São Paulo Travel Forum

I'll be in SP with my 13 year old daughter. We'll have 4 or 5 days for sightseeing. She would love some ecotourism type things (zip line, "jungle" tour, that sort of thing) but I don't think we'll have the money to fly to the Amazon area. I was thinking Iguazu. Any other suggestions for ecotourism around SP?

The closer ecotourism tour around SP is Pantanal.
Coxim, Bonito, Poconé, Corumbá are some cities at Pantanal that may be your daughter happiness. Pantanal in portuguese means marshy/swampy.
I am sending some links concerned in brazilian Pantanal. 70% of Pantanal is in brazilian land.

If you click in all links you'll watch some impressive images, and, get some tour agencies that work in Pantanal as well. There are many tourists who go to Pantanal to find wildlife, silence, and farm. There is too many cattle there.
Enjoy Brazil!

http://www.kanzenturismo.com.br/

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantanal

Cassiovieggore

If you can afford Iguacu, you can probably afford the Amazon, but anyway, the Pantanal has lots more animal and bird life, if a real eco-adventure is what you want. Google "adventure tours Rio" and you will get a lot of rafting, climbing, zip line type options relatively near the city. There is also hang-gliding in Sao Conrado.

Well. Neither Iguaçu or Amazon or Pantanal is close to Sao Paulo, they are all several hours flight.

There are some good options inside the city of São Paulo itself. They are not, of course, jungle adventures, but they are pretty nice.

Some places to google up:
--- Parque Ecológico do Tietê ---
(she can see many animals there, they lie around freely, there are little playful monkeys (she's gonna love those), racoons of some sort, capybaras, ducks and all that. It's a nice park to lie around freely, and you can get a cab from the downtown, will be about R$70.

--- Zoológico de São Paulo ---
a regular but nice zoo

--- Jardim Botânico ---
A beautiful bothanic garden

--- Instituto Butantã ---
It's a great place for children, all schools take the kids there at least once a year. The place has many different types of snakes for show, it's pretty nice. Like a zoo specialized in snakes.

--- Parque do Jaraguá ---
It's a very nice park, almost a little mount with a forest, with lots of wild life (birds, squirrels and stuff) and for its height, you have a beautiful view from the São Paulo's cityscape.

--- Parque do Ibirapuera ---
A park near downtown where people go to run and make all kinds of sports. Very pleasant, basically the brazilian NY Central Park.

Any info you need around here, feel free to give me a shout and I'll try to helo you out amap.