Brazil Accommodation

Accommodation

Hotels are plentiful in just about all areas of Brazil. A fairly good and clean hotel is quite cheap.

In wilderness areas like the Pantanal, travelers usually stay in fazendas, which are ranches with guest facilities. In small towns of Minas Gerais people are fond of hotéis-fazenda (farm hotels) where you can swim, ride, walk, play football, and camp as well as sleep in picturesque barracks.

Also there is great fun in going on a "Boat Hotel" which will take you to inaccessible places on the rivers and lakes for great fishing trips or for simply relaxing and watching and photographing the wildlife which is very abundant in the Pantanal. The boats are large, safe, and comfortable with air-conditioned rooms (very necessary). Several small aluminum boats with outboard motor,carried by the Boat Hotel,driven by experienced fisher/guide will take 2 or 3 tourists to the best "points".

Motel is the local term for a "sex hotel", so be aware of the implications. There's no social stigma per se in staying in one, but the room service and rates are geared to consenting adults staying for 4 to 6 hour periods (alta rotatividade) with utmost discretion and privacy.

Pousada means guesthouse (the local equivalent of a French auberge or a British boarding house). They are common in smaller tourist towns and can be quite comfortable (or downright awful...). The term implies that things like 24-hour room service, hot meals throughout the day, etc, are not available. Brazilian tourism regulation board imposes specific minimum attributes for each type of facility. However, most pousadas offer common meals (comprised exclusively of what the owner likes). Pousadas also tend to impose restrictions like not allowing you to come back too late or forbidding taking people in with you.