2019 was the year I ticked another continent off the bucket list! Granted I only really visited one country on that trip, but still – it was a great way to dip my toes into South America!
I flew to Brazil to catch up with my partner and meet her wonderful family. Of course, being my first time in a new continent, I couldn’t simply stay in one city for a fortnight. Deb and I worked out that we could reasonably travel and stay in three areas to maximise the opportunity while also respecting that you can’t see much of one place in one day. So we settled on São Paulo, Lençóis Maranhenses (via Barreirinhas and São Luís) and Rio de Janeiro.
São Paulo was good fun, and a great place to meet Deb’s family and friends! The city is amazingly rich with culture and beautiful food. A little bit overwhelming for a gringo, for sure, but luckily I had my native other-half to guide me around, and laugh as I tried to order two coffees from a McDonalds.
The first real opportunity to get the cameras out came when we flew up on our day-long journey to Barreirinhas, to visit Lençóis Maranhenses national park. If you’ve never heard of it, as I hadn’t, it’s a national park some 300,000 acres large of predominantly sand dunes. It’s also situated on top of a bed of impermeable rock. What that means is that in the rainy season the national park receives a huge amount of rainfall. That rain, unable to sink below the rock bed underneath the sand dunes ends up forming thousands upon thousands of freshwater lagoons. With an average temperature around 30 degrees, now you can see why this natural phenomenon is such an amazing place to come and explore, with your swimwear! It’s also located adjacent to the ocean, so you’ve got both freshwater lagoons AND the beach in the one park!
If I had my time again I would have loved to fly my drone around some more. We explored the national park as part of a tour group and while we had ample time to relax and have a swim in the lagoons, it was pushing it to have a swim AND get the drone out for some flying.
If I had my time again I would have loved to fly my drone around some more. We explored the national park as part of a tour group and while we had ample time to relax and have a swim in the lagoons, it was pushing it to have a swim AND get the drone out for some flying.