|
|
 |
| Photo Gallery |
|
Postcards From the Other Brazil
|
 |
| Photographer Michael Darter |
|
A Portuguese phrase book, a huge map, and a whole lot of hand gestures were all photographer Michael Darter and Contributing Editor Charles Graeber had to guide them on an epic scavenger hunt clear across Brazil (read excerpt). With just two weeks to see a country larger than the continental U.S., their goal was to be agile—to check no luggage, to slip in and out of taxis, to find Brazil's largely unknown treasures.
"The whole trip was intentionally very loosely planned," says the southern California-based photographer. "We had a return date, and we pretty much filled in the rest with one surprise after another."
Light on their feet, the two intrepid travelers were free to follow the adventure—and adventure they found. Dune surfing with local hipsters in Cumbuco. Piranha fishing in the Pantanal. Humpback whale watching from the rolling seas that surround the Abrolhos archipelago. Darter and Graeber even trekked hours through the tangled jungle of Ilha Grande just to see what could be the country's most alluring beach (eat that, Copacabana). But finding unsung Brazil wasn't always simple.
"We kept hitting these blocks where we'd heard about something cool to do, but no one there had any idea what we were talking about," says the avid snowboarder, mountain biker, and hiker. "When we were in Cumbuco, which is surrounded by these huge stretches of dunes, no one knew anything about sand surfers. But we didn't give up. Through a fairly humorous display of broken Portuguese, we managed to find some local guides to show us what dune surfing was all about."
|
|
