Rob’s Blog › Adventures & Misadventures
Brazil: Where the Plan Goes to Die (and the Trip Begins)
The first thing Brazil ever did to me was steal my dignity, and it didn’t even wait for me to leave the airport.
It was midnight in Rio. My transfer hadn’t shown up, my Portuguese stretched to obrigado and the word for “beer”, and a man in a yellow taxi was shouting something at me that was either “Welcome!” or “Your suitcase is on fire!”
It was welcome. It’s usually welcome. By the time we hit the highway, he was singing, I was laughing, and the spreadsheet I’d spent three weeks colour-coding had quietly died in the back seat.
Welcome to Brazil. Bring a plan. Just don’t become emotionally attached to it.
By Rob Wheatley · A Brazil travel story · About 6 minutes
Christ the Redeemer, or: the cloud that ate my photo
I got up at dawn, determined to beat the crowds at Christ the Redeemer. Later, I rode the little train up the mountain, shuffled to the front of the crowd, looked up, and saw absolutely nothing. A cloud had parked itself on Christ’s head like a bad hat, and two hundred of us stood there, phones raised, staring at the fog.
Then, for about ten seconds, the wind shifted. The cloud tore open and there he was: arms wide, the whole city sprawled at his feet, the bay glittering like someone had spilled a jewellery box. Everyone gasped at the same moment.
That’s when I fell in love with this country. It makes you wait, then makes you forget you ever waited.
The caipirinha incident
Let me tell you about a “small” caipirinha. There’s no such thing. I ordered one on Copacabana at sunset, watching the volleyball players do things with a ball that should be illegal.
The second came free with a smile. By the third I was fluent in Portuguese, according to me, and had agreed to join a beach football match against what turned out to be semi-professionals.
I now understand the phrase “a lesson in humility”. I also learned that sand is a very efficient way of finding every muscle you didn’t know you owned.
Into the green
Then came the part I’d been dreaming about: the Amazon. Flying into Manaus, the jungle rolls out below you in a green so deep it looks fake.
The Rio Negro and the Solimões run side by side for miles before their waters fully mix, one black as tea and one the colour of milky coffee. Nature’s own two-tone paint job.
We went out by boat at dusk, into narrow channels where the trees close overhead. Then one of the locals’ famous residents surfaced beside us.
Not the dolphin you were expecting
I had pictured the pink river dolphin as something out of a children’s book: a delicate, rose-tinted creature gliding about in the dusk like a ballerina in a tutu. Sweet. Gentle. Possibly humming.
It was enormous. Not Flipper-sized and sleek, but a barrel-bodied, long-snouted heavyweight with a bulbous forehead and a beak lined with bristles like an old sailor who’d lost a razor fight.
The “pink” wasn’t pastel at all. This one was a blotchy, scarred salmon, the colour of a man who’d had a very long weekend. Our guide cheerfully explained that adult males are often pinker, with scarring from fights contributing to their colour. These aren’t delicate mammals, they’re river bouncers.
This one eyed us the way a nightclub doorman eyes a stag party, rolled sideways, exhaled with a great wet whoosh in my direction, and vanished.
The locals call them botos, and in Amazon folklore a boto turns into a handsome man in a white hat at village parties, charms everyone, and slips back into the river before dawn. Having met one, I’d say the hat is the only part I believe.
A very expensive photo opportunity
Then came the mishap. Still buzzing, I leaned out for “the shot”, lost my balance, and dropped my sunglasses into the Amazon.
The guide looked at the water, looked at me, and said very calmly, “Piranhas will enjoy them.”
I’ve never been so grateful to be wearing a hat. I’ve never been so sorry not to be wearing a strap.
Iguaçu: the roar
Then the falls. I thought I knew waterfalls, being South African with Victoria Falls on my continent. Iguaçu humbled me.
There are roughly 275 separate falls along the cliff edge, and at the Devil’s Throat you stand over a gorge where the river simply vanishes into mist and thunder.
I got soaked to the bone and didn’t care. I was laughing like a child.
Here’s what the photos never tell you: it’s not just one view, it’s a whole day of them. The Brazilian side gives you the big, cinematic panorama, the full sweep of the falls stretching out like a curtain being drawn across the jungle.
You walk the long catwalk along the edge, rainbows popping up in the spray every few steps as if someone’s paid them to. Cross into Argentina and the mood changes completely. There you’re out on walkways right over the water, so close you can feel the falls in your chest before you hear them. One side shows you the grandeur, the other lets you feel the power, and you really need both.
What Brazil taught me
Everything that went wrong in Brazil became the best story. The missing transfer gave me a singing taxi driver. The cloud made the view feel earned. The football humiliation made me friends for life. And the sunglasses? Somewhere in the Amazon, a piranha is looking very stylish.
If you want a trip that runs to schedule, go somewhere else. If you want to feel properly alive, with a little sunburn, a lost pair of sunglasses and a head full of samba, book the ticket. Just leave the spreadsheet at home.
Now for the practical bit
Brazil supplied the stories. For the encounters, food and music that stayed with me, read The People Who Ruin the Itinerary. Then, for choosing your route, comparing regions and working out the preparation, start with my Brazil travel guide.
When did your plan go gloriously wrong?
A missed connection, an unexpected invitation, a day that went completely off-script? Tell me the travel mishap that became your favourite story.