Category: Brazil 🇧🇷

Brazil’s new Digital Nomad Visa is enticing a new type of traveller to Rio de Janeiro

BBC »

Getting residency in Brazil was once shrouded in red tape, but the Digital Nomad Visa has made the process easier. It enables visitors to keep their current employment in another country while allowing stays of one year, with the option of renewing for another 12 months. Applicants must provide proof of work and earn at least US$1,500 (£1,200) per month or have US$18,000 (£14,400) in savings.

Remote workers in Rio also have the benefit of a thriving digital nomad community, said Hollingshead. Highly active social media and WhatsApp groups allow visitors to find an assortment of in-person meetups, from samba nights and hiking expeditions to business-networking and language exchanges. These online hubs are also valuable resources for finding out information about visas, taxes and other general day-to-day life in Rio.

The most populated countries in the world

On 15 November 2022, the world’s population surpassed 8 billion people.

Earth’s population continues to explode » from 1 billion in 1820 to 2 billion in 1930, to 3 billion in 1960, to 4 billion in 1974, to 5 billion in 1987, to 6 billion in 1999, to 7 billion in 2012, and 8 billion in 2022.

Following are the 50 most populated countries using the latest figures available »

  1. India » 1,425,000,000 (April 2023)
  2. China » 1,413,143,000
  3. United States » 339,665,000
  4. Indonesia » 279,476,000
  5. Pakistan » 247,654,000
  6. Nigeria » 230,843,000
  7. Brazil » 218,690,000
  8. Bangladesh » 167,184,000
  9. Russia » 141,699,000
  10. Mexico » 129,876,000
  11. Japan » 123,719,000
  12. Ethiopia » 116,463,000
  13. Philippines » 116,434,000
  14. Democratic Republic of the Congo » 111,860,000
  15. Egypt » 109,547,000
  16. Vietnam » 104,799,000
  17. Iran » 87,591,000
  18. Germany » 84,220,000
  19. Turkiye » 83,594,000
  20. Thailand » 69,795,000
  21. France » 68,522,000
  22. United Kingdom » 68,139,000
  23. Tanzania » 65,643,000
  24. Italy » 61,022,000
  25. South Africa » 58,048,000
  26. Myanmar » 57,970,000
  27. Kenya » 57,052,000
  28. South Korea » 51,967,000
  29. Colombia » 49,337,000
  30. Sudan » 49,18,000
  31. Uganda » 47,730,000
  32. Spain » 47,223,000
  33. Argentina » 46,622,000
  34. Algeria » 44,758,000
  35. Ukraine » 43,306,000
  36. Iraq » 41,266,000
  37. Afghanistan » 39,232,000
  38. Canada » 38,517,000
  39. Poland » 37,992,000
  40. Morocco » 37,067,000
  41. Angola » 35,981,000
  42. Saudi Arabia » 35,940,000
  43. Malaysia » 34,220,000
  44. Ghana » 33,846,000
  45. Mozambique » 32,514,000
  46. Peru » 32,440,000
  47. Yemen » 31,566,000
  48. Uzbekistan » 31,361,000
  49. Nepal » 30,899,000
  50. Venezuela » 30,518,000

A previously unknown cross-continental trail created by indigenous people over millennia

Connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, a 4,000km South American trail created by indigenous people over millennia is revealing its mysteries to the world.

BBC Travel »

The general consensus is that the main route in the network connected the east and west coasts of South America: it began from three starting points on the coast of Brazil (in São Paulo, Paraná and Santa Catarina states) that joined up in Paraná, continued across Paraguay to silver-rich Potosí and Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, pressed on to Cusco (the capital of the Incan Empire) in Peru and then down to the Peruvian and northern Chilean coast.

“In broad terms, we can say that the path followed the movement of the setting and rising sun,” wrote Bond in her most recent e-book, História do Caminho de Peabiru, published last year.

…

The Guaranis’ spiritual path to paradise became a fast track to riches for European invaders – such as Portuguese sailor Aleixo Garcia – on the New World expeditions that would ultimately lead to genocide of South America’s indigenous populations. Legends of El Dorado and the Sierra de la Plata (Mountain of Silver) brought Spanish and Portuguese flotillas across the Atlantic, and some indigenous groups helped them penetrate the interior of the continent along the Caminho de Peabiru, said Parellada. “Knowing the main routes and trails via the native populations became a strategic advantage, broadening the plundering, the destruction and the greed for new territories and mineral riches.” »

Top 30 countries ranked for adventure (2021)

The US News and World Report has again ranked countries according to how well they break from the norm and fulfill people’s wanderlust and desire for adventure.

The top 30 adventure rankings for 2021 are »

  • 1. Brazil 🇧🇷
  • 2. Italy 🇮🇹
  • 3. Spain 🇪🇸
  • 4. Greece 🇬🇷
  • 5. Thailand 🇹🇭
  • 6. Mexico 🇲🇽 (Up from #11 in 2020)
  • 7. New Zealand 🇳🇿
  • 8. Australia 🇦🇺 (Up from #10 in 2020)
  • 9. Portugal 🇵🇹 (Down from #6 in 2020)
  • 10. Costa Rica 🇨🇷 (Down from #8 in 2020)

Continue reading

Video » Amazon River from Space

The European Space Agency (ESA) brings us a video of the Amazon River meandering through one of the most vital ecosystems in the world, the Amazon rainforest, and six countries in South America.

The Amazon River originates in the Andes Mountains of Peru and travels through Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Amazon river begins its journey in the Andes and makes its way east through six South American countries before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean on the northeast coast of Brazil. The river has a length of around 6400 km – the equivalent of the distance from New York City to Rome.

The Amazon is considered the widest river in the world with a width of between 1.6 and 10 km, but expands during the wet season to around 50 km. With more than 1000 tributaries, the Amazon River is the largest drainage system in the world in terms of the volume of its flow and the area of its basin. As a consequence of its ever-changing flow, older riverbeds can be seen as thin lines around the main river at the top of the image.

One of its tributaries, the Javari River, or Yavari River, is visible as a thinner blue line weaving through the tropical rainforest. The river flows for 870 km, forming the border between Brazil and Peru, before joining the Amazon River.

More »

A time-lapse video of beautiful South American landscapes by Morten Rustad

A beautiful time-lapse video of many South American landscapes by Morten Rustad.

Morten Rustad via Vimeo says »

One year of travel, nine countries, countless hours on busses, motorbikes, and cars. Hundreds of thousands of images taken. 30TB of data used, 5 months of editing. The time-lapse film features South America like it has never been before with images from Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.

More about this project, including BTS videos, at Morten’s website.

The museum fire that consumed Brazil’s treasures

The tragedy that engulfed the 200-year-old National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night, turning up to 20 million of its holdings into dust, is an urgent reminder of the need for better safekeeping measures at museums around the world. To put what happened in perspective: It’s as if the entire collection of the British Museum disappeared, twice over, in the blink of an eye.

The fire ignited for unknown reasons. But many Brazilians are blaming their government and some have taken to the streets in protest. After years of declining federal funds, the museum staff had requested urgent maintenance funds from the country’s National Development Bank. In June, the money was disbursed but not in time to install the planned update to the museum’s fire equipment, which lacked a sprinkler system.

Right after the fire erupted, haunting images of panic-stricken museum workers with arms full of museum objects started to circulate on social media and in news outlets. One video showed some of them carrying jars of preserved specimens outside, as firefighters raced back in to save what they could.

More at the NY Times

Also at the BBC