Mamirauá was the first Brazilian Sustainable Development Reserve created by Amazonas state by governmental decree. These type of Reserves aim to reconcile biodiversity conservation with sustainable development in areas inhabited by traditional peoples. 

Mamirauá is a unique place: a complex ecosystem of lakes, lagoons, islands, levees, channels and many other formations, which forms when river waters rise from 7 to 15 meters for up to six months in the year.  The reserve itself becomes almost an island, bounded by the Solimoes and the  Japura Rivers. This causes many animals to be "trapped" in the reserve and to create unusual characteristics - like the tree-climbing jaguars.

Many people never consider buying any form of travel insurance and many just figure it is an unjustified expense. Young people subconsciously feel they are invulnerable, but a lot of older people realize that they or their close relatives are living a more fragile existence and that the chances of some health crisis popping up are greatly increased, so they do consider getting insurance, in case they need to cancel their trip.

But there is one type of travel insurance that is increasingly becoming more important in this day and age....

Lately, every day people are hearing about fires in the Amazon, which is quite alarming. Naturally, since we send lots of people to the Amazon, we get people asking if the fires are going to affect their trip.

More and more I've been reading about problems with overcrowding at tourist destinations. While it's great that more people have the means and desires to travel, they don't all have to go to the same places. There are plenty of other magical places to visit in the world, and plenty of them are in South America. Instead of following friends to places they have been, why not go to some great places first and have the others follow you?

Many people seem to think that travel to South America is dangerous. The U.S. Department of State recently came out with a new system of grading the safety of countries and it shows some interesting things

Federal health officials have issued a travel alert about the spread of yellow fever in Brazil and say travelers need to be vaccinated before heading to affected areas. People may have to plan ahead because there is a shortage of yellow fever vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted in its alert.

It was reported that the percentage of foreigners travelling to Brazil because of the country’s natural attractions and adventure tourism activities increased from 12.8% in 2014 to 15.7% in 2015.

"Brazil is lucky to have treasures such as the Amazon Rainforest, the Pantanal, the Cerrado, the Atlantic Forest and over 8,000 kilometers of coastline, as well as the largest river basin in the world. With professional management and a partnership between the public and private sectors, these products can be exploited in a sustainable manner and to the benefit of local communities," says interim Tourism Minister Alberto Alves.

As a person who loves exploring, I have an interest in going to places that might not be big tourist destinations, but should be (at least I think so). But it seems that not many others find those places interesting. Would you be interested in visiting places like these?

20 years ago I traveled to the Chachapoyas region of Peru with a friend of mine and a group of others that he put together. At that time the government had it in it's 5 year plan to develop the area as the "Machu Picchu of the north".  Peter Lerche, the German in the video below, which was published last month, showed us un-excavated ruins on many mountain tops (as he mentions in the video, only about 10% have been excavated now).  I sent a group there a few years later and they got to visit a lost city that had only been discovered the week before they arrived. Since that time, some of the highest waterfalls in the world have been discovered and in 2013,  35 sarcophagi belonging to the Chachapoyas culture were found. Archaeologists believe that the sarcophagi –  painted clay coffins placed upright above ground  – were placed in a cemetery for children because the figures measure some 70 centimeters tall.