"Everything is vehement, the sun, the light, the colours. Here the blue of the sky shines much stronger, the green is deep and luscious, the ground is dense and red, no painter who could find more glowing, glaring, vibrant colours on his palette..." Stefan Zweig described Brazil in 1941. His words are still true today. Brazil – a shimmering, exotic world! It is unavoidable that everybody thinks of hot nights, of samba rhythms, beautiful beaches, the powerful waterfalls of Iguaçu, and the enormous river system of the green hell of the Amazon.

But the Brazilian flag, the Bandeira Brasileira, also waves above another areas that are less known: above the vast grassland in the south where the Gaúchos, the cowboys of Brazil, move their huge herds to pastures. It also waves above Brasilia, the ultramodern artificially created capital. Who ever heard of the unknown highlands and mesas in the hinterland with powerful waterfalls and crystal clear lakes?

Brazil's inhabitants have distinctive characters and fates: One example is the "Sloth-Heidi". She migrated from Germany to Brazil and has been living as a hermit with several sloths far from civilisation in the depths of the jungle near the Amazon for 20 years. Another example is Don Carlos, a Brazilian outlaw looking for emerald with his friends and working illegally in the mountain ranges.

Brazil turns out to be a country of many different facets with the change of the seasons. In August, when the sun is strongest in the west, the water points in the Pantanal are filled with life. They are an oasis for colourful parrots, caimans and many rare animals.

In February, however, the colours of the carnival shine in Rio de Janeiro. The parade of the samba schools with its many dancers pulses in the rhythm of South America!

Brazil appears quite different in November when the mountaineer involuntarily stops breathing on the top of the second-highest mountain, the Pico da Bandeira, as soon the spring sunshine breaks through the sea of clouds in the morning.