Around the World
type: channel
description: Impressions of our tour around the World
date: 2025-04-13T18:32:51Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
generator agent: https://wordpress.org/
items: Porto Alegre – bye bye Brazil
items: Aparados da Serra – suddenly only 10°C
items: Florianopolis – hiking, dunes, beach and Cachaca
items: Iguazu – a waterfall and 3 countries in 24 hours
items: Bonito – the name says it all
items: Pantanal – Slightly different jungle experience
items: Sao Paulo – a short stopover with lots of street art
items: Ilhabela – hitchhiking by chance
items: Paraty – into the tourist hotspot
items: Rio de Janeiro – no carneval but perfect atmosphere

Porto Alegre – bye bye Brazil
type: item
creator: dobby
date: 2025-04-14T16:00:10Z
subject: Brazil 2025
description: It is actually more of a coincidence that we are visiting Porto Alegre at all. When we booked the flight, we just thought, “that must be a nice route, from Rio de Janeiro to Porto Alegre”, and so it is. As our return flight is not until Saturday after midnight, we have 2 full days […]
encoded: It is actually more of a coincidence that we are visiting Porto Alegre at all. When we booked the flight, we just thought, “that must be a nice route, from Rio de Janeiro to Porto Alegre”, and so it is. As our return flight is not until Saturday after midnight, we have 2 full days after our arrival on Thursday evening… However, we don’t really know what to do in Porto Alegre. There’s not enough time left for bigger activities and Porto Alegre doesn’t really have more than a day visit to offer. But that’s fine by us, as we can wind down Brazil a little more quietly, stroll around the city a bit, store for a few souvenirs and go out for a good meal. We spend the first day doing just that, but the souvenir shopping only works to a limited extent. We finally find the “Jambu Cachaca” in the city’s market hall, but otherwise the souvenir shopping is a little poor. Even for Havaianas, where there used to be a store on every corner, we have to go to a shopping center just outside the city center. But we make the best of it and with the huge river delta of the Rio Guiaba, which first flows into Lake Patos and then into the sea, Porto Alegre is a really good place to be and we take a leisurely stroll through parks, eat acai and drink a beer on the lakeside while we watch the Brazilians playing soccer, tennis and beach soccer on the lakeside promenade. We even stumble across a cheap sailing trip by chance and spontaneously book it for our last afternoon. But before it starts, we want to try one last typical Brazilian “lunch buffet” and even find a vegan grill restaurant that offers this. And we are very lucky. There must be some kind of special on Saturday, and there’s all-you-can-eat from the grill for just under €10!!! A member of staff is constantly coming around with large barbecue skewers and tempting us to try another new creation. Saitan in barbecue, mustard and honey sauce, various vegan sausage creations and even the Brazilian version of parmigiana… We can hardly walk…

Aparados da Serra – suddenly only 10°C
type: item
creator: dobby
date: 2025-04-13T17:00:35Z
subject: Brazil 2025
description: Brazil is the land of sun, sea, beaches, blue skies and of course the rainforest… Of course we realize that this is not true and of course we know that sooner or later we will experience autumnal conditions on our journey south. In Florianopolis, we slowly started to experience this, but on our penultimate stop, […]
encoded: Brazil is the land of sun, sea, beaches, blue skies and of course the rainforest… Of course we realize that this is not true and of course we know that sooner or later we will experience autumnal conditions on our journey south. In Florianopolis, we slowly started to experience this, but on our penultimate stop, we headed further south and a little inland. And suddenly we are in Praia Grande, standing with our rental car in front of 750m high cliffs on a plateau into which 14 different rivers have carved several canyons. And it can get cold here too, we prepare ourselves for nights with 10°C, but it doesn’t get that bad! But it’s all a bit absurd, up to now we’ve known canyons more as deep gorges. Of course there are canyons here too, but you can see both the beginning and the end of the canyon – and in good weather even the sea in the background… We spend the first night in Praia Grande at the foot of the plateau and as we arrive relatively late, we just get a few – useless – tips from the tourist center, visit a hidden and surprisingly impressive waterfall and chat a bit with a dance teacher who shares the hostel with us. In general, we have really entered the low season, there is almost nothing going on! We set off early the next morning to drive to the top of the plateau. It takes around 1.5 hours, initially on winding, more or less paved roads, later it becomes a gravel road. First we visit the canyon “Itaimbezinho” and walk along the edge and see two more huge waterfalls and are even so lucky with the weather that we can at least get a good view of the plain in front of the canyon – the coast remains hidden from us We visit the second canyon, “Fortaleza”, in the afternoon and hike along the edge for another 4 hours. And then we see how the canyon becomes flatter and flatter and walk through a few bushes and over a small trickle of a stream, the beginning of the canyon. Always in the knowledge that 500m further on, there are already hundreds of meters of steep …

Florianopolis – hiking, dunes, beach and Cachaca
type: item
creator: dobby
date: 2025-04-12T16:00:18Z
subject: Brazil 2025
description: After a 15-hour bus ride, we arrive relatively rested in Florianopolis and take an Uber straight to the hostel. Although we are still too early to check in, we pass the time until midday with a delicious breakfast and a little planning for the next few days. Florianopolis was highly recommended to us by Raphael […]
encoded: After a 15-hour bus ride, we arrive relatively rested in Florianopolis and take an Uber straight to the hostel. Although we are still too early to check in, we pass the time until midday with a delicious breakfast and a little planning for the next few days. Florianopolis was highly recommended to us by Raphael – one of Tobi’s interns who lives here – and the island has a lot to offer! Lots of beaches, surfing, diving, secluded bays with hiking trails, a large lake in the middle for swimming, boating and hiking, and as if that wasn’t enough, an amazingly large dune landscape with a large dune right on the beach as a highlight. This is also the start of our exploration, as our first hostel (more on this later) is located directly on an endlessly long beach called Praia Joaquina, which leads directly to the dune of the same name. We stroll along it in the current strong wind and sometimes have to be careful not to be blown directly into the water Once we arrive at the dune, the spectacle of wind and sand is of course even more extreme and we stand on the crest of the dune in waist-high sandstorms!!! As we don’t want to walk back, we first want to wait for the bus, but after 15 minutes of waiting we take an Uber. Unfortunately, it takes almost half an hour before we are picked up and we start to realize that it might be a bit difficult to get around here… In the evening, we go to the “capital” of the island and prepare for a short hike to Lagoinha do Leste. We take an Uber there again as we just miss the bus. The hike takes us for around 3 hours through the jungle to a wonderful viewpoint over the lagoon, which is really worth it. We save the lagoon itself and head to the beach near the starting point of the hike for an hour to cool off! As we had to wait forever for the bus back, we decided on the way back that we would stay another few days and hire a car! We also found the hostel a little too boring and out of the way, so we moved to another hostel right next to a s…

Iguazu – a waterfall and 3 countries in 24 hours
type: item
creator: dobby
date: 2025-04-11T16:00:38Z
subject: Brazil 2025
description: After the somewhat strenuous (night) bus journey, we arrive in Foz do Iguazu, the Brazilian starting point for the famous Iguazu Falls, around midday. After Niagara and Victoria, this is the last of the three large – and world-famous – waterfalls that we have not yet visited. As the bus ride was a bit tiring, […]
encoded: After the somewhat strenuous (night) bus journey, we arrive in Foz do Iguazu, the Brazilian starting point for the famous Iguazu Falls, around midday. After Niagara and Victoria, this is the last of the three large – and world-famous – waterfalls that we have not yet visited. As the bus ride was a bit tiring, we were actually looking forward to a relaxing afternoon in the city or in the hostel pool. But when the receptionist at the hostel congratulates us on having missed the last three days of constant rain, we decide to make the most of the sunny afternoon and take a quick trip to the Brazilian side of the waterfalls. Argentina and Brazil share the waterfalls, with the border running right through the middle of the river… After a short bus ride, we stand before this surreal sight of – depending on the water level – between 150 and 350 waterfalls closely lined up and between 64m and 82m high, falling into the gorge. Elenor Roosevelt is said to have exclaimed “poor Niagara” at the sight, and that’s how we feel. We are almost glad that we are the last of the “big three” here, because somehow we get the feeling that we would otherwise have been disappointed by Niagara and Victoria. Niagara has more water on average and therefore seems a little more “powerful”, and Victoria is impressive because it is the largest continuous single waterfall in the world. But here you get the feeling that if Monet had been commissioned to paint a picture of water cascading down a gorge, he would have painted it something like this… Simply incredibly picturesque, beautiful and impressive…. So there is no question that we will cross the border into Argentina the next day to visit the Argentinian side – this is where most of the waterfalls are located and you can walk over them, whereas you get a panoramic view of the falls from the Brazilian side. After breakfast at the hostel, it suddenly starts raining cats and dogs, but as we are leaving the next day in the evening, we set off anyway. …

Bonito – the name says it all
type: item
creator: dobby
date: 2025-04-10T06:00:14Z
subject: Brazil 2025
description: The name Bonito (“pretty”, “beautiful” in English) actually says it all about the area we are heading to next. The area is mainly known for its pretty freshwater springs, which wind their way up through the limestone and flow into small streams. One of the main attractions is to float in the rivers armed with […]
encoded: The name Bonito (“pretty”, “beautiful” in English) actually says it all about the area we are heading to next. The area is mainly known for its pretty freshwater springs, which wind their way up through the limestone and flow into small streams. One of the main attractions is to float in the rivers armed with a snorkel and wetsuit and watch the fish spawn and feed. The area is also fully committed to ecotourism. All operators must be accredited and the price for a particular activity is then set by the local government and places can be booked through local tourist offices, all of which charge exactly the same price. Only the price of transportation from the accommodation to the activities (some of which are up to 45km away) is negotiable… We spend 3 days in a hostel in the small town of Bonito, which unfortunately lacks any vibe. It’s nicely built and has its own travel agency, but unfortunately it’s completely off the beaten track and at the same time there’s just a bunch of boring weekenders from different parts of Brazil who prefer to keep to themselves. We only make the fleeting acquaintance of an Israeli, but that doesn’t last long either… Well, as the hostel doesn’t have much to offer, we spend our time on two snorkeling tours, one lasting 4 hours and the other 1.5 hours, and a short hike into one of the local stalactite caves. Tobi would also like to go cave diving, but unfortunately the most interesting cave is closed until May due to excessive algae growth… However, we particularly enjoy observing the underwater world in this incredibly clear water and are annoyed that we haven’t bought a new underwater camera since Colombia :-/ After 3 days, however, we have had enough (and spent enough money, because the tours and especially the transportation are quite expensive), so we finally want to go to the Iguazu Falls. This turns out to be more difficult than expected, we have to use 3 buses, each taking 3-9 hours to reach our destination. The longest section fro…

Pantanal – Slightly different jungle experience
type: item
creator: dobby
date: 2025-04-06T16:00:07Z
subject: Brazil 2025
description: Having already made several trips to the jungle and the Amazon in recent years, we are all the more interested in the “Pantanal”, which is advertised in a very different way. It is neither jungle nor jungle, but marshland with mainly private farms that now attract ecotourists. There are also said to be a large […]
encoded: Having already made several trips to the jungle and the Amazon in recent years, we are all the more interested in the “Pantanal”, which is advertised in a very different way. It is neither jungle nor jungle, but marshland with mainly private farms that now attract ecotourists. There are also said to be a large number of jaguars here… But the first question is, where to go in the Pantanal? The area known as the Pantanal is huge and stretches roughly halfway across the border between Bolivia and Brazil, whereas the Pantanal Motogrosso National Park of the same name is almost tiny. Although the north is said to be better for jaguars and generally a bit wilder, it is really off the beaten track for our route, tours are significantly more expensive, cheap flights are rare and we don’t really want to fly… That’s why we opt for the southern part of the area, which will allow us to travel on to our next destination, Bonito, easily later on! But first we have to get to the starting point of our tour, Campo Grande (pronounced Grandschi), almost 1000km from Sao Paulo. To do this, we take a 15-hour overnight bus and treat ourselves to the “more expensive” sleeping option with XL seats, leg rests and more legroom It all works out pleasantly well, even if the seats don’t recline 180°, we sleep quite well, there are three half-hour stops to stretch our legs, eat something (but we’ve already made provisions with a to-go poke bowl) or change and get ready for bed. It’s all very pleasant, and we arrive in Campo Grande an hour early, rested and ready for a coffee, where a nice older gentleman – who is waiting for a few tourists – keeps us company, tells us a bit about the area and gives us tips for our onward journey! After about 45 minutes, we are picked up by a driver from the tour and taken to the agency, where we are dropped off in a café to wait. Strengthened in this way, we pay the first half of the costs, freshen up a little and are then loaded into a van, in which we travel fo…

Sao Paulo – a short stopover with lots of street art
type: item
creator: dobby
date: 2025-04-03T16:00:19Z
subject: Brazil 2025
description: We weren’t sure the whole time whether we should visit Sao Paulo or just leave it before we set off for the protected “Pantanal” swamp area. However, we find a good night bus connection that allows us to spend at least one day rummaging through Sao Paulo and so we drive from Ilhabela to Sao […]
encoded: We weren’t sure the whole time whether we should visit Sao Paulo or just leave it before we set off for the protected “Pantanal” swamp area. However, we find a good night bus connection that allows us to spend at least one day rummaging through Sao Paulo and so we drive from Ilhabela to Sao Paulo first and spend a night in the middle of the nightlife district of Pinheiro. As our bus is unfortunately late – and it’s also Sunday – we don’t get to see much of it, have a quick Japanese meal and fall straight into bed. The next day, however, we have a few hours to visit the artists’ quarter of Vila Madalena with the famous Batman Alley. And what can I say, even on the way there you constantly stumble across street art on small houses, garages or on the top of high-rise buildings, and with every step into the district there is more and more. Batman Alley owes its name to the many Batmans that were spray-painted here, but after a renovation a few months ago, only a few remain. Nevertheless, it is full of great motifs and the district itself is a bit reminiscent of San Francisco or Lisbon, criss-crossed by hilly streets and small cafés or galleries selling art everywhere. You could certainly spend a few hours here… But we still want to stroll through the city center and visit the Japanese quarter. We spend the remaining hours here, get food for the night bus ride and round off the afternoon with a coffee and banana bread before boarding the night bus to the Pantanal… For the next 15 hours… <div id="bwg_container1_6" class="bwg_container bwg_thumbnail bwg_thumbnails " data-right-click-protection="0" data-bwg="6" data-scroll="0" data-gallery-type="thumbnails" data-gallery-view-type="thumbnails" data-current-url="/?feed=rdf" data-lightbox-url="https://scientistsontour.de/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=GalleryBox&current_view=6&gallery_id=214&tag=0&theme_id=1&shortcode_id=442&sort_by=order&order_by=asc&current_url=%2F%3Ffeed%3Drdf" data-gallery-id="214" data-popup-width="800" d…

Ilhabela – hitchhiking by chance
type: item
creator: dobby
date: 2025-04-02T16:00:40Z
subject: Brazil 2025
description: Ilhabela is a popular weekend destination for people from Sao Paulo, so it’s no surprise that getting there is almost absurdly easy. We take the bus from Paraty to Sao Sebastiao, walk 10 minutes to the ferry port and get on the free ferry, which departs every 20-30 minutes. There we share a cab with […]
encoded: Ilhabela is a popular weekend destination for people from Sao Paulo, so it’s no surprise that getting there is almost absurdly easy. We take the bus from Paraty to Sao Sebastiao, walk 10 minutes to the ferry port and get on the free ferry, which departs every 20-30 minutes. There we share a cab with a backpacker who was on the bus with us and wants to go to the same hostel as us – which is hardly surprising as the choice is very limited. In contrast to Ilha Grande near Rio, there are also cars on the island, which makes it much easier to get around and only slightly disturbs the idyll, as there is actually only one road along the west coast, the rest is wild jungle. We stay here for two nights, but are a little disappointed with the tours and hikes on offer, so we decide to simply explore some of the beaches on our own. As our hostel is pretty much in the middle of the island and there are regular buses to the south and north, this is relatively easy. We mainly set our sights on Praia Jabaquara, as it is easy to reach by bus and a 1-1.5 hour hike and hopefully not too crowded. Unfortunately, this is not quite the case, as we catch the exact day when a cruise ship passes by the island and disperses the crowds by boat to the various beaches Nevertheless, the day will be a great experience. First, we take the bus north to the last stop and set off. We first walk through the last inhabited areas and then continue on dirt tracks. As it is sweltering hot and not a particularly beautiful walking route, we decide to heed the advice of our hostel and try to hitchhike. After a few failed attempts, a nice couple eventually stops for us and takes us to the beach, where we spend a few hours eating fresh coconuts and drinking cold beer – and when the cruise tourists are finally picked up again, the beach becomes pleasantly quiet. We actually want to call a cab for the way back, but we don’t have a network here and we would probably have waited forever. So we just walk off to a vi…

Paraty – into the tourist hotspot
type: item
creator: dobby
date: 2025-04-01T15:00:55Z
subject: Brazil 2025
description: As the weather was already quite rainy in Rio and is expected to get worse over the next few days, we put our plan to travel to the car-free island of Ilha Grande on hold and head straight on to our next destination: Paraty. A small colonial town and starting point for exploring the bay […]
encoded: As the weather was already quite rainy in Rio and is expected to get worse over the next few days, we put our plan to travel to the car-free island of Ilha Grande on hold and head straight on to our next destination: Paraty. A small colonial town and starting point for exploring the bay in which Ilha Grande is located by boat. The bus takes a little longer than planned, so we don’t arrive until late afternoon, but we find a very cute little hostel right on the small river through the town. From here we could hop on a small boat and take a tour of the bay, the captain happened to be at the hostel and explained the tour to us. As it sounds nice and is not too expensive, we book directly for the next day and then stroll a little through the “streets” – they are more like freely laid stones – in the small town. The next morning we wait for the captain, as the tour was due to start at 10:30, but no one is in sight. After 15 minutes, we ask at reception and the young lady at the desk is flabbergasted because the tour has been canceled and she didn’t know about our booking (her colleague the day before must have messed something up…). As we had already paid and wanted to continue the next day, rescheduling or refunding our money was not really an option, so she quickly booked us another tour. However, by the time this is all communicated, it’s 11am and we still have to walk halfway across the city to the pier… and the tour starts at 11am (+10 minute buffer)… Well, we try it and “run” in flip-flops across the “streets” to the pier. When we arrive, we see that the boat has already left the pier. We walk on anyway and speak to a local. He whistles twice and one of the employees on the boat hops into a speedboat and picks us up from the pier… It was funny, but we could have saved ourselves the stress The tour is then very relaxed, we chug by boat to various bays, lie on the beach, go snorkeling or slide down the boat slide into the clear water. We end the evening in a nice veg…

Rio de Janeiro – no carneval but perfect atmosphere
type: item
creator: dobby
date: 2025-03-31T17:34:20Z
subject: Brazil 2025
description: We’ve wanted to go to Brazil for a long time, but now is finally the right time. We have time during the Brazilian low season, Brazil no longer has an authoritarian government and the flights are cheap. What more could you want? Unfortunately, we miss Carnival by a week, but as we will find out […]
encoded: We’ve wanted to go to Brazil for a long time, but now is finally the right time. We have time during the Brazilian low season, Brazil no longer has an authoritarian government and the flights are cheap. What more could you want? Unfortunately, we miss Carnival by a week, but as we will find out later, we would have had to plan at least 1 1/2 weeks for Carnival anyway to get into the right mood. We’ll probably put that off until our next trip to Brazil and start with the south of this huge country! But first, of course, we have to go to Rio to visit Copacabana, the Christ the Redeemer statue and Sugar Loaf Mountain. We spend two days strolling along the city’s many beaches, sipping caipirinha and eating acai smoothies – a lilla fruit that we’ve already tried in Colombia, but as a smoothie it’s simply unbeatable. Despite a few rainy days, we also managed to get to the Sugar Loaf Mountain to watch a fantastic sunset and enjoy the night-time atmosphere over Rio – with almost no other tourists. They were probably all put off by the rain We also take a walking tour through the city center and learn a little about Brazil’s history (especially that the colors of the flag green, blue and yellow do not stand for rainforest, blue sky/water and gold/sunshine, but are simply due to the colors of Portuguese colonial rule For the statue of Christ we wait for a sunny morning, which we catch on our third day in Rio and take a cab to the train stop on the mountain. We don’t want to take the train because 1) it’s too expensive and 2) there are too many tourists, but there are also supposed to be vans that will take us to our destination much more cheaply and quickly!However, at the starting point of the train, we learn that it has been closed since the previous evening due to a security incident and it is currently unclear when it will reopen – the queue in front of the train terminal is already easily a hundred meters long… We treat ourselves to breakfast and wait a while, and then t…