CARMEN MIRANDA

A very rare document. This is the only segment left out of the Brazilian film "Banana da Terra" (1939). Nothing else survived the time. That's the first time Carmen Miranda ever appeared wearing a Bahiana outfit in a movie. Americans hadn't "discovered" her as yet. The original routine is shorter, this one has been edited. Enjoy!
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Um documento muito raro. Este é o único segmento que sobrou do filme "Banana da Terra" (1939). Nada mais sobreviveu ao tempo. Esta foi a primeira vez em que Carmen Miranda apareceu vestida de baiana num filme. Os americanos não a tinham "descoberto" ainda. O número original é mais curto. Este foi editado. Aproveitem!



Lucille Ball impersonates Carmen Miranda in this classic episode of I Love Lucy. Carmen was often taken either as Mexican or Cuban, and speaking Spanish. She was actually from Brazil in South America and spoke Portuguese. She however was proud of also giving her dedication to all Latin America with her work in showbiz. First aired on October 22, 1951.




From the "Baby Puss" Episode, 1943.

SOURCE BY DoniSacramento (youtube), videosfl(youtube)

São Paulo's sane and sensual side is not always so easy to find. At first glance, this sprawling city of 10 million — the cultural and economic capital of Brazil — appears to be a hard-edged urban jungle a place whose seemingly haphazard design, a bit like Los Angeles, can make it hard for the outsider to negotiate. São Paulo is no Paris, Rio or Buenos Aires — cities where you can just show up and fall in love on a first pass-through.





Even on Rua Oscar Freire, the narrow boulevard that is often compared to Rodeo Drive, a visitor would not immediately be seduced by the fashion boutiques with unfamiliar names. One of the most original and enchanting stores on the street, Clube Chocolate, is so chic that it has no display windows and is so exclusive that security guards flank the heavy wooden door that hides the glorious, airy interior. How would you know that inside there's a bright, three-story atrium with floor-to-ceiling palm trees and a sandy beach that you reach by descending a polished steel circular staircase?



São Paulo does not go out of its way to cater to foreign tourists, and this can be a blessing. At restaurants, you will not find yourself surrounded by Germans, Australians and other Americans. At the flea markets, you will not see couples wearing fanny packs and taking photographs. At museums and churches, you will not find crowds. You get to experience life undiluted and witness a South American city in transition.

One gets a sense of the city's determination to become a player on the international hipster circuit at three boutique hotels: the Emiliano, the Unique and the Fasano. When I arrived at the Emiliano on a Friday at noon, after a 45-minute cab ride from the airport, my room was not ready. Before I could settle into the bright, minimalist lobby, with its avant-garde armchairs wrapped in hundreds of yards of golden rope by the Campana brothers — the Brazilian duo whose work has been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York— I was escorted by one of the good-looking desk clerks to the glass-enclosed rooftop spa. He handed me a fluffy white bathrobe and white Havaianas, Brazil's famous rubber flip-flops, encouraging me to soak in the wooden hot tubs, cool off in the marble plunge pool or take a shower. I did all three.

I had decided to come to São Paulo for a long weekend because it may be one of the easiest overnight flights around. I took a nonstop nine-hour American Airlines flight out of New York at around 10 p.m. and arrived in São Paulo in the late morning. (In January, when I went, São was three hours ahead of New York; the difference can vary from one to three hours depending on shifting Daylight Savings times.) Dinner and breakfast were served close to take off and landing, so I could sleep for nearly seven solid hours and wake up ready for a full day.

My room at the Emiliano was soothing and sybaritic: white Egyptian cotton sheets and six pillows of different firmness; an Eames lounge chair upholstered in an oatmeal fabric; a wall of honey-colored wood that hid closets and two Sub-Zero drawer refrigerators stocked with drinks; and a large bathroom with a view of neighboring penthouses. As the guest services manager tried to teach me how to work all the lighting controls (which I never mastered), she told me she could send a butler to unpack my bags. (I declined.)

From the posh to the prosaic, São Paulo can sometimes seem like a European capital. There's the Metropolitan Cathedral, a building with Gothic and Byzantine elements said to hold 8,000 worshipers, the 1911 Municipal Theater inspired by the Paris Opéra, art museums whose buildings are as noteworthy as their exhibitions and a downtown public food hall where everything from baby pigs to hot peppers are displayed in their stalls like art installations

The Pinacoteca do Estado is an outstanding example of how a historic structure can be preserved and turned into a 21st-century museum. Stripped down to the bricks as if it were an ancient ruin, the 1897 building now has a series of interior skylit courtyards with sculptures by Rodin and Niki de Saint-Phalle and an impressive collection ranging from 19th-century landscapes to 20th-century abstracts by pioneering modernists such as Waldemar Cordeiro and Willys de Castro.
Paulistas are very proud of their modernist architecture, especially the Copan, a 1950 apartment building designed by Oscar Niemeyer, who worked with Le Corbusier on the United Nations and created Brasília, the capital city. Elsewhere, a repurposed 1930 train station, Sala São Paulo, has been turned into a strikingly contemporary symphonic hall. The Museum of Art of São Paulo (MASP), a landmark 1968 building by Lina Bo Bardi that is suspended above a plaza by colonnades at either end without any interior supports, has a collection that includes works by Renoir, Cézanne, Manet, Degas and Modigliani.

While traveling around town by car is essential, it is easy to stroll for hours in the Jardins district, a pedestrian-friendly village that would have appealed to the urban ecologist Jane Jacobs, who wrote that a "good city street neighborhood achieves a marvel of balance between its people's determination to have essential privacy and their simultaneous wishes for differing degrees of contact, enjoyment or help from the people around." Set on a sloping grid of narrow streets, the Jardins has scores of restaurants, sidewalk cafes and luxury high-rise apartment buildings separated from the sidewalks by gates and lush foliage.

"When you are in the Jardins, it's very easy to think you are in the richest country in the world," said Lauer Alves Nunes dos Santos, a semiotics professor I met while having lunch at Prêt Café, a small Jardins restaurant tucked away in a restored house. As an American dining in a neighborhood hangout — where a buffet set out in pretty glass bowls and iron pans makes you feel as though you've stumbled upon a private lunch party — I was a novelty. The owner, Beatriz Ticcoulat Alves de Araújo, came out to meet me and asked if I enjoyed the gnocchi, fish stew in shrimp sauce, stuffed zucchini, rice and beans, green salad and coconut pudding. "This is the type of food I would serve you if you came to my house for lunch," she said.

There is nothing homey about the sexy and ominous Unique Hotel. Designed by Ruy Ohtake, the ark-shaped hotel seems like a set for a James Bond movie, with its darkened windows, secret doors and suited security guards. To get there, my taxi passed through Jardim Europa, a neighborhood of shady streets with baroque and modernist houses hidden behind tall walls — the Brazilian equivalent of Beverly Hills. This L.A. moment continued at the Unique's rooftop Skye bar, where cocktails are served outdoors next to a lap pool with panoramic city views. Even on a cloudy night, there is a sunset glow, with the terrace artfully illuminated by pink floodlights.

Summer weekends tend to be quiet in São Paulo as residents head for the beaches or mountains, but many of the style-conscious families and young professionals who do stay in town end up dining at Spot, a bustling glass-box brasserie. The menu features multi-ingredient green salads, inventive pastas and small steaks with luscious sauces and crackling fried potatoes. It was hard for me to concentrate on the excellent food, though, as a steady parade of tanned women in miniskirted halter dresses kept joining a table where two movie-star-handsome men continue buying rounds of drinks for all. It seemed like an episode of "Sex in the City" dubbed into Portuguese.

After dinner, I went to Bar Balcão, where a two-sided serpentine bar winds around the restaurant. "This bar is popular with artists, poets and academics," said Ana Amèlia Genioli, an architect who was having a late supper. "But São Paulo is not Brazil. You need to see the countryside." I explained that I was more fascinated by cities, and told her what a Brazilian artist, Ronaldo Bregola, had said to me: "Of course São Paulo is not Brazil, but Paris is not France and London is not England."

São Paulo is certainly a world-class city when it comes to shopping, no matter your taste or budget. Bargain-hunting in Sunday's Liberdade flea market, I bought inexpensive handmade crafts: children's puppets, wooden spoons and hand-dyed silk scarves in tropical hues. I loaded up on flip-flops at Page Calçados, which looks like every off-price shoe store I avoid back home. It is in a downtown wholesale district and carries Havaianas in dozens of styles and colors that are rarely imported to the United States at just 10.99 to 13.99 reais a pair ($4.95 to $6.35, at 2.2 reais to the dollar).




But the high-end shopping is even more engaging — even if you are only browsing. I wasn't sure whether to visit Daslu, the department store that had been profiled as a citadel of conspicuous consumption in The New Yorker three years ago. But then I met Walkiria Vaney, a Brazilian who used to live in New York and described Daslu as much bigger and grander than Bergdorf Goodman. I had to see for myself.


You can't walk into Daslu off the street; you must arrive by car (or helicopter) and pass through a security checkpoint. The store looks like a five-star resort hotel and has the ambience of an exclusive country club where everyone is shopping instead of playing golf or tennis. In the store are 10 coffee and Champagne bars, and boutiques selling everything from Frette sheets and Prada bags to Aspen ski vacations and Harley-Davidsons. Daslu's staffing provides insight into Brazilian class structure. Sexy, animated women with good haircuts are ringing up sales while a battalion of stoic housekeepers in French maid's uniforms silently straighten shelves in the background.

That Paulistas know how to spend lavishly is also apparent at D.O.M., a restaurant run by the celebrity chef Alex Atala, considered the country's Jean-Georges Vongerichten for his reinterpretation of Brazilian ingredients — black beans, codfish, ferofa — with a French twist. The dining room is hushed and corporate-looking but attracts a diverse clientele: Brazilian pop stars like Clara Moreno and her entourage, couples splurging for a special occasion, and rich families so blasé about fine dining that they talk on their cellphones while they eat.

They should pay more attention, because the food is superb. A friend and I had the four-course tasting menu for 160 reais a person: shrimp with a papaya mango salsa; codfish brandade in a reduction of black beans; a fish called filhote in a crust of manioc, a root vegetable; duck confit with peppercorns. The unconventional cheese course was served by a waiter who twirled a mixture of potato purée and Gruyère with two spoons in the air as if it were taffy, before divvying it up onto each plate.

After such a refined meal, the idea of a loud nightclub was out of the question, so I ended up having a nightcap at another of the boutique hotels, the Fasano, where the sumptuous masculine décor suggests that it attracts more hedge-fund managers than models, and whose Baretto bar is a contemporary riff on a 1930's cocktail lounge.

On my last day, I headed back to the Jardins, and its world-class shops, curious to see the interior of Galeria Melissa. Designed by Karim Rashid of New York, the store's signature all-rubber high heels — by designers such as Alexandre Herchcovitch (whose rock star fashions are sold at his boutique around the corner) and the Campana Brothers — are displayed in plastic bubbles that hang from the ceiling, creating a trippy "2001: A Space Odyssey" effect.

During a typical summer torrential rainstorm, I took cover at Cavalera, one of many stores that sell skintight Brazilian-made jeans and silky-soft cotton T-shirts. The salesclerks spoke little English, but they all looked like models and were eager to please, producing stack after stack of jeans, some embellished with Portuguese graffiti.

After an hour, it was still raining hard, so I ran across the street to Z Deli, an idiosyncratic place on Alameda Lorena, another street of fashionable shops. There, the buffet lunch includes brisket, pierogi, cole slaw and, improbably, gefilte fish. Run by two Jewish women, Zenaide Raw, who once lived in New York and speaks good English, and her sister Rosa, Z Deli made me feel like an insider. When Zenaide heard I was from the United States, she brought me a piece of rich poppy seed cake and sat down at the table. When I told her I was staying only three days, she scolded me: "How can you see everything in such a short time? Next time you have to see me first, and I will tell you what you should do." I assured her that I would.





SOURCE BY By DAN SHAW Published: March 12, 2006 (THE NEW YORK TIMES) Bluebus(YOUTUBE) luuft(YOUTUBE), www.rw.tv.br (Empresa Tera Producoes)

SALVADOR - BAHIA, SAO LUIS - MARANHAO, FORTALEZA - CEARA , PERNAMBUCO - PE - BELEM DO PARA -

SALVADOR DA BAHIA: THE AFRO-BRAZILIAN CAPITAL
Africans in Brazil - Brazil Travel Guide
Salvador da Bahia is a very singular city. The omnipresence of bahian music, the pace and rhythm of life, the cuisine, the mysticism, the warmness of the people, their joy, all these, is a constant invitation to returning.



Curiously, the features that most attract our senses are markedly African in their origin. African culture has a much larger expression than the white one in the music, the cuisine, or the people’s behaviour. Salvador is, indeed, a major representation of afro-Brazilian culture.



MARANHAO - SAO LUIS (NORDESTE DO BRASIL)
This extensive sand dune region along the northeast coast of Brazil in the state of Maranhão measures more than 40 miles (65 kilometers) in length.





FORTALEZA - CEARA - NORDESTE DO BRASIL -



PORTUGUÊS:
Na região Nordeste do Brasil as cores das paisagens são fortes. O Oceano Atlântico é transparente e semelhante ao mar do Caribe. As areias das praias são finas e brancas. A paisagem paradisíaca, cheia de palmeiras e coqueiros. No horizonte, jangadas com turistas ou pescadores, deslizam sobre as ondas do mar. Fortaleza tem sol quase o ano inteiro, pois fica perto da linha do Equador que divide a Terra em Norte e Sul. Apesar do sol forte, uma brisa constante sopra do mar, tornando a temperatura amena e muito agradável. O povo do Ceará é alegre, amistoso e muito hospitaleiro. Sua música típica, o FORRÓ - que vem da palavra "forrobodó" (confusão) - demonstra muito bem esse seu estado de espírito. Aliás, é o Estado do Ceará que produz os melhores humoristas brasileiros. A paisagem paradisíaca e o baixo índice de assaltos e criminalidade atrai turistas do mundo inteiro à Fortaleza. O povo do Ceará é baixo, forte e resistente. Sua cabeça, um pouco achatada, revela rápido sua miscigenação de mulheres indígenas com homem branco (português, francês ou piratas holandeses) durante o período da colonização do Brasil. Quem visita Fortaleza, sempre volta outra vez.

ENGLISH:
In the Northeast region of Brazil, the landscapes colors are strongs. The Atlantic Ocean is similar to the transparent waters of the Caribbean Sea. The sands of the beaches are fines and whites. The paradisiacs landscapes are full of palms and coconut trees. On the horizon, rafts with tourists or fishermen glides on the waves of the sea. Fortaleza is sunny almost all the year, because it´s near the Equator line, which divides the Earth into North and South. Despite the strong sun, a constant breeze blowing from the sea maintain the weather warm and very much pleasant. The people from Ceará is cheerful, friendly and very hospitable. His typical music, the FORRÓ - which comes from the word "forrobodó" (disorder) - shows very well the state of mind of this people. So, the Ceará State always produces the bests humorists artists in Brazil. The paradisiacals landscapes of this region and the low rate of burglary and crimes, attracts tourists from all the world to Fortaleza. The Ceará people is low, strong and sturdy. His head is a few flattened, revealing quickly his mixing of indian women with white man (Portuguese, French or Dutch pirates) during the Brazil colonization. Who visits Fortaleza, always come back again.

FRANÇAIS:
À la région Nord-est du Brésil les couleurs des paysages sont très fortes. Les eaux d´Océan Atlantique ont la transparence de la mèr des Caraïbes. Les sables des plages du Ceará sont fines et blanches. Le paysage paradisiaque c´est plein de palmiers et cocotiers. À l'horizon, des radeaux (jangadas) avec touristes ou pêcheurs, glissent sur les vagues de la mer. Fortaleza est ensoleillé presque toute l'année, car elle est près de La ligne d´Équateur, qui divise la Terre dans Nord et Sud. Malgré le fort soleil, une brise qui soufle de la mèr laisse l´ambient très agréable. Le peuple de Ceará est gai, aimable et très accueillants. Son type de musique, le FORRÒ - qui vient du mot "forrobodò" (confusion; désordre) - montre bien l´état d'esprit de cet people. Il est l'état de Ceará qui produit les meilleurs humoristes-artistes brésiliens. Le paysage paradisiaque et la baisse taxe de banditisme et criminalité attire des touristes du monde entier à Fortaleza. Le peuple de Ceará est bas, fort et robuste. Sa tête, un peu aplatie, montre rapidement la mélange de race entre les femmes indiènnes autochtones avec les hommes blancs (portugais, français ou pirates néerlandais) qui arrivaient au cours de la colonisation du Brésil. Qui visite Fortaleza, toujours rentre autre fois.

PERNAMBUCO - PE - NORDESTE DO BRASIL

Recife, A Veneza Brasileira "The Venice of Brazil"


The enchanted Porto de Galinhas beach.: IPOJUCA -


BELEM DO PARA - BRAZIL




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SOURCE by TropiBrazil, BrasilAdentro, viladorock, maikelarruda, Leonidas Pires, makplan, vjmastermode, www.belem.pa.gov.br

Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil - The city

"Belo Horizonte, the first modern Brazilian city to spring from an architect's drawing board, was especially designed for its role as the capital of the state of Minas Gerais. Its wide, landscaped avenues and carefully planned residential suburbs have, however, suffered the impact of the country's high rate of urbanization. Belo Horizonte is the distribution and processing center of a rich agricultural and mining region and the nucleus of a burgeoning industrial complex. Its chief manufactures are steel, steel products, automobiles, and textiles. Gold, manganese, and gem stones of the surrounding region are processed in the city. Belo Horizonte is also a leading cultural center, with three universities, a historical museum, numerous libraries, and sports stadiums. Because of its altitude (850m) the climate is refreshing and cool."





GRUPO CORPO - Trecho do balé "Onqotô", com o Grupo Corpo Companhia de Dança. Coreografia de Rodrigo Pederneiras. Música de Caetano Veloso e José Miguel Wisnik.


"BELO HORIZONTE, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, has managed to become the country’s third-largest city while remaining almost completely unknown to the outside world. If tourists — more drawn to the sybaritic pleasures of Rio de Janeiro or the urban clamor of São Paulo — know it at all, it is because they may pass through it on their way to Ouro Preto and Diamantina, treating it as a little more than a refueling stop as they head toward those picturesque colonial-era mining towns.

Its international anonymity was born of no coastline and thus no beaches, no famous Carnival and thus no February madness, and no big attractions save a few buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer that pale next to his famous works in Brasília.

But Beagá, the city’s nickname (from the pronunciation of its initials in Portuguese), does have a claim to fame: as the bar capital of Brazil. Not bars as in slick hotel lounges or boozy meat markets, but bars as in botecos, informal sit-down spots where multiple generations socialize, drink beer and often have an informal meal. If you believe the local bluster, there are 12,000 bars in the city, more per capita than anywhere else in the country. Why, no one is completely sure, but one theory has turned into a popular saying: “Não tem mares, tem bares.” Loosely: “There are no seas, thus there are bars.”

And though tourist guidebooks barely make mention of them, they make for a great way for travelers to dive into the social life of a city whose metropolitan area has exploded in recent decades to over five million inhabitants. The best time to come is for the eighth annual Comida di Buteco competition in April, when some 40 of the top bars square off in categories like hygiene, beer frigidity, service and most importantly, best tira-gosto — or appetizer. Winners are decided not just by judges but by public ballot, giving Belo-Horizontinos a flimsy excuse to go out every night for a month.

If you miss it, don’t worry. Every night of the year seems to have something of a party feel in this off-the-radar screen hot spot. Get your feet wet at Mercearia Lili (Rua São João Evangelista, 696, Santo Antônio, 55-31-3296-1951), a regular participant in Comida di Buteco. It is one bar of many in Santo Antônio, an upscale neighborhood of steep hills that require superhuman parallel parking skills or, preferably, use of the city’s metered taxis.

The bar is typical in many ways, not least of which is the furniture: yellow plastic tables and chairs, with the maroon Skol beer logo, spilling out onto the sidewalk (600-milliliter bottles of the Pilsener Skol, to be shared in small glasses, are the citywide order of choice). The buzz of conversation and the clink of bottles — not a D.J. — provide the soundtrack; grey hair and what in the United States would be underage youth share the tables.

Not far away is Via Cristina (Rua Cristina, 1203, Santo Antônio, 55-31-3296-8343). It’s more upscale with tables covered in green and white checkerboard tablecloths, uniformed waiters and a wall of cachaça — hundreds of different bottles of the sugar cane liquor — that the bartenders use a library-style bookshelf ladder to reach. Their entry in this year’s contest was the Raulzito, a fritter-like pastry filled with dried beef that can be had for two reais (about $1.10 at 1.84 reais to the dollar)

If there were a Comida di Buteco award for “Hardest to Get To,” the Freud Bar (no address, Nova Lima, 55-31-8833-9098, freudbar.com for map) would win every year. The place is plunked down in the middle of some woods outside the city, down a winding unpaved road. The bar is built into a hill, warmed by a bonfire, and has a few tables actually in the surrounding trees. It has live music (blues and rock), and serves a limited but creative menu, like mulled wine, or a cup of squash, mozzarella and chicken soup (3.50 reais), a nice break from the bean and pork rind soup that is available at just about every boteco.

Botecos are not just nighttime affairs, as you’ll find if you head to the city’s Central Market on a weekend afternoon. Sure, there are stands selling fruit, meat, the state’s famous cheese, live dogs and birds (as pets), and live hens (as dinner). But the market is also full of uproarious, packed bars like Lumapa, where authorities must chain off a chokingly slender pedestrian walkway so the non-beer-drinking shoppers can get by. A calmer choice is Casa Cheia (Central Market, store 167, Centro, 55-31-3274-9585) a sit-down place serving all its past Comida di Buteco creations, like the Mexidoido chapado, a mishmash of rice, vegetables, four kinds of meat, and quail eggs.

It is also worth heading to the more far-flung neighborhoods to see some of the quirkier takes on the bar theme. (With 11,999 competitors, you do what you can to stand out.) The ultra-informal Bar do Caixote (Rua Nogueira da Gama, 189, João Pinheiro, 55-31-3376-3010) literally means “Bar of the Crate,” and sure enough, the tables and chairs are wooden crates. The overall winner of the 2007 Comida de Buteco, Bar do Véio, or “Bar of the Old Guy” (Rua Itaguaí, 406, Caiçara, 55-31-3415-8455) is in an outer neighborhood and your cab driver may have trouble finding it, but anyone in the area can direct you. Their simple dish of chunks of pork and tiny golden-fried balls of potato served with a standout pineapple and mint sauce was the 2007 tira-gosto winner.

When you need a bar break, take an afternoon trip to the Pampulha neighborhood, where several Niemeyer buildings stand, including his famous Church of São Francisco de Assis. The neighborhood also houses Belo Horizonte’s most famous restaurant, Xapuri (Rua Mandacaru, 260, Pampulha, 55-31-3496-6198), the best place in town to try the traditionally rustic cuisine of Minas Gerais. And Sunday morning, you can find unusual gifts at the Hippie Fair (a k a the Feira de Arte e Artensanato da Afonso Pena), two long blocks on Avenida Alfonso Pena crammed with clothing, jewelry, household goods and crafts. When you’re done, stop at food stalls at either end for fried fish or coconut sweets, or pop into the beautifully landscaped Municipal Park park just below the fair to relax. In either place, you won’t be far from a vendor ready to crack you open a can of Skol. In Belo Horizonte, the world’s a bar.


The simple beauty of the state of Minas Gerais. Southeast Region of Brasil.




Shortly after its founding in 1698, Ouro Preto became the center of the greatest gold and silver rush in the Americas to that date. It still resembled a boom town when it was given city status in 1711 with the name Vila Rica. A decade later it became capital of Minas Gerais captaincy, which even today is one of the principal mineral extracting regions of Brasil. In late 1790's a group of intellectuals and professionals assembled here to plan Brazil's independence from Portugal. The movement known as Inconfidencia Mineira was promptly crushed by the Crown and its leader, a dentist, immortalized as Tiradentes (toothpooler), was executed and beheaded. His head was publicly displayed in the streets of Rio as a warning against those with similar views. In 1823, a year after Brazil's independence, Ouro Preto was named capital of Minas Gerais province. In 1897, however, because of transportation difficulties the capital was transferred to Belo Horizonte (40 miles [65 km] northwest).

A UNESCO World Heritage Landmark

Ouro Preto today lives largely in the past. In 1933 it was declared a national monument and the surrounding region a national park, so that the city's elaborate (mostly late 18th-century) public buildings, churches, and houses might be preserved or restored. The city has many extremely ornate (gold leafed) Baroque churches; religious architecture and sculpture reached its zenith during the mid 1700's under the skillful hands of Antonio Francisco Lisboa, better known as Aleijadinho ("Little Cripple"). The Church of Sao Francisco de Assis and the façade of the Church of Nossa Senhora do Carmo are his masterpieces. Its museums and churches are rich and beautiful. Most recently Ouro Preto was used for the signing of the new economic treaty linking Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, known as Mercosul.


SOURCE by.:By SETH KUGEL (The New York Times - Published: October 28, 2007 whlamericas, vereadorchicofoguete, Matheusfbarbosa, Canal de hmviana (youtube), www.uoregon.edu (Sergio Koreisha) and Montezum (YOUTUBE) aabila (YOUTUBE)

Would you like to learn more about who they were and how the first Americans lived? Come to Brazil.

Would you like to learn more about who they were and how the first Americans lived? Come to Brazil. With sites of about 12 thousand years old, the country is a privileged destination for archeological tourism adepts.



The major Brazilian reference in archeology is the National Serra da Capivara Park, located in the State of Piauí. Created to protect the area where the largest and most ancient archeological set of the Americas is found, it was registered in the list of Humanity’s Cultural and World Heritage in 1991.

In Serra da Capivara, surrounded by grand rocky formations and bushy vegetation, it is possible to see the marks left by pre-historic people. These traces – ceramic vases, utensils in cut and polished stone and above all, stone art, reveal that their authors had great development and technical capacity.

The primitive illustrations, present in over 700 registered sites, form a graphic communications system, one of the first in the world. They show scenes of everyday life, rituals, myths and ceremonies. Although the thematic has been the same over millennia, a more attentive analysis allows one to see the evolution of this art, which shows technical variations in drawing and painting, and in the composition of the scenes.



Other locations spread out throughout Brazil offer good tour options for archeology lovers. In the State of Piauí, it is also worth visiting the Sete Cidades National Park, with its sand walls filled with pre-historic writings of about six thousand years old. In Chapada Diamantina, State of Bahia, there are stone paintings spread out in the caverns of Lapa and Doce, attesting the human presence there ages ago. In the State of Minas Gerais, one can visit the Serra do Cipó national park, where the Danish Peter Lund discovered the mortal remains of the “ Santa Lagoon Man”, who supposedly lived there about 10 years ago. In the state of Mato Grosso, the attraction is Chapada dos Guimarães, with 50 archeological sites already catalogued, and human traces of 12 thousand years old. Finally, we have the Tijuca National Park, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, with 130 historic and archeological sites.

There are countless alternatives. Just choose one, visit and delight yourself with the archeological wealth stored in Brazil. Come, and become a fan!

Serra da Capivara National Park was granted the title of Cultural Heritage of Humanity by Unesco. It was created to preserve one of the world’s largest archaeological treasures: thousands of pre-historic inscriptions from six to 12 thousand years old, engraved on steep rock walls. The pictures portray the everyday aspects, the dances, the rites and ceremonies of the region’s ancient inhabitants, as well as pictures of animals, some of which are extinct. The relief seen today was formed about 240 million years ago.



Researchers found tools, pieces of ceramic utensils and burial sites at the Serra da Capivara excavations. Research on the area’s findings have led archaeologists to believe that man inhabited the American continent more than 30 thousand years ago – contradicting the theories most accepted by scientists up to this day. The cave pictures and the objects found can be seen at some of the sites which are open for visitation, among the 744 existing sites in the Park.

Today, the Serra da Capivara National Park is administered by FUMDHAM – Museum of the American Man Foundation, a private organization, in partnership with IBAMA – Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources. It has an excellent structure for visitation, composed of established trails and specialized guides. The American Man Museum is located in the city of São Raimundo Nonato, a few kilometres from the park. It boasts a collection which consists of articles found during the archaeological digs within the Park.



The most impressive formation is the Toca do Boqueirao da Pedra Furada, a 15m-diameter opening in a wall more than 60 m high – the Park’s postcard. The fauna and flora are very rich and typical representations of the region’s stunted vegetation and semi-arid climate. During the rainy months – from December to May – the vegetation, which seems to be poor during the dry season, flourishes. Spotted leopards, armadillos, guinea pigs, crested seriemas, wildcats, margays, serpents, and bats live harmoniously with cereus, cacti, jujubes, and pepper trees. More than 200 species of birds have already been catalogued here.

You can visit the Park throughout the year, from 6 am to 6 pm. The heaviest concentration of visitors is during the dry season months – from June to December – when visiting conditions favour the observation of the local fauna. The hiring of a certified guide is mandatory, and it is advisable to take caps, sun lotion and water. For overnight stays, it is necessary to obtain authorization from the FUNDHAM and be accompanied by guides designated by the Park’s administration.

Serra da Capivara National Park is an 130-thousand hectare area. It is located in the southeast of the State of Piaui, near the cities of Coronel Jose Dias, Sao Raimundo Nonato, Sao Joao do Piaui, and Joao Costa.



Arriving at the Missions is like travelling through 400 years of history. This going back in time allows one to relive the incredible evangelisation work done by the Priests of the Company of Jesus and their determination to convert the Indians, who inhabited this area of the Americas, into Christians. The Mission People were basically comprised of Guarani and Tape Indians who lived in the region known, today, as the State of Rio Grande do Sul. In 1626, the Jesuits started to divide them into reductions – villages inhabited by Indians and catechisers. Between 1636 and 1639 they were attacked by explorers, but in 1682, they returned and founded the historical Sete Povos das Missões (Seven Peoples Missions). Near São Miguel we find the ruins of three reductions: São Lourenço Mártir, São João Batista and São Nicolau, which together with São Borja, São Luiz Gonzaga and Santo Ângelo complete the Seven Peoples. Over the past three years most of the ruins have been destroyed, although Santo Ângelo – the most recent – houses a magnificent cathedral, a replica of the one found in São Miguel, and an important historical museum. São Miguel was recognized as an Historical and Cultural World Heritage site in 1983, becoming Rio Grande do Sul’s main tourist and cultural attraction where visitors learn about the roots of “Gaucho” formation.





SOURCE BY.: puregon, vodeotv and www.turismo.gov.br