Brazilian Geography Lesson

This is Brazil:


It is big. It's the 5th biggest country in the world, and it is larger than the 48 contiguous United States. And from June 15th to July 13th, I will be trying to see as much of it as I can.

The whole thing started when my friend Maggie got a big fat award from the school of music to go down to Rio de Janeiro for over a month to study choros, a uniquely Brazilian genre of flute music. She had served her mission in Manaus, Brazil and she had basically put together her whole award proposal as a means to finance a trip back to Brazil. When I first heard that she had gotten the award and all the money for the trip, I first congratulated her and then asked her if she was going to do any traveling while she was down there. She said she really wanted to, but she wasn't so keen on the idea of traveling alone. "I'll go!" immediately shot out of my mouth. You see, I too served a mission in Brazil (Missão Brazil Campinas) and in the six years since I've returned I've been actively looking for excuse to go back down. The timing was just right and I felt like this might be my last chance ever to go back there.

Maggie has been down there for over a month already and I am going to meet her in Rio after one week by myself back in Campinas. After a few more days in Rio we are taking off on a massive tour of the whole country. We purchased a travel package called the Brazil Air Pass, which allows the passenger to fly to any four destinations in Brazil in any order. Maggie and I had a half dozen or so planning meetings over several weeks to try to plan out exactly where we would go. We both had our list of places that we didn't want to miss, but that list got way out of hand for our three week time frame, so we had to say goodbye to Recife, Florianópolis, Fortaleza, Porto Alegre, etc. But we eventually worked out a realistic travel plan and, with the help of Craig the travel agent, worked out the following itinerary:

(Special thanks to MS Paint. I hope they never get rid of it, even if it is laughably primitive.)

Legend: Red lines = bus trips; Green lines = plane trips

1. São Paulo - I fly into São Paulo on Sunday night, and I immediately catch a bus to Campinas.

2. Campinas - I am spending an entire week here to revisit my old stomping ground here. I spent about half of my mission in the city of Campinas - six months in the north district, six months in the south district. But my all the the other areas where I served are really close as well, a 45-minute bus ride tops. I'm planning on staying at the Campinas Temple, which has lodging for temple patrons for 8 reais a night (about $4.90).

3. Rio de Janeiro - Next I take a 5-hour bus ride to Rio to meet up with Maggie. We'll spend about three days there before we catch a bus going to...

4. Ouro Preto/Belo Horizonte - Ouro Preto is a 17th-century mining town that is full of immaculate Baroque architecture and is a UNESCO world heritage site. It's just outside of the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte.

5. Salvador - In Belo Horizonte we'll catch a flight to Salvador, a vibrant, highly African-influenced city with tons of history, music, capoeira circles, and great beaches.

6. Manaus - Then we fly to Manaus, a city of a million and a half people smack dab in the middle of the Amazon rain forest. Maggie served her mission here, so we'll stay with some of her friends and we're planning on taking a tour that goes out on the Amazon river.

7. Rio Branco - This city is definitely not a tourist destination and it is extremely remote (near the Bolivian border), but it was Maggie's favorite mission area and pretty much the whole reason she wanted to tour around Brazil, so I'm game. Besides, how many people have you met in your entire life that can say they have been to Rio Branco?

8. Foz de Iguaçú - We'll fly out of Rio Branco through Brasília on our way down south to Iguaçú Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world - it's like Niagara Falls on steroids. The falls are right on the border of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay and we're going to take a boat ride that takes you right up to the falls.

9. Curitiba - We'll take an overnight bus to Curitiba, capital the state of Paraná. They just dedicated a new LDS temple there on June 1, so that will be great to see. At this point, Maggie will fly back to Rio to pick up her stuff and fly home, and I will catch a bus to...

10. São Paulo - My trip comes full circle and I fly back home to Michigan on July 13.

This trip makes about as much sense as a foreigner coming to the U.S. and wanting to visit New York, then San Francisco, then the Grand Canyon, then Miami. Totally impractical. But that's why it's going to be so fun. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I just couldn't pass it up. As the end of my mission was approaching I simply did not want to leave Brazil, so I extended my mission for another six weeks. I probably would have extended again but my Visa would have expired, so they had to ship me home. As the wheels of the airplane lifted off the runway I felt like I had lost something, and I promised myself that I would go back some day. It took me six years, but I'm going back in style.