The South: Waterfalls and Wild Atlantic Rainforests

Star attraction of the far south is of course the Iguaçu Falls. Poor Niagara’, Eleanor Roosevelt allegedly said when she first saw the cascades. They’re nearly twice as tall as their North American counterpart, and over three times as wide, and they sit in a rainforest wilderness a third as large again as Greater London.

There are beaches in the south too – fringing the lovely little Ilha do Mel island, which overlooks seemingly endless mountains and bays of wild rainforest, still unspoilt enough to be home to jaguars and pumas. There’s championship quality surf on the beaches of Santa Catarina island and seasonal whale-watching all along the coast. And German-speaking Blumenau in Santa Catarina state hosts the largest briefest in the world outside Bavaria.