Brazil Blog
About this blog
Thrill of Brazil is a travel blog all about Brazil written by Moon Brazil and Moon Rio de Janeiro author Michael Sommers. Michael will blog about Brazil travel, culture, and more. He welcomes questions, comments, and story ideas.
Recent Posts
- Escape to Toque (Alagoas)
- Escape to Toque Toque (São Paulo)
- Street Sweets
- To Give… Or Not to Give… (Is that the Question?)
- Reacting to Black Orpheus
- Nothing Could be Piner
- Brazil's Switzerland
- Brazilians Shun Film in Favor of the Real Lula
- Brazil Scores Big with Museu de Futebol
- Pastéis in the Rain
- On the Avenue - Strolling São Paulo's Main Drag
- Welcome to the Thrill of Brazil Blog
Escape to Toque (Alagoas)
It was only when I finished writing my last blog entry, Escape to Toque Toque (São Paulo), that an interesting coincidence dawned upon me: only a few months ago, I had escaped to another remote and paradise-worthy beach by the name of Toque in Brazil – only the Toque in question happened to be located far, far up the coast in the small Northeastern state of Alagoas.
Squeezed between the states of Pernambuco (to the north) and Sergipe (to the south), Alagoas is quite a rural place. Its territory is roughly 50 percent sugar cane plantations (mostly inland) and 50 percent coconut plantations (mostly along the coast). Then there are its beaches, which many claim are among the finest in Brazil. I’d have to agree for several reasons: more >>
Escape to Toque Toque (São Paulo)
One of the most interesting aspects of traveling around and researching a travel guide such as Moon Brazil is the stories one comes across of people who unexpectedly, and sometimes radically, abandon “conventional” lives in search of alternative ones. Often, this entails turning their backs on the urban rat race and opening up a hotel and/or restaurant in some otherwise remote and (more or less) undiscovered corner of paradise. Since the world is well-endowed with urban rat races and Brazil is, happily, still teeming with (more or less) undiscovered paradises, these stories aren’t hard to encounter. more >>
Street Sweets
A friend of mine spent a weekend on the “Ilha” (i.e the Ilha de Itaparica– the long, narrow island only a ferry-boat away from Salvador across the Bay of All Saints) and brought me back a very sweet gift: cocada. Actually he brought me 6 of them (pictured above). Although I’m a great fan of this Bahian sweet, which in its most basic form consists of freshly grated coconut and sugar, one is usually quite sufficient to give me a week’s sugar fix. more >>
To Give… Or Not to Give… (Is that the Question?)
I’m back in my adopted hometown of Salvador after close to 6 weeks in São Paulo, and as usual I’m suffering from a bit of culture shock. Although in some ways Brazil is quite unified, in other ways it’s so crazily diverse that traveling from one state, region, or even city to another is like traveling to another country (and often includes some time travel as well). more >>
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