Fernanda moved to Australia 10 years ago from Brazil. Now, as her country of birth gears up to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup, she heads home. A perfect place to start her journey is at a local football match in Curitiba, a city that boasts the best quality of life in Brazil. Fernanda then has a taste of Brazil’s other passion, coffee, before meeting the former mayor and city planner responsible for putting Curitiba on the map. No trip home would be complete without a feast with loved ones, so the next stop is her hometown of Belo Horizonte. She visits Central Market with her mum, sampling cachaça, Minas cheese, her beloved guava paste and other local produce. Being back with family helps Fernanda ease back into the lifestyle.
Fernanda heads to the biggest city in the southern hemisphere and discovers how the rich get around the massive metropolis. Amongst the chaos of its 20 million residents, São Paulo reveals itself as a melting pot of cultures. At the Central Market she faces off with a sandwich that’s almost the size of her head. She meets Pablo, a bicycle shop owner popular with those who want to avoid the mile-long traffic jams. She and an old friend head to an open-air nightclub featuring the sounds of one of the country’s best DJs. After a quick stopover in the city of Fortaleza, where she meets up with one of Brazil’s top female surfers, Fernada spends time on the island paradise of Fernando de Noronha. The Bay of Dolphins, a marine park, offers an array of nature-orientated activities and an encounter with a sea turtle recharges the batteries.
Brasília is the country’s capital and was created in the middle of nowhere by architect Oscar Niemeyer. Fernanda hears some personal stories from the past from a taxi driver who came to the city as a builder when it was under construction more than 40 years ago. Hippies and new age believers are drawn to the area because of a massive rock crystal that lies underground and Fernanda spends a day with one of the city’s many mystic cults, ‘The Dawn Valley’, and tries to get her head around their beliefs. She also pays a visit to the main temple and centre of decision-making, Brazil’s National Congress. She wants to find out why Brazil is so obsessed with football. After some serious political talk, it’s time to lighten up and relish Rio de Janeiro. She ventures into a favela to meet Tia Léa, a cook that has transformed her humble home into a restaurant popular with artists and politicians and, after taking in some of the city’s most recognisable sights, she discovers foot volley, a new sport taking the world by storm. A combination of football and volleyball, it requires enormous skill.
It’s time for one of the biggest events on the Brazilian calendar: Carnival! Fernanda begins at the official Carnival parade, which is actually a very serious competition held at the Sambadrome, a purpose-built arena. Up early the next day, she travels to the north eastern city of Recife for a unique street celebration featuring huge, colourful puppets. Heading south to the port city of Porto Alegre, the cultural contrast is huge. The city is home to Brazilian cowboys, known as Gaúchos, who are responsible for the famous Brazilian barbecue and a special tea that comes in wooden gourds. Then it’s on to Manaus, the biggest city in the Amazon. About 100 years ago it was one of the richest cities in the world due to its rubber trade. Beautiful buildings, including the Amazonas Theatre, were constructed back then using only the finest European materials. Its golden era lasted 30 years until a rubber seed was stolen and taken to Asia. Fernanda is also taken on a medicinal tour of indigenous fruits fresh from the Amazon rainforest.
The city of Manaus, on the banks of the mighty Amazon River, has a lot to offer and Fernanda is taken on an unforgettable boat trip to truly discover the remoteness of Amazonia. She experiences magical moments with baby dolphins, a three-toed sloth, capuchin monkeys and an anaconda. She is then treated to a tribal feast and heads deeper into the forest to see the endangered pink river dolphins or botos. Heading north, Fernanda stops in at Natal. It used to be a sleepy fishing village but tourism boomed when Europeans began arriving in huge numbers to take advantage of the natural beauty of the area. She meets a salt-of-the-earth fisherman still trying to make a living among the hotels and tourists. Most people come to Natal for its massive sand dunes, beautiful beaches and stunning reef – and it is ideal for the adventurous.
Fernanda is in Brazil’s wild west, the geographical heart of South America, where the largest cattle herds in the country live. Fernanda explores the culture and food of the cowboys then, on horseback, helps move a herd through some of the most inhospitable areas of the Pantanal, a large freshwater wetland and one of the world’s great natural wonders. This is a place for nature lovers and bird watchers and the waterways are full of fish, including the piranha. Fernanda sees the elusive blue macaw parrot and hears about what’s being done to replenish their numbers and to discourage poachers. Back in town it’s Friday night, which means one thing: lambadão, a souped-up version of the lambada made famous in the 1980s. The final stop on Fernanda’s cross-country jaunt is Brazil’s first capital and, arguably, its beating heart. Salvador is the centre of Afro-Brazilian culture, with 80 percent of its residents boasting African blood. The women here are tough, regal and proud and the thumping pulse of drums is never far from earshot. Wandering around the beautiful streets of the old city, Fernanda comes across a drumming group with a social conscience. Later, as the sun sets over Salvador’s famous coastline, Fernanda reflects on how much has changed since she’s been away from the country that she loves.
