Planning a trip to the Chapada Diamantina in Bahia, Northeast Brazil

Destination: Vale do Capão, Chapada Diamantina

Location of the Brazilian state of Bahia:

Location of Vale do Capão. The nearest connecting airport to São Paulo (where I live) is Salvador. From there, it's possible to get a flight (3 flights a week) to Lençois, then a taxi to Vale do Capão.  Alternatively, you can drive or get the bus. I will be getting the bus!

Bus: From the airport (30 km East of Salvador), there's a bus to Shopping Iguatemi (8 km East of Salvador), which is next to the Rodoviaria (bus station). Then you get the bus from the rodoviaria to Palmeiras (about 7 or 8 hours). From Palmeiras, you get a mini van to Vale do Capao. Easy!!!

Brazil is beautiful!

These pictures were all taken in Buzios, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, at the end of March. It's hard not to fall in love with Brazil, isn't it? Brazil has my vote for the most beautiful country in the world. And I've done a lot of travelling!

An update - still having adventures in Brazil...nearly 2 years since my last post

My last post was on July 20th 2012 and do you know what, I've just realised that I miss my blog. After sharing some stories about what's been happening to me here in Brazil as I set up a new business, my friend Fabio said ''Do you have a blog? You should write this stuff in it',  and I thought - ''Yes, I do have a blog, and yes, I should write this stuff in it!'' So here goes...

I feel like I'm really getting to know Brazil much better now. My first comments were quite superficial. Now I really know what I'm talking about, although I'm sure there is a lot more to learn.

I came back from a Toastmasters (www.toastmasters.org) meeting tonight, where I spoke about leadership. What is leadership, what does it mean, what are the behaviours of strong leaders? The world needs strong leaders. More than ever before. Why? Because the problems of the world today are bigger than governments. Bigger than countries. Bigger than corporations. They transcend these boundaries and guess what - there are lots of issues that no one is dealing with.

So this is where leaders come in. Leaders are you and me. They are people who want to see something change. They have a vision of what they want to achieve. They inspire other people to work with them to achieve this.

There are three behaviours that I think are a particular problem in Brazil, which strong leaders need.

These are:

1. Proactivity. People tend to leave things to the last minute. This is VERY frustrating and stressful.

2. Communication and taking responsibility for things. People tend not take responsibility and they rarely say ''no, I can't do that''. Instead, you find out they can't do something when they don't do it and it's too late.

3. High expectations. Expectations are low, low, low. It's all the fault of the government, the politicians, the high taxes, the traffic, the rain...There are many excuses. People do not expect things to work well.

So guess what? I'm leading a cultural revolution at Toastmasters! My plan is to develop a strong leadership culture by talking about the three behaviours above at every meeting.

The sky is the limit! Let's see what good we can bring into the world ;-)