A clown, an otter, my brother and me

The Beautiful Araguaia river

A not-so-beautiful piranha

Speaking to my brother always brings back a few memories . I was talking to him yesterday and, inevitably, we ended up reminiscing about our adventures in Brazil. It's hard not to. The names of some of the colourful characters have faded a little over time, but the experiences are still fresh, etched as if in stone.

We lived on a plantation, 25km or so from a small frontier town called Santa Terezinha, and there wasn't really very much to d...