Unlucky August, the mad dog month
Brazilian stock market fell 18% in the last 10 days, a dump faster than the chute of all the other bear markets in the world. […]
Folklore
My mom went to Brazil and all I got was this lousy…
Ah, the wonderful universe of Brazilian souvenirs. Those little mementos irresistible to tourists, that will gather dust for ever behind your books. If you […]
Samba master class
This is the closest you will get to learning samba without leaving your desk. The one-hour special “Dance the World“, that premiered on The Travel […]
Wonderful musicians you never heard of
What if you could get insider information about great Brazilian musicians that are ignored by the wider public? Sparrow Roberts is an American that runs […]
Honoring Saint John
Saint John’s festival, celebrated today, is a delicious fake celebration of rural lifestyle, with all the surreal stereotypes that this entitles. It has, almost inevitably, […]
Gaúchos and their horses
The image of a gaúcho – the cattle rancher, or his employee, wrangling in the vast fields of the state of Rio Grande do Sul […]
Boimate – a fruit perfect for pasta sauce
It happens everywhere and Brazil is no exception – every year, on the 1st of April , a distracted journalist believes in a lie told […]
The Halloween wars
The spooky American tradition of carving pumpkins and dressing as witches or vampires was totally ignored by Brazilians till five or ten years ago. But […]
Electoral circus
Cacareco, a rhinoceros adopted by the São Paulo zoo, was elected city councilor in 1958 with amazing 100,000 votes. Thirty years later, chimpanzee Macaco […]
Saints without a halo*
They were not canonized. They are controversial. There is even doubt if some of them really existed. Nevertheless, Brazilian popular saints generate deep devotion, pilgrimages […]