What is the Special in Brazil?

Brazilian football shirt

Brazil’s passion for football is no secret and what better souvenir to buy than an authentic Brazilian t-shirt.

There are also plenty of football shirts that represent local teams if you have a favorite one.

The Brazilian football shirts come in all sizes from babies to adults and are colorfully designed in bright yellow and green.

Minas Gerais is famous for its gemstones, especially emeralds. It is the best place in Brazil to pick up beautifully intricate necklaces, bracelets or rings laced with local emeralds

Brazil produces around 65% of the world’s colored gemstones and all of the major cities have specialist spots for purchasing authentic precious and semi-precious stones.

Beauty products

Brazil’s beauty industry is huge and the country has some great national beauty brands. Natura

Brazilian Bum Bum, Suray Brasil and O Boticário are four popular brands and many of their products use Amazon-inspired ingredients, giving them a unique smell and a natural feel.

Osama Bin Laden-themed bars are something of a trend in Brazil. Well, there is a couple, anyway. Bar do Bin Laden in Sao Paulo – run by an Osama lookalike – and Caverna do Bin Laden, or “Bin Laden’s Cave” – which can be found just in Niteroi, around 25 kilometres north of Rio de Janeiro.

The world’s best beach – according to TripAdvisor – is Baia do Sancho, in Brazil. It is found in the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, just over an hour by air from Natal. Here, 21 islands form a marine park that draws divers from far and wide to see green and hawksbill turtles, whales, lemon and reef sharks, clownfish, anemones and parrotfish.

Brazil is the world’s fifth largest country by both population (approximately 210 million) and geographical area (3,287,597 square miles). It borders every other South American nation, barring Ecuador and Chile, and makes up 47 per cent of the continent.

The country’s motto is “Ordem e Progresso”, meaning “order and progress”.

São Vicente, near Sao Paulo, is the oldest city in Brazil and was Portugal’s first permanent settlement in the Americas. Established in 1532, it is the birthplace of footballer Robinho.

Brazil’s highest mountain is the Pico da Neblina (Mist Peak), on the border with Venezuela, at 2,994 metres (9,823 feet) above sea level.

Due to it being almost permanently shrouded in cloud, it was not discovered until the 1950s, and was first ascended in 1965 (12 years after Everest).

Brasilia, the country’s capital, took just 41 months to build, from 1956 to 1960 (Rio had been the capital for the previous 197 years)

Oscar Niemeyer, the chief architect of Brasilia’s public buildings, has designed more than 500 structures, most of which can be found in Brazil

The distinctive Cathedral of Brasilia is one of his most famous. It features 16 90-ton columns and a 66-foot bell tower, entrance is via an underground tunnel, and inside are three angels suspended by steel cables.

A number of Nazis fled to Brazil after the Second World War, including Josef Mengele (the “Angel of Death”), known for his cruel experiments and fascination with twins.

The high rate of twin births in the town of Cândido Godói, near the Argentine border, has been attributed to him (but disproven).

The Nazis also sent an expedition to Brazil in 1935 with a view to setting up an outpost in the Amazon. According to the author Jens Gluessing, one of the party died during the trip.

Gluessing found a 9ft-high wooden cross etched with swastikas on a tributary of the Jari River. The inscription read: “Joseph Greiner died here on 2.1.1936, a death from fever in the service of German Research Work.”

Brazil has been the world’s largest exporter of coffee for more than 150 years. It supplied around 80 per cent of the world’s coffee in the 1920s; that figure has fallen to around a third.

Tours of Brazil’s shanty towns, or “favelas”, have become popular tourist attractions in recent years. Among the most famous is colourful Santa Marta in Rio de Janeiro which has been visited by the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna and Beyonce.