BRAZIL: Guanabara Bay

Guanabara Bay is an oceanic bay located in Southeast Brazil in the state of Rio de Janeiro. On its western shore lies the city of Rio de Janeiro and Duque de Caxias, and on its eastern shore the cities of Niterói and São Gonçalo. Four other municipalities surround the bay's shores. Guanabara Bay is the second largest bay in area in Brazil after the All Saints' Bay, at 412 square kilometres (159 sq mi), with a perimeter of 143 kilometres (89 mi).

Guanabara Bay is 31 kilometres (19 mi) long and 28 kilometres (17 mi) wide at its maximum. Its 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) wide mouth is flanked at the eastern tip by the Pico do Papagaio (Parrot's Peak) and the western tip by Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf).

The name Guanabara comes from the Tupi language, goana-para, from gwa "bay", plus na "similar to" and ba'ra "sea". Traditionally, it is also translated as "the bosom of sea".

Guanabara Bay was first encountered by Europeans on January 1, 1502, when one of the Portuguese explorers Gaspar de Lemos and Gonçalo Coelho arrived on its shores. According to some historians,the name given by the exploration team to the bay was originally Ria de Janeiro "January Sound", then a confusion took place between the word ria, which at the time was used to designate a bay or a sound, and rio "river".

As a result, the name of the bay was soon fixed as Rio de Janeiro. Later, the city was named after the bay. Natives of the Tamoio and Tupiniquim tribes inhabited the shores of the bay.

After the initial arrival of the Portuguese, no significant European settlements were established until French colonist and soldiers, under the Huguenot Admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon invaded the region in 1555 to establish the France Antarctique.

They stayed briefly on Lajes Island, then moved to Serigipe Island, near the shore, where they built Fort Coligny. After they were expelled by Portuguese military expeditions in 1563, the colonial government built fortifications in several points of Guanabara Bay, rendering it almost impregnable against a naval attack from the sea.

They were the Santa Cruz, São João, Lajes and Villegaignon forts, forming a fearsome crossfire rectangle of big naval guns. Other islands were adapted by the Navy to host naval storehouses, hospitals, drydocks, oil reservoirs and the National Naval Academy.

There are more than 130 islands dotting the bay, including:

- Lajes
- Ilha do Governador – site of Rio de Janeiro's Galeão - Antônio Carlos Jobim International Airport
- Ilha de Paqueta
- Ilha das Cobras
- Flores
- Ilha Fiscal
- Ilha da Boa Viagem
- Villegaignon
- Fundão

The bay is crossed by the Rio-Niterói Bridge (13.29 kilometres (8.26 mi) long and with a central span 72 metres (236 ft) high) and there is heavy boat and ship traffic, including regular ferryboat lines. The Port of Rio de Janeiro, as well as the city's two airports,

Galeao - Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport on Governador Island and Santos Dumont Airport on reclaimed land next to downtown Rio, are located on its shores. The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro main campus is located on the artificial Fundao Island. A maze of smaller bridges interconnect the two largest islands, Fundão and Governador, to the mainland.

There is an Environmental Protection Area (APA), which is located mostly in the municipality of Guapimirim and given the name of Guapimirim APA.

Guanabara Bay's once rich and diversified ecosystem has suffered extensive damage in recent decades, particularly along its mangrove areas.

The bay has been heavily impacted by urbanization, deforestation, and pollution of its waters with sewage, garbage, and oil spills. As of 2014, more than 70% of the sewage from 12 million inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro now flows into the bay untreated.

There have been three major oil spills in Guanabara Bay. The most recent was in 2000 when a leaking underwater pipeline released 1,300,000 litres (340,000 US gal) of oil into the bay, destroying large swaths of the mangrove ecosystem.

Recovery measures are currently being attempted, but more than a decade after the incident, the mangrove areas have not returned to life.

One of the world's largest landfills is located at Jardim Gramacho adjacent to Guanabara Bay. It was closed in 2012 after 34 years of operation. The landfill attracted attention from environmentalists and it supported 1700 people scavenging for recyclable materials.

In June 2014 Dutch windsurfer and former Olympic and world champion Dorian van Rijsselberghe made an urgent appeal to government and industry in the Netherlands to collaborate in cleaning up the bay, together with the Plastic Soup Foundation.

The Dutch government picked up the message and formulated a Clean Urban Delta Initiative Rio de Janeiro together with a consortium of Dutch industry, knowledge institutes and NGOs which will be presented to the Brazilian authorities in the State of Rio de Janeiro.

As part of the preparations for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, the government was supposed to improve the conditions, but progress has been slow. There have been concerns that the efforts may only be short-term and abandoned following the Games, as there would be little political incentive to continue with them.

BRAZIL: About Brazil

These towering granite mountains protect the island´s wondrous beaches like silent sentinels

Capital: Brasilia

Size: 8,547,403 km²

Population: 170m

Currency: Real

Language: Portuguese

Visas: Not required for UK nationals.

Food: The most famous dish is the feijoada completa: several meat ingredients (jerked beef, smoked sausage, smoked tongue, salt pork, along with spices, herbs and vegetables) are cooked with the beans. Manioc flour is sprinkled over it, and it is eaten with kale (couve) and slices of orange, and accompanied by glasses of aguardente. Churrasco is a mixed grill, including excellent steak, served with roasted manioc flour. It is normally served in specialized restaurants, churrascarias or rodízios (or espeito corrido) – make sure you are hungry when you visit!

Drink: Caipirinha – a deceptively gluggable glass full of the local spirit topped up with pounded ice and limes. One is delicious, two even more so, after that – well, over to you! Caipiroska is the same thing made with vodka, consequently a shade less overwhelming. The fruit juices are fantastic as well.

Festivals: Brazilians need little excuse to hold a party and there are plenty of options throughout the year. The most famous festival in Brazil is Carnaval, particularly that of Rio de Janeiro, although Carnival in other cities can be equally interesting. Dates vary between February and early March. Semana Santa, which ends on Easter Sunday, is celebrated with parades in many cities and towns. Bahia has many festivals throughout the year but some of the most interesting are the Lavagem do Bomfim in January, the Presente para Iemanjá in February and the Festa da Boa Morte in August. In the south, the Festa Nacional da Uva, a grape and wine festival, is held in Caxias do Sul during February. Towards the end of the year in October the Oktoberfest is held in Blumenau, whilst the Círio de Nazaré festival takes place in Belém. The festival year ends on 31 December with the hugely popular beach-based Reveillon.

When to go: Brazil as a destination can be visited at any time of the year depending on your priorities and where you are travelling. Most of the country is tropical, but given its sheer size, weather patterns vary.

Described as the sexiest people on earth, Brazilians are seduced by the sounds of their music and the lure of the beach. Along its 7,250km coastline, there is a stretch of sand for every volleyball player, capoeira dancer, surfer, dune-buggy driver, and the national sport could as easily be flirtation as football.

But Brazilians have a spiritual side to match their hedonistic streak. Many exotic religions flourish, most notable Candomblé, based on African traditions, which exist alongside Catholicism. Artistically Brazil also has a rich vein that goes back to the 16th century when, prosperous from gold and diamonds, the Portuguese colonialists invested in what are some of the most beautifully preserved baroque buildings found anywhere.

As the world’s fifth largest nation, Brazil has a wide diversity of attractions and sights. Brazilians say that God created the world in six days, and on the seventh, he created Rio de Janeiro. Few who have been to Rio would argue, given the city’s spectacular mix of mountains, rainforest and beaches, and its eclectic mix of cosmopolitan city and tropical resort. Corcovado, Sugar Loaf, Copacabana, Ipanema and Maracanã are all names and images that make Rio special. As does the spectacular Carnaval.

Brazil is much more than Rio. The north-east is growing in popularity as a destination led by the state of Bahia, often dubbed ‘Africa in exile’. This was the heart of colonial Brazil and the architecture of the period is best found in the state capital of Salvador where over 800 buildings dating from the 17th and 18th centuries can be found in an area considered a world heritage site by UNESCO.

The north-east offers a heady blend of cultures, cuisine, ethnic groups, as well as many natural wonders such as the national park of Chapada Diamantina or the stunning beaches. Other popular destinations in the north-east include the states of Alagoas, Ceará, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte and Sergipe.

Brazil is also home to the Amazon river that flows through northern Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean, feeding along the way the biggest expanse of rainforest in the world. Visitors can explore and experience the astonishing natural variety of the Amazon’s flora and fauna through gateways such as Belém or Manaus, both cities famous for their opera houses.

Offering a more visible display of flora and fauna is the Pantanal, a collection of ecosystems that is the largest wetlands in the Americas and in which can be found an immense diversity of bird and wildlife.

Brazil’s southern states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná are equally full of contrasts and surprises that include outstanding beaches for surfing, dolphin and whale-watching around Florianópolis; towns such as Blumenau with its distinct Bavarian architecture; the Itaimbezinho canyon, the largest in Latin America; and the falls at Iguaçu that stretch almost three kilometres across the mighty Iguaçu river that borders Brazil and Argentina. One of the falls, the Devil’s Throat, is the largest waterfall in the world in terms of volume of water per second.