Officially founded in 1612 by French naval officer Daniel de la Touche de la Ravardière, São Luís is the state capital of Maranhão and known as the reggae capital of Brazil . Samba, forro and frevo might hold sway in other parts of the North East, but here in São Luís the good times are…
Category: South America
Visiting Chile’s nitrate ghost town – Humberstone, near Iquique
Ghost town. Are there many more evocative words in the English language? Maybe they conjure up images of dusty Wild West abandoned saloons, doors swinging in the breeze. Or places which once welcomed a gold or mineral rush, only to empty out twenty years later when all the mines were stripped clean of their treasures….
Five landscapes you have to see on your South American trip
South America isn’t short of spectacular landscapes, many of which I’ve been lucky enough to visit over the past ten years. Stunning salt flats, dramatic table-top mountains, thousands of waterfalls and snow-capped volcanoes, there’s something for everyone. Not to mention the world’s longest river, the Amazon which drifts through thousands of acres of primary rainforest….
Flamingos, llamas and salt lakes – a Salar de Surire photoblog
Salar de Surire is a dazzling small salt flat in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, about halfway between Iquique and Arica. Although not as large or impressive as Salinas Grandes in north-west Argentina (which remains one of my favourite-ever travel days), it’s home to a large population of three species of flamingo, including the…
Visiting Parque Nacional Lauca from Arica, Chile
Snow-capped volcanoes, lots of alpacas and vicunas and the bluest of skies – all things you can expect to see if you make the journey up to Parque Nacional Lauca from Arica in Chile. Read on for more about this intriguing but little visited corner of Chile. There’s a place on the Arica-La Paz highway…
Four places to relax in Rio de Janeiro
Rio is a vibrant city that wears its heart on its sleeve and lives its life on the street. Thousands of people will surround you everywhere you go, but what happens if you want to escape the crowds for a while? Luckily Rio has plenty of options when you want to relax for a moment,…
Some end-of-year reflections
Street art in Santa Teresa, Rio I have a 101 (well, at least a few) useful posts I should write following my South American trip; you know, the kind that’ll maybe show up higher in search engine rankings, if I optimise them for SEO and there aren’t that many relevant answers online. But is that…
Brazil and Chile trip plans!
I’m just a little bit excited that in just over two weeks from now I’ll be back in South America, a fantastic end to a packed year of travel. Our original idea was to split our two-week stay between Brazil and Argentina, but fate (and outrageously high costs in Argentina) had other plans. So now we’re…
A South American love story: 10 years of travelling in South America
Ten years, almost. Ten years since I first got on that plane, stepping into the unknown, finally fulfilling my lifelong dream of travelling to South America. All those years of looking up flights, poring over maps, dreaming of places I’d maybe never see. Until there was someone who shared my dream, encouraged it, searched…
4 places to walk on the wild side in Brazil – a post for Backpack South America
A little while ago I wrote a post for Backpack South America about 4 of the best places to walk on the wild side and experience nature in Brazil. ‘Brazil has an incredible variety of landscapes; from table mountains and red rocks to watery wonderlands. Epic sweeping views, on a scale we don’t get…