The continent-sized country also has a vast interior, with forests, mountain ranges (serras) and plateaux (chapadas) of at times staggering beauty. One dominant feature of its more mountainous landscapes is its waterfalls.
Walk a little further into the Brazilian wilderness and the waterfalls empty out. There is a waterfall along the two-day hike along the Vale do Pati, or Pati Valley, in the Chapada Diamantina national park in Bahia that is an oasis on a hot, long and dusty trail. So cool, shady and refreshing that it seems too good to be true.
For hikers, Brazil offers a lot more – there are three chapadas: Chapada Diamantina, in Bahia; Chapada dos Veadeiros, in Goiás; and Chapada dos Guimarães in Mato Grosso.
Please meet Izabel Mendes da Cunha, the most famous artisan of the Jequitinhonha Valley in the state of Minas Gerais. In the small town where she lived, the master artisan created and taught close to everyone to make clay dolls, and turned the region into a major producer of ceramic arts. Daughter to a skillful craftswoman who made chinaware, Ms. Cunha started creating her famous dolls in 1970 at the age of 44. In the beginning the molded faces were only the heads of pitchers. Soon after came the breastfeeding mothers and brides figures, always copper-coloured mulattas with straight hair and in various shades of clay.
In 2003, the dolls of Dona Izabel, as she is known, ended up in the São Paulo Fashion Week, when designer Ronaldo Fraga honored the potters from the Jequitinhonha Valley. Mother of four, she received several awards such as the UNESCO Crafts for Latin America (2004), the Order of Cultural Merit (awarded by the Ministry of Culture, 2005) and the Popular Culture Award (by the Ministry of Culture, 2009). Dona Isabel was also honored by President Dilma Rousseff during the opening of the Brazilian Women´s Arts Show exhibited at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia.
Please meet Goncalo de Carvalho street, in Porto Alegre, State of Rio Grande do Sul. It´s almost like living in a forest...
The more thanone hundredtreesof the tipuana genus (also known as Rosewood),lined along approximately500 metersof sidewalks,havebeenplantedin the late1930sbyGerman-bornworkersemployed inan oldlocal brewery.
The Theatre Festival of the Portuguese Language (FESTLIP) brings together cultures and artistic expressions of the eight countries that have Portuguese as their official language. The festival features theatrical performances (11 of which are free), photo exhibitions, lectures, workshops and a gastronomic show offering dishes from the participating countries. Brazilian music and of the Portuguese-speaking countries is a highlight of the festival. The cultures of Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, East Timor and Guinea-Bissau are closely knitted in a fabric of theatrical diversity.
The Festival takes place in Rio de Janeiro from August 27 to September 5. PROGRAM (in Portuguese)
Twelfth Night or Epiphany Eve is a festival marking the coming of the Epiphany, and concluding the Twelve Days of Christmas. It is defined by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as "the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking". The celebration of Epiphany, the adoration of the Magi, is marked in some cultures by the exchange of gifts, and Twelfth Night, as the eve or vigil of Epiphany, takes on a similar significance to Christmas Eve.
It commemorates the first two occasions on which Jesus’ divinity, according to Christian belief, was manifested: when the three kings (also known as wise men or Magi) visited infant Jesus in Bethlehem, and when John the Baptist baptized him in the River Jordan. The Roman Catholic and Protestant churches emphasize the visit of the Magi when they celebrate the Epiphany. The Eastern Orthodox churches focus on Jesus’ baptism.
In the city of Muqui, south of Espirito Santo State, the Epiphany National Meeting has been held since the 1950´s , during which some 90 groups from various States such as Espirito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Goias and Sao Paulo get together. It is the oldest and largest gathering of depicted Wise Men in the country. The event is taking place on the 23rd of August, 2014.
The Twelfth Night, or Folia de Reis is a beautiful celebration brought to Brazil by the early catholic Portuguese. It flourished in the nineteenth century in regions where coffee plantations prospered. Groups composed of musicians, instrumentalists and people from the community wear stylized costumes and they walk the town streets visiting homes, farms, and ranches.The musicians are welcomed with tables full of local dainties and in return they promote a night of great music and theater.
From the subtropical climate to the cultural habits, Porto Alegre is fairly different from the other state capitals in Brazil. Founded in 1742 by immigrants from the Portuguese archipelago of Azores, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul was the destination of thousands of immigrants from Portugal and Italy - like many other cities in Brazil but also from other European countries, particularly Germany and Poland.
Besides that, as the state is located far down the south of Brazil, the gauchos, as people from Rio Grande do Sul are called, share several cultural traits with their neighbours from Argentina and Uruguay, from the folklore music to the habit of drinking the mate infusion, or chimarrao.
Porto Alegre lies on the eastern bank of the Guaíba River, right at the convergence point of five other rivers, which together form the enormous Lagoa dos Patos (Ducks Lagoon). Its 497 square kilometres are covered with more than one million trees, making it one of the greenest cities in Brazil, despite being the nucleus of the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in the country, with roughly four million inhabitants. There are over 1.4 million people living within the boundaries of Porto Alegre.
Temperatures are a lot milder in Porto Alegre than they are in most of the Brazilian capitals, with an annual temperature average of 19.5ºC and cold winters that have historical records of snow and subzero temperatures. The four seasons are very defined, though, and during the summer, temperatures may go well beyond 35ºC. The capital of Rio Grande do Sul is also famous for featuring one of the highest human development index figures in the whole country.
The continent-sized country also has a vast interior, with forests, mountain ranges (serras) and plateaux (chapadas) of at times staggering beauty. One dominant feature of its more mountainous landscapes is its waterfalls.
