For me, a little girl from a small village in small Iceland, Brazil is very... big. In every aspect. Incomprehensibly big.

Geographically, at 8,5 million sq km, it's roughly the size of the US (Alaska excluded), encompassing nearly half of South America. Brazil shares borders with most countries in South America, Chile and Ecuador being the exceptions. The distance from one side of Brazil to the other is greater than the distance between Brazil and Africa.

No wonder I feel like I can barely scratch the surface by spending only 3 weeks here. But on the other hand that gives me ample reason to return, right?

The coastline is 7400 km, much of it pristine tropical beaches. The Amazon jungles are the world's largest tropical rainforests, fed by the world's largest river and home to the richest and most diverse ecosystem on earth. Pantanal is the world's largest wetlands. New rivers and new tribes are being discovered. And unfortunately, as new animal species are getting discovered all the time, others are becoming extinct. More than a hundred birds and mnore than 70 mammals are considered endangered.

Brazilians are estimated to be about 182 millions. And it spite of all the spaciousness 80% of them live in cities and only a small proportion of the land is cultivated.

Brazil has amazing resources. It's the world's biggest producer of coffee, the world's largest exporter of sugar and orange juice, has a wealth of mineral resources and a great workforce.

But that's not enough. Social conditions are one of the extremeties in Brazil. The richest 10% receive 50% of the nation's income while the poorest 10% receive less than 1%. A large number of farmers live at subsistance level and millions have no land at all. According to a definition used by many Brazilian analysts one of every three Brazilians live in poverty.

I love statistics, they often make it easier to understand things, but these numbers and these facts are just so difficult to grasp.