Big, beautiful Brazil

Brazil is the fifth-largest country in the world. The southernmost point, on the east coast bordering Uruguay, is approximately on the same latitude as Cape Town, and the northernmost point shares a latitude with southern Ethiopia! We spent nearly a month in Brazil in 2018, but it wasn’t long enough. In June 2019, we met up with our vehicle again where we had left it on a farm in Uruguay. We made our way north into a thin strip of Argentina wedged between Paraguay to the west and Brazil to the east. This part of South America is defined by water – the rivers are huge and the landscape is flat and vast. Floodplains and wetlands cover large tracts of countryside.

We visited Iberá National Park – a pristine wetland with 350 recorded bird species and many animals. The park is Argentina’s largest, and the 13 000 km² of wetlands are still surprisingly unspoilt. The way in which conservation and farming have been integrated here, and the benefit that the local population derives from tourism, is a great example of what can be achieved with the right leadership.

Saltos del Moconá, about 260 km north-east of Iberá, is a 3 km-long waterfall on the Uruguay River on the border between Argentina and Brazil, created by a fault in the riverbed. It’s unique in that it divides