5 comments about Rio for Partiers: The visual travel guide to Rio de Janeiro.

1. and excellent restaurant suggestions here. This book was all over Rio de Janeiro so it's become very popular, it makes up for Frommers Guide to Rio by suggesting some excellent restaurants and entertainment ideas that Frommers fails to mention. A definitely plus for the Rio bound!!!



2. I've been traveling to Rio for business/vacations for several years now, and have become truly addicted to the culture, and the impossibly breathtaking views of the beaches and the women. Maybe not in that order. I picked up this guide when I was already a Copacabana veteran. It is concise and very helpful for the newbie venturing out into new territory. There is a serious culture barrier here with few people speaking English, so you are pretty much on your own without a running buddy. Yes, Rio is paradise beyond anything you can imagine, and yes, it can be very dangerous, particularly at night time. Your stuff will be stolen on the beach if left unattended. Pickpockets are everywhere. But when you read all the precautions, scams, and advice you will quickly acclimate to the environment.
   
   This book is penned for a great short-time tourist experience, with plenty of sightseeing spots, restaurants, and nightclubs to visit. (club names change often). As far as the women, they are everywhere, and give you the great girlfriend experience that is near impossible to find back home. The language barrier makes it tough to pick up regular girls clubbing in tourist areas. Brazilians tend to hang together. My advice would be to listen to Pimsleur Portuguese tapes prior to your visit to get a rudimentary head start.
   
   For short term visitors looking to save time and want to be smothered in women, for arranging the sure thing just pick up Brett Tate's The Hedonist: World Sex Guide - Single Male Erotic Vacations in Rio, Costa Rica, Thailand, Carribean and much more, which has extensive pay for play advice for Rio and 20 other cities. A word of warning to first time visitors. This place is mesmerizing. Don't surprised if you find yourself hugging a girlfriend at the airport, sobbing in broken childish gringo Portuguese "please don't make me leave." One more thing. You're not that special. She'll be hugging another sobbing guy at the airport in a few days.



3. I used this book throughout my vacaction in Rio it was great. It gives you a breakdown by day of which clubs are good and type. It was like having your own tour guide. I showed it to a few locals whom didn't even know items that were in the book.



4. I went to Rio last year with a friend. She brought two travel guides, and I brought two travel guides. We quickly ditched all the other travel guides, but carried Rio for Partiers around every day we were in Rio.
   
   This book tells you about things only locals know and other travel guides don't teach you. It explains (with pictures) food you will find on the beach and in the street cafes, complete with an estimated cost. The book also explains hand signals commonly used in Rio (very helpful), includes popular phrases, a map, tells you what to pack, what to wear, where to eat, were to go on day trips, and so much more.
   
   The friends we stayed with (Americans) had been living in Rio for several months and said the advice was dead on. They also learned a thing or two from the book. You don't have to be young, or a partier to love this book. If you're going to Rio, you need this book!



5. This book isn't written like all the other boring guides. It's hip, it's cool, it's gritty, and by the time you're done reading it you feel like you just made a new friend in Rio. The author does a brilliant job of breaking the 3rd wall and really brings you to his marvelous city.

2 comments about Lost trails, Lost Cities.

1. In 1921 Col. P. H. Fawcett set down the narrative of his first 7 trips into the heart of the lost world of the Amazon Basin and it's mountain ramparts of Bolivia and Peru (beginning in 1906). He was searching for the fabled City of Gold which had lured many a conquistador. He never returned from his 8th trip. He simply walked into the jungle and was never heard from again. This book was edited by Brian Fawcett - after waiting a number of years to make sure he wasn't coming back. B&W photos, maps, and line drwings illustrate. Fascinating reading. An overlooked classic.



2. Percy Fawcett was a Royal Engineer in an army artillery unit. In 1906 he volunteered to survey the border between Brazil and Bolivia to end their almost constant border disputes. The survey was challenging, but Fawcett spent the rest of his life exploring Amazonia. He kept detailed diaries, and was a great correspondent. Several years after his disappearance in 1925, his son Brian compiled many of these materials into this great adventure story.
   
   Brian lived many years in the region, and it is possible that some of the material was written by him. There are tall tales: a 62 foot long snake, manatees that kill crocodiles, a herb that dissolves rocks, a man who survived eight volleys from a firing squad and a condor that carried a man into the mountains. Other incredible stories are factual: the no calorie sweet stevia plant, dog excrement as a curative, Copaiba balsam oil with a multitude of uses and Indians that lived in holes and who filed their teeth. However authorship is divided, the result is a fascinating portrait of a great explorer.
   
   A few passages illustrates the quality of the writing:
   
   "(Cobija) had been a barraca, but was abandoned and became overgrown. In 1903 the Brazilians captured it, and then were wiped out by the Bolivians, who attacked with Indians. They fired the huts with burning arrows bound in petroleum-soaked cotton, and then picked off the defenders as they were forced into the open. Not a single Brazilian escaped. Even when we arrived there --- three years afterwards --- skeletons still littered the ground."
   
   "...Any man who fell ill became the butt of the rest, and when he died there was tremendous hilarity. The staring corpse was tied to a pole, and sparsely covered in a shallow trench scraped out with paddles on the river bank, his monument a couple of crossed twigs tied with grass. For funeral there was a drop of kachasa all around, and ho for the next victim!"
   
   "The man continued with a personal story about his nephew. He had walked through the thick bush to a nearby camp to retrieve his horse, which had gone lame and had been left there temporarily. He noticed, when he arrived, that his new Mexican spurs had been eaten away almost completely. The owner of the camp asked him if he had walked through a certain plant about a foot high, with dark reddish leaves. The young man said he had walked through a wide area that was completely covered with such plants. 'That's it!...That's what's eaten your spurs away! That's the stuff the Incas used for shaping stones. The juice will soften rock up till it's like paste. You must show me where you found the plants.' But when they retraced the young man's steps they were unable to locate them."
   
   "The Indians there spoke of houses with 'stars to light them, which never went out.' This was the first, but not the last time I heard of these permanent lights found occasionally in the ancient houses built by that forgotten civilization of old. I knew that certain Indians of Ecuador were reputed to light their huts at night by means of luminous plants, but that, I considered, must be a different thing altogether. There was some secret means of illumination known to the ancients that remains to be rediscovered by scientists of today--some method of harnessing forces unknown to us."
   
   Fawcett believed that there was once a great civilization in the Amazon Basin. His last journey was based on a basalt idol given to him by Sir H. Rider Haggard that gave an 'electric current' to any who held it. A psychic who held the idol and had a vision of a great city whose citizens worshipped 'on the border of demonology'. Fawcett died trying to find that city.
   
   Fawcett's book is a detailed description of the region and the brutalities and wonders he found there. The strong overtones in the final pages of mysticism hint at the supernatural. It's well worth the effort to find a copy.
   
   Note: this book was published in the US as Lost trails, Lost Cities and in the UK as Exploration Fawcett.

No comments about Travelers' Tales Brazil: True Stories (Travelers' Tales Guides).

5 comments about The Mapmaker's Wife: A True Tale Of Love, Murder, And Survival In The Amazon.

1. I enjoyed this book so much that I have bought two more copies for friends of mine. Both friends are female. I thought they would be drawn to the romance of the book. But there's adventure and science and history for all to enjoy. There's the comparison narrative or Lewis' and Clark's Voyage of Discovery. It's a good book



2. I took this book with me when I headed down to Brazil to explore the Amazon Basin. Caveat: reading this book before heading down to Brazil to explore the Amazon is like going to see the movie "Jaws" before you go on your first scuba dive. Disturbing.
   
   Whitaker's description of Isabel Godin-Grameson's horrific ordeal of being lost in the Amazon is mind-boggling, to say the least. It was not the poisonous snakes, the crushing boa constrictors, jaguars, caimans, electric eels or the fierce head shrinking Jabaros that were the worst. It was the thousands of insect bites (giant ants, fire ants, wasps, bees, chiggers, assassin bug, mosquitoes, botflies and their eggs) which turned into open, oozing, festering sores, hundreds of sores on their faces, arms, legs or any exposed flesh. Whitaker's writes. "They had no mosquito nets, no tents - only the clothes they were wearing. It was futile. The insects feasted on them. They would huddle together in the blackness (of night) and hoards of ants would begin their onslaught, crawling over them, under their pants and over every inch of exposed skin. During these awful days, they were plagued with botfly eggs. When the mosquitoes, laden with botfly eggs, feed on the body, the heat from the host causes the eggs to hatch. Immediately, the larvae burrow beneath the skin. The botfly maggot has two anal hooks that anchor firmly in the flesh and there it grows for more than a month . . . They were taking their turn as food for the botflies, even as they were slowly starving to death." Whitaker captures the horror of their situation.
   
   There is much more than Isabel's gripping journey that makes this a great read: the scientific expedition to determine the size and shape of the earth, the descriptions of the culture of 18th century Europe and South America, the tragic treatment of the slaves (African and Indigenous Americans), the dedication, the love and the will to survive. This is a must read for any student of South America, Cartography or Life. Highly recommended.



3. Combine the quest for scientific advancement with exploration, adventure, human empathy, a gutsy survival storyline and you have a captivating read. The author has done just that.
   
   Along with the accomplished scientist Charles-Marie de La Condamine, Jean Godin was a member of the mid-1730's French expedition to Ecuador for evaluating earth's physical attributes. Their mission was to put an end to the century's old debate on earth's circumference, gravity pulls and longitudinal measurements. Little did they know that these scientific observations were to occupy ten years of their lives. For Godin, many more years of frustration were to be had in South America.
   
   Early in the expedition Godin met and ten years later married Isabel Grameson. Due to the political bureaucratic strife of the day, the two were separated for twenty years. He in French Guiana, her in Ecuador. Isabel's risky venture from the Andes into the unforgiving jungles of the Amazon to rejoin Godin is an unbelievable story of survival and human fortitude.
   
   I have come across references of this somewhat mythical and legendary narrative in other South American exploration literature. Mr. Whitaker's account is a page turner of what occurred two and a half centuries ago.



4. I enjoyed The Mapmaker's Wife, but felt that it was more a history book about the region than the romantic story it claimed to be. Therefore I was disappointed with it. I hoped to read it for recreation, but ended up feeling I was back in school.
   Diana Banat



5. "The Mapmaker's Wife" by Robert Whitaker lives up to its intriguing subtitle, "A True Tale of Love, Murder, and Survival in the Amazon."
   
   Covering a span of four decades in the middle of the eighteenth century and based on documents and letters written at the time and a wealth of secondary sources, the book tells the story of a decade-long expedition to South America launched in 1735 by a team of French scientists hoping to measure accurately a degree of latitude at the equator. Their aim was to calculate the circumference of the earth and resolve the continuing debate over its shape. Was it flattened at the poles as followers of Isaac Newton believed, or was it prolonged at the poles, like a double-ended pear, as those who subscribed to the theories of René Descartes believed?
   
   Thus the team of ten Frenchmen, three noted scientists and their seven assistants traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to Cartagena in the Vice-royalty of Peru. There they were joined by two young Spanish military officers - at the insistence of the Spanish king - and together, and sometimes individually, they traveled along tropical rivers and the crests of the Andes, reaching Quito, just over a year after setting out, to begin their task on June 4, 1736.
   
   Whitaker provides useful digressions on the nature of science, on Spanish and colonial history and attitudes, and introduces the reader to Isabel Gramesón, "A Daughter of Peru," and her family. Isabel provides the love interest and adds a final incredible tale of adventure to this wide-ranging story.
   
   The sheer magnitude of their task, the dangers of travel in wild uncharted terrain, the tangles of international politics, and the murder of one of their team by an angry mob keep the reader glued to the pages. A marriage, a separation of twenty years, and a final incredible journey along the wild and hostile Amazon River bring the book to its conclusion as most of the adventurers return to their places of origin, the last of them in 1773, thirty-eight years after setting out.
   
   "The Mapmaker's Wife" is a breathtaking adventure, a gripping human drama, and an enlightening glimpse into the history, the science, the culture and customs of a fascinating bygone age.

3 comments about Brazil, 5th (Footprint - Travel Guides).

1. As someone who has taken a walk around the block a few times in my lifespan, I have read a few travel guides to pave my way. I bought this one as it was the most recent available as a fresh publication, and on the positive reviews this series has scored on Amazon. I prefer to have cultural sites and restaurant information listed separately.
   
   This book jumbles everything you may see by neighbourhood in the larger cities, and one might not choose to go a location if one doesn't know what is there to see as far as museums and historical sites. Also, i like to search for restaurants by type. It is convenient for people with special diets or preferences (vegetarian, seafood, certain ethnic types).
   
   If you have time to read the WHOLE book, including the other chapters where information on other Brazilian cultural information is hidden (football, food and drink), then you may get more out of it than I did. As for myself, I found another publisher's guide that had been printed back in 2003 more useful.



2. After Lonely Planet the dense Footprint format gets a bit of getting used to but the information within the guide is far superior; especially if you are looking to understand the country rather than just pass through. I found the listings better too - with a higher quality of hotels and restaurants, especially in the middle and upper ranges.
   
   This is one of Footprint's better books - covering this vast continent sized country with real love and understanding. I found it a great companion on my journey in Sao Paulo, Rio, Bahia and Central Brazil - where it helped me find places in the Chapada dos Veadeiros and Pirenopolis just not listed anywhere else.



3. This year (Sept/Oct 2007) I spent a month traveling through Brazil. I took three guides: Footprint 5th edition, Lonely Planet and Frommer's. Footprint would have been my first choice, BUT, it has some weak areas that need improvement.
   
   First, what works. The maps in this guide are plentiful, they are easy to use and read. It has excellent full color maps at the front and the back of the guide. Footprint rivals Lonely Plant with it wide sweeping coverage of Brazil. Kudos. If you are going off the beaten path, this is a outstanding guide to take with you. If you are going to go just to the Amazon, then this is the best guide available (70 pages). Also, Alex Robinson's descriptions of cities, significant locations and sights to see are top rate. His sidebars, and highlighted information sections, are excellent.
   
   However, if you are looking for a guide to help you with the Carnival (Rio/Salvador/Recife) keep looking. This guide has an abysmal 2 pages on the event (The best Brazil guide for Carnival is Frommer's). Robinson's restaurant choices are disappointing and his descriptions are very terse and often trite: "Excellent seafood in a street side restaurant", or "Hamburgers, juices, sandwiches." Other guides have restaurant write-ups that make you want to try the food, i.e. Frommer's, "We tried the filet of mignons in cassis sauce and grilled figs and the lamb in tamarind sauce on a bed of cassve puree."
   
   Robinson's bland descriptions continues with the accommodations:"Good value for the category." Hum. What category? Like the restaurant choices, the accommodations recommendations are hit or miss. One of the worse hotels we used was highly promoted in the guide (Recife Monte in Recife - Avoid! - see TripAdvisor) .
   
   About money: Brazil is not `cheep'. This guide incorrectly states that the prices are "about a third of those in the USA". NOT. The dollar's fall makes Brazil about as expensive as the USA. In Rio, a decent hotel (not great a hotel, just decent) is at least $100 and up. A good, not great, meal is at least $20 to $30. I traveled during the "Low Season" and I found that I needed $100-$150 a day to travel at a 3-4 star level and eat OK (not including my airfares). You should add at least 20-30% in high season and at least 60% at Carnival.
   
   Finally, I found Culture Shock! Brazil 2007 by Volker Poelzl (highly recommended --see my review) to be a `must read' if you want to better understand this dynamic and diverse country. Overall, Footprint Brazil 2007 is a good guide, but Frommer's is better for restaurant and accommodation recommendations. 3.5 stars

2 comments about Frommer's Portable Rio de Janeiro (Frommer's Portable).

1. The guide wasn't that helpful in defining our itenerary or discovering Rio. The guide only covers hotels and restaurants and the restaurants were either tourist traps or filled with other travelors... hard to get a taste of local tradition.



2. Has all the basics you would expect. Definitely worth a buy - along with THe Partier's Guide to Rio (this has some of the other "must do/see" items like particular foods that you've gotta try).

5 comments about Insight Guide Brazil (Discovery Channel).

1. This book was semi-informative and has some decent graphics



2. My Brazilian friend living in New York with an American family bought this book for her "host" father as a Father's Day gift. Out of all of the books on Brazil she could have chosen, she selected this one because of its nice graphics and wide-variety of information about her native country. She recommend it so highly, that I bought one for myself.



3. I'm Brazilian and I bought this book for my american family right before our first trip together. The culture info. is great. Just a little outdated on economy issues and also the pictures are old. But over all, is the best guide I ever found! I read it now for pleasure. Sandra Thurston



4. This is an attractive book with lots of photos, but I found the Frommer's Guide to be more detailed and functional as a tourist visiting Brazil. There is a lot of useful information to be gained from this book.



5. This guide has beautiful pictures, but little in the way of actual travel information. I'm a very visual person and love to see where I might go. If this sounds like you too, then buy this book. Add Lonely Planet's guide and you are all set to go.

No comments about Insight City Guide Rio De Janeiro (Insight Guides).

2 comments about Rio de Janeiro (City Guide).

1. I found a lot of good information on places to go within Rio. I recommend using a combination of this book and taxis to do your sightseeing instead of hopping a tour bus.



2. They've written so many of these guides that they are becoming a tad generic on their advice. I bought this and found a lot of information outdated to inaccurate when I arrived. However, if you're not planning on going to Rio right away, and find yourself very curious about this great city, I would definitely recommend it. It is very interesting, and completely different to western culture. If you're young and into the singles scene, or on business like I was and want more of a sure thing with brazilian women, I would recommend adding with this title The Hedonist: World Sex Guide - Single Male Erotic Vacations in Rio, Costa Rica, Thailand, Carribean and much more
   
   Side note. There are very specific visas, with very specific requirements that you have to have to go there.

5 comments about The Rough Guide to Brazil 6 (Rough Guide Travel Guides).

1. Just returned from my second six week trip to Brazil. I own practically every guide book on the country and foolishly brought along this one. The information in the latest edition seems not to have been updated for a couple of years and I wasted a good amount of taxi fares or time walking to recommended places that were no longer in business. Even in the major cities, English isn't often spoken by the people outside of the tourism infrastructure. This can be frustrating without some preparation. Fortunately, I speak Portuguese and found many of the best restaurants etc. from the local people or through the particular city tourism authority. Another thing that I didn't like about the "Rough Guide" is that it doesn't include locations of internet cafes like other guidebooks do. For the price of the book, I give this particular Brazil edition one star.
   Take my advice and take any other guide book with you or you'll truly have a "Rough" time with this "Rough Guide".



2. Just to be upfront about everything, this review is based on the 3rd edition of this book. But based on that book, I won't buy this one.

   Here's just 2 reasons why:

   1) The basic introductions to the each area/city are a great idea, but I couldn't seem to find one that ever made the place sound interesting. I live in Brasília, and granted it hasn't got the excitement of Rio, but it's much more interesting than they make it sound, and Natal, despite having the second cleanest air in the world sounds like a drag.

   2) The information is incomplete and rather superficial. The section on Pirenópolis, a great little spot in Goiás, for example, has no mention of the dozen or so waterfalls (with guided tours if you need them) in the area.

   Perhaps the authors are just used to travelling in "1st World" countries, or maybe they know little or no Portuguese, or maybe it's something else altogether, but wherever they're coming from and whatever their experience, this book has ended up a somewhat depressing, and extremely rough guide that misses much of this enormous, gorgeous, and amazing country.




3. Well, one of the first positive things I can say about the Rough Guide is that it is noticeably superior in coverage and writing quality to the LP guidebook, which in my mind has been the #1 reigning worst guidebook to Brazil on the market.
   
   My biggest complaint about this book is that the writing quality is incredibly uneven. Frankly, it is quite evident that the authors have not visited all of the places the write about. For example, I found the description of Mossoro (Rio Grande do Norte) superbly written. Not only was the description true to the way I remember Mossoro on my last visit 11 years ago, but I ended up learning a great deal about historic sights in Mossoro that I was never aware of. On the other hand, the coverage of Barreirinhas and the Lencois Maranheses National Park was pathetic, to put it mildly. It is abundantly clear that none of the authors have ever been near there. I visited Barreirinhas 13 years ago (when there were already 4 pousadas in town) and slowly travelled down the coast to Rio Novo and Tutoia, and then by boat from Tutoia to Parnaiba. It was a fantastic trip, but you wouldn't be able to do it with this book because as far as Rough Guide is concerned, Tutoia doesn't even exist. Off the coast of Tutoia there is a very exclusive privately owned island that has small ecotourism visits called "Ilha do Caju"... also no mention in the Rough Guide.
   
   But the biggest scope-of-coverage oversight to me seems to be the shoddy coverage of Sao Paulo state. SP state has an abundance of excellent tourism opportunities. Maybe the authors' travel priorities are just different from mine, but when I think of "Brazil" I think of outdoor adventure travel. And frankly, ecotourism is a huge part of the Brazilian tourism industry. But this book is all about big cities, beaches, and architecture. Sao Paulo state has great rafting, mountain biking, hiking, camping, and fishing opportunities, but you wouldn't know it from this book. Likewise, the Central West (Mato Grosso, Goias) have INCREDIBLE rock climbing opportunities. No mention here.
   
   We get an idea of where these authors' priorities are when we read on p. 497 that "Goiania and Anapolis, with their rising affluence and acres of new high-rises, already look like the cities of the paulista interior - and are about as inetresting to visit, which is not very." Clearly this book is of the "urban-poverty-chic" genre of travel guides... If you are into that.. this book is for you. If you plan your trips with a goal in mind - snorkelling in the Caribean, mountain climbing in Mexico, bike riding in Utah - this book will not help you at all with your Brazil vacation.



4. This is one of the poorest guidebooks on Brazil, if not the worst. And I've used all of them. For starters, it is horribly out of date. But the major problem with this book is that it focuses on random road-side towns while barely paying attention to popular and happening spots (AKA places where people are actually interested in going). It is as if the writers took at trip around, wrote about a few obscure places where they stayed and disregarded the rest.
   
   The best guidebooks on Brazil right now are the newish Let's Go (although they tend to only focus on major towns) and the new Lonely Planet.



5. Have the other reviewers been using the same guide book as I have? The Rough Guide is simply the best guide book to Brazil. The Lonely Planet offers no understanding of the country, the book is written for idiots and the much of the material is seriously out of date. The authors of the Rough Guide seem to really know, understand and appreciate Brazil. The chapters for Rio, the South and the Amazon are, in my opinion, the most comprehensive, including lots of detail on places that Brazilians I know were unaware of. The Northeast is probably the weakest chapte but the area is so vast. One problem is prices, but you quickly learn to ditch the price guides -- seriously out of date and in US dollars and not in Brazilian "reis".