WHY THE WHOLE WORLD WANTS TO GO THERE...
PARTY ATMOSPHERE
With country’s annual Carnival already on in Rio de Janeiro, the home to Brazil’s most popular festivities, there couldn’t be a better theme than football ahead of the World Cup in June.
The Carnival will run for three weeks and around five million people, including an estimated million visitors, are expected to join the celebrations. And the party is expected to continue till football’s biggest sporting event kicks off in June. 600,000
About fans are expected to visit Brazil for the World Cup.
SAMBA
Football and Samba are the two passions of Brazilians. Both are so entwined that they have become fundamental pillar of the country’s cultural identity.
The English may have invented football and the prototype dribble. Yet legends abound, most emanating from Brazil’s black community, on how the Selecao elevated the skill to a fine art, using all kinds of tricks and feints to glide past the most dogged opponent.
FEMALE FANS
Come World Cup 2014, all eyes will be on the women fans cheering out loud for their favourite teams.
The country also holds an annual female football fans beauty pageant, Gatas do Paulistão, which surely will heat up the race for being the most beautiful woman fan especially with the World Cup round the corner.
DESTINATIONS
Brazil boasts of beaches and wildlife, man-made and natural beauty while the samba culture and thumping nightlife are the X-factors.
To fit in sightseeing between matches, half-way along the coast between Rio and Sao Paulo lies a beautiful colonial village called Paraty. An hour north of Sao Paulo is Brasilia, a city built from scratch in 1956 to replace Rio as the national capital.
For beach bunnies, further north still is the colonial splendour of Salvador, with a strong African flavour, and the beautiful beaches of Recife, Natal and Fortaleza.
In the south, Porto Alegre offers a decided Argentine influence and a smattering
of German and Polish culture.
Further south again lies the extraordinary Iguazu Falls on the Argentine border.
Way out to the west is the almost mythical city of Manaus, deep in the Amazon, with a dazzling array of wildlife and nature options. And this grab-bag does not even begin to scratch the surface.