South America’s third largest city after São Paulo and Buenos Aires; … Read more

The Breakdown: An “Alternate” Plan

May 8th, 2014 | Posted by Ian in Brazil | Dogs | Lodging | Speedbumps | The Places We've Been - (Comments Off)
Eddie and the CR-V

Welp, it finally happened for the first time. The CR-Van broke down. We hopped in the car to leave São Paulo on a sunny Saturday morning, excited to hit the sexy beaches of Rio de Janeiro by that afternoon. After a few loopty-loops and a few curses lobbed at the GPS for her poor performance, … Read more

Living Room and Bedroom Door from Kitchen

Our home in São Paulo was a compact 1-bedroom apartment on a double-digit floor of a big bland downtown building with a fantastic view, many built-in conveniences, and a super comfortable bed. From the outside, things felt a bit chaotic. The building sits at the intersection of two main-ish streets with lots of foot traffic and … Read more

Dogs on Minhocão

This is a series detailing some of what appear at first to be more mundane details of a place, but will hopefully be illuminating as insights into the grind behind the “glamour.”  Groceries We were out for a walk with the dogs on our first Sunday in São Paulo when we stumbled upon a fantastic market … Read more

Museums of São Paulo

April 30th, 2014 | Posted by Ian in Brazil | The Places We've Been - (0 Comments)
Pinacoteca

São Paulo has a lot of museums. Like a ton. Here are some that we have never been to and thus can’t speak to their quality: Museu do Ipiranga - Technically the Museu Paulista da Universidade de São Paulo, this museum focuses on the history of Brazil and the state of São Paulo. It is São Paulo’s most famous … Read more

Cheers and Chants

Last Saturday marked six years since the day of our wedding. Our plans for celebration were loose at best, being generally outlined as ‘have a great day’, ‘go do stuff in São Paulo’, and ‘eat and drink whatever we want’. Well, not to brag, but we totally nailed it. After taking the dogs out to … Read more

São Paulo apartment view

São Paulo is a monster. The city proper’s nearly twelve million residents make it one of the top ten largest cities in the world, as well as the largest in all of the Americas and all of the Southern hemisphere. With a total population of twenty million, the metropolitan area is also in the top … Read more

A Brazil

We cross borders by land in a CR-V with US passports and our two dogs. We do not carry drugs or weapons or disallowed fruit (usually). These articles are not a definitive guide to crossing borders nor should they be used as a sole source of information. They are our experiences. When, Where, and Which … Read more