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An opportunity to visit family in Brazil during the month of August 2001. I also visited the state o Mato Grosso covering  the Pantanal (largest wet land in the world) and Chapada dos Guimarães (the plains of Guimarães)

Chapada dos Guimarães

7 miles walk	CVC group
Véu da noiva	Great walls

Located close to the national park, it boasts a variety of animals and plants. Geological studies have shown that life existed in the region over 45.000 years ago.

The history of the city began when the jesuits buit a chapel in 1751. Bandeirantes from Sao Paulo swarmed over the region, looking for gold.
In 1930 a group of Americans founded an evangelical mission at the chapada's first farm named Buriti. Today, it is an agricultural school, and the church still looks like New England style.

Nowadays, Chapada dos Guimaraes is famous for its waterfalls, rock formations, and UFO sightings.
Every July it takes place the Winter Festival that attracts artists and craftpersons to the region.

Pantanal

Although the word " pantano " means swamp in both Spanish and Portuguese, the Pantanal is not a swamp, although it may appear to be one at certain times of the year. It is in fact a vast alluvial plain with a slight north-south gradient. It provides a gigantic natural control mechanism for the flood waters resulting from the torrential rain during the wet period, which is usually from the end of October to the end of April.

The road to the pantanal starts here	huge Sucuri Snake	Cervo do Pantanal
Tuiuiu - symbol of the pantanal	baby macaco-prego	sunset

Campinas - São Paulo

This is the city that I was born, there are not too many places to visit, but we make the best of what we have. The Bosque dos Jequitibás has a few exotic animals and it is free. Many folks go for walks in the morning. While I was a child it was a must to go during school trips. 

Also, I decided to take some pictures of a local cemetery, although it is considered "weird " by Brazilian Standards to take pictures of cemeteries I remembered the great mausoleums and marble sculptures. My mother Geny accompanied me, and just by chance Monday, when we visited, was a day when macumba/candonblé worshipers visited the cemetery and perform their exotic ceremonies.  I had to ask permission of the "entity (the spirit incarnated in the macumbeiro)"  if it was ok to take pictures. There were three of them. They make offerings to their Gods and drink heavily Pinga (brazilian tequila made of sugar cane).  Usually Catholics that believe on macumba, visit the "Pai de Santo"  (macumbeiro) and ask for health/wealth of wish harm to other people.

Maria Fumaça - back in time 1895 steam train ride	Geny e Sara	Campinas downtown	Festa aniversário amiga da Sara do serviço
Amigas da Sara do serviço (pestalose)		Bosque dos Jequitibás	Bosque - Cotria run wild on the zoo
Pai de santo em transe	macumba	Pai de santo	cemitério da saudade
Geny no taquaral	capivaras running wild on taquaral

Many more pictures on the link below/mais fotos clique no link

Walter Morales PAGES- ©2012

email: wtmorales@gmail.com