When is a mirage not really a mirage? When the water is real, as it is in Brazil’s Lençóis Maranhenses National Park. This park is mostly desert,an otherworldly landscape with vast, ivory-colored sand dunes as far as the eye can see. However, in Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, crystal-clear lakes and lagoons are scattered in between the dunes.

The New York Times’ Frugal Traveler recently visited the park, and was quite impressed:

The barely off-white silky sands and endless cool oases of the Lençóis are such a visual stunner that, with apologies to Rio de Janeiro, the Canadian Rockies and my ex-girlfriends, they may be the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

You can get to Lençóis Maranhenses National Park by plane or by bus from São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro. Of course, first you have to get to Brazil, and that means you need a Brazilian visa. There are several things you need to know about Brazil’s visa system before you apply. First, you need to find out which Brazilian embassy processes visa requests for your city and state.  Brazil’s visa system, is “jurisdictional,” which means that each embassy serves a different region of the country and you must submit your application to the right location for it to be processed.

Once you know where to submit your application, check to be sure you have all of the following documents:

• Your passport. You need 2 or more blank pages to allow room for the visa, and your expiration date must be more than 6 months in the future. So, you may need to get a passport renewal or add pages before you apply.
• A Brazilian visa application
• 2 passport-sized photos
• A copy of your itinerary, which must have the dates you plan to enter and leave Brazil.
• A  clear, legible copy of your driver’s license or state-issued ID card.
• If you will be visiting friends or relatives, include an invitation letter from them as well.

If you travel frequently, you might also need a yellow fever vaccination. Vaccines are required of travelers who have been to any of the following countries in the past 3 months (90 days): Angola, Bolivia, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, French Guiana, Gabon, Ghana, Gambia, Republic of Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Peru, Sierra Leone, Sudan or Venezuela.

RushMyTravelVisa.com can make getting a Brazil visa much easier and faster. When you apply through us, you get helpful checklists and guidance from a trained visa specialist. Then, we expedite your application and submit it to the to appropriate embassy or consulate for super-fast processing.

Apply for your Brazilian visa today!

Tags: Brazil, Brazil visa, Brazilian visa

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 20th, 2010 at 1:52 pm and is filed under Destinations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.