The North: the Amazon with indigenous people

The Brazilian Amazon overwhelms – twenty-kilometre wide rivers dotted with thousands of islands, thunderclouds massing on each horizon, huge flocks of macaws and parrots cawing overhead and policemen riding buffalos along ten-kilometre long river beaches. Contrary to myth this is not a wildlife destination (though the birding is fabulous): the Amazon is all about the immensity of the living landscapes. And the indigenous people. We travel through the region with them – in boats along the Rio Negro and Amazon river, visiting villages and learning about a way of life honed over millennia.

There are four principal access points, which can all be linked together if you want to explore the Brazilian Amazon in depth. The easiest to reach is Manaus in the Central Brazilian Amazon – a city of some 2 million people isolated by road with a huge Italian Opera House in its centre. The best of the short and long river cruises leave from here; many of them going up the 2250 km-long Rio Negro river which meets the Amazon proper in Manaus.

The best jungle lodges – geared towards birders and serious wildlife enthusiasts are in Mato Grosso state in the southern Amazon, where the rivers are smaller here and the landscapes less dramatic.

Pará state – where the Amazon meets the Atlantic, offers completely different experiences to those from Manaus or Mato Grosso. From the old Portuguese colonial Belem you can reach Marajó island, fringed with mangroves and long stretches of sand where the police ride Buffalo. Or you can visit Alter do Chão village – which sits over a twin half-moon strand of Caribbean-white beach, in a river as blue as the Mediterranean, surrounded by vast stands of ancient rainforest.