Honestly, in the Netherlands I really miss good quality squares. Public spaces that invite us to play, to exercise or to just let us hang around and meet each other.

We have good parks, that people completely occupy when the first ray of sunshine reminds us winter is finally over. But squares? Whether it is incredibly hard to design them or we just really love grass, we don't seem to use them.

In South America they love squares. And we've seen some beautiful examples. Spaces where we often met friendly locals, who gladly guided the Urban Detectives in the right direction.

With a coastline of more than 8000 kilometers long, Brazil is the perfect beach holiday destination 🏖. Our favorite spot: Pipa. This old fishermen village has transformed into a relaxation paradise where you can surf 🏄🏽‍♀️ swim with dolphins or drink (lots of) 🍸 caipirinhas.

But the increasing amount of tourists also raised the amount of trash around Pipa's beautiful beaches. Local artist Rafa Santos has a perfect part of the solution. His arty cigaretteboxes really get your attention, but still fit perfectly in Pipa's sunny vibe 🎨.

The distillery district in Toronto has the best preserved collection of Victorian architecture in North America. That's why it has become a pretty popular walking destination with options to shop, eat or have a whiskey everywhere!

When traveling through South-America, you will use a lot of different types of transportation. Cruising through Sao Paulo by (shared) bike on Sundays, crossing the Brazilian-Colombian border by boot on the Amazon, or getting around on the back of a pre-second world war truck in Colombia’s coffee region.

In each place, people have adapted their transportation system differently. People move around in innovative and sometimes problematic ways to cope with their growing population, urbanizing environment and beautiful, but challenging landscape.

In 2008, the Favela Painting Foundation🎨and community members completed a giant mural of koi carp swimming upstream in Vila Cruzeiro, Rio de Janeiro.

Together with residents and (former) employees, we discuss the project’s impact. After ten years, what did, and does it still mean to them?

No screaming sounds of street vendors, no beautiful, blasting music from bars and shops, no garbage. Toronto is clean, quiet and rich in architectural diversity!

Often we don't have a desk to write our articles on, so mostly we make our own office 👩‍💻. Ofcourse the beautiful nature 🌿🌺 of Brasil & Colombia helps with that.

While in Amsterdam they recently removed the IAMSTERDAM letters from the citycenter, in South America you can still find this attraction everywhere! Even villages use the corny letters to attract and entertain visitors. Here are some of our favourites (places you may have never even heard of).

In Latin American cities, going into a shop, bar or restaurant is not necessary, nor good for your wallet💸, once you’ve discovered the amazing world of illegal street commerce. The sound of screaming street vendors, selling refreshments, food, books or electronics, is everywhere 🤩! Research shows that in Colombia, even more than half of the population works in this informal economy! We truly found everything strolling through the streets of South-American cities.

Cartagena has grown into an important industrial center and has the largest port🚢 of Colombia. Nevertheless, the old city center has changed very little. Between the city walls, once build to protect the city from pirates, there are now countless options to eat🥙, shop💳 and party💃. We now understand why it is called the most beautiful city of Colombia!

Over half of the human population live in cities all over the world. 🌎 Also many Amazonians left their homes to enjoy the luxeries of modern life in big junglecities like Manaus. But even in the jungle, services like electricity, TV and WiFi are not uncommon anymore. However, unlike most city people, those who stayed behind still now how to survive without anything in the jungle. Our 15-year-old guide teaches us some basic skills like: how to clim an acai-tree.

The Urban Detectives are exactly three months in Brazil, which sadly means that we have to leave the country. Obrigado Brazil for your beautiful nature, delicious food, vibrant citylife, but most of all the amazing people who were always happy to show us their Brasil with so much love🥰! Check out their stories on our website.

Located in the heart of the Amazon lays the modern city Manaus with over 2 million inhabitants! It's the place were two rivers, the Rio negro and Rio solimões, evolve in the famous Rio Amazonas. In tropical temperatures over 30 degrees, citizens are in search of cooling: on boats, in the river or with the use of an umbrella ☂️.

Bélem, located in the mouth of the Amazon, became an important trading port for the rubber industry in the 1800's. It's market, Ver-o-Peso (translated 'see the weight'), is still one of the biggest places of trade in South America! Here you can buy the best fish, jungle fruits and herbs from the Amazon. Also you can eat the regional speciality everywhere: fish with acai. An unexpected supertasty combination!

After realising that the first 🔥Burning Man🔥 of Brazil was going to take place just two hours from our destination, we had to buy tickets! In the last four days, we created our own society, together with 300 people from all over the world🌍. Guided by ten important principles, we experimented with a new way of living together. It was an amazing experience that we will never forget! We want to thank everyone for giving us so much love and making this actually possible. Read about it our article.

Olinda is one of the historical cities famous for its carnival. But even out of the carnival season, we enjoyed the festive vibes here. You can see huge papier-mâché puppets used for the parades, coloured houses and walk through decorated streets. 🎶🎊🎈

In Pelourinho, the historic city center of Salvador, we sit down with Lucas Di Fiori, one of the four main singers of carnival bloco Olodum. He tells us his inspiring story and explains how Olodum's unique sound, strong message and colourful symbol was able to transform the city and quickly conquered the rest of the world. Check out the full story.

Time flies when your having fun. The Urban Detectives are exactly two months in Brazil! We started in Metropole Sao Paulo, a city that still is one of our favourites. The Paulistas showed us how they open up the streets every Sunday and the cycle activists explained their succesful struggle, in claiming back the streets of their city. Check out the full stories!

Salvador, the capital of colonial Brazil, has a unique citycenter. It is split in half and consists of a Cidade Alto (upper city) and Cidade Baixa (down city). To bridge the 72 meters gap between the two sides of town, connecting Pelourinho (upstairs) with the commercial district (downstairs), elevators were built. Elevador Lacerda is being used since 1873 and is centrally located between municipality buildings & churches in Pelourinho and the Mercado Modelo and shops downstairs. It is 0.15 Real (€0.04) to go up and is definitely worth the money.

Today we are in Pelourinho, the historic center of Salvador, to celebrate the opening of a renovated plaza. And whom better to inaugurate the square than the local heroes of OLODUM, who started right here and helped to transform the neighbourhood from poor and dangerous area, into a safe and successful district. Read about it our article.

Around 100 km from Salvador lays the small city Cachoeira. It isn't known for its waterfalls or trade anymore, but if you look at the architecture and coloured houses you know why people still love to come here.

In this modernist capital, functions are completely separated. Specific areas for working, living and recreating are planned and designed. People live in universal residential blocks, called Superquadras.

Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, is an open-air museum for modern architecture and cityplanning. The city is completely build for cars, so walking is almost impossible. But as true Dutchies, we try to visit Brasilia with our favourite vehicle: the bike. 

Visiting Instituto Inhotim is an overwhelming experience. The park hosts thousands of different exotic flowers, palmtrees and artworks. The beauty of this park teaches us about the importance of biodiversity. Next to this Inhotim is an important place for research on the sustainablity of the species. 

Visiting Instituto Inhotim is an overwhelming experience. While wandering through the Atlantic woods and botanical gardens, we discovered world famous modern art.

For her birthday Mrs. Urban Detective decided to go to Ouro Preto. This former capital of Minas Gerais lost its status when the goldmines dried up. Luckily for us the beautiful colonial buildings, churches and small colourful streets remained.

The Urban Detective is in Brasilia. We are joining students and teachers in a protest against government plans. Last week the minister of Education announced huge budgetcuts (30%) in the education sector.

In 1929, the population of Minais Gerais, Brazil's prosperous gold state, is rapidly growing. To attract businesses to the new capital Belo Horizonte, its Municipal Market is moved to a bigger location. Since then, this incredible maze of bars, restaurants and shops is THE local lunch hotspot and THE place for shopping in Brazil's third largest city!

More than 70% of Rio de Janeiro's sewage flows into the bay untreated! We join the bay protectors from instituto mar urbano and projeto verde mar during a major beach clean-up and immediately discover the importance of their work. Check-out our article and vlog!

In Vidigal, one of Rio's many favela's, we visit the powerful project PlayLife. We meet with urban hero Tamires Domingos and discover how football can change a girl's life! Read about it our article.

The 'museum of tomorrow', in the port area of Rio, is a neofuturistic design that adapts to environmental conditions. For example, it has solar panels along the sides, that rotate along the sunlight. The museum shares ideas about sustainability and warns about the impact of climate change, like massive migration and ongoing urbanisation.

Did you know that half of Rio's six million cariocas live in informal settlements outside of government control?! Half of these places are known as favela's. Like many Brazilians, Fabio grew up and still lives in the favela. He takes us to Vila Cruzeiro, where we get a glimpse of what everyday life here actually looks like.
Want to see some real Rio de Janeiro, and meet one of Rio's kindest persons? Contact @fabiorondinelle , @inktourrj

About 16 million people live around Rio's beautiful Guanabara bay, making it one of the world’s most densely populated urban areas. But Guanabara is under pressure. Waste from millions of people flows untreated into the bay and industrial wastewater is also a major source of pollution. We join the volunteers of Instituto MAR Urbano, including Rio's Secretary of Environment, during a beach clean up. We are making the visitors aware of the urgency. The Bay should not be taken for granted! Check-out our article and vlog!

We visit Jardim Botanico, one of the most beautiful gardens in the world. It's 205 acres of natural rainforest is home to many species of plants, birds and the beautiful Palacete Parque Lage. Where you can see the Corcovado on top of the hill. Just strolling around here once in a while, is a must if you live in this crowded, complex city!

Ten years ago, São Paulo was one of the most dangerous places to cycle in Latin America. But the rise of a young cycle-activist movement transformed the city.🚴‍♂️🚦🏢 Three pioneers explain here how the cycling movement conquered the streets of São Paulo and changed the lives of all its urbanites.

Rio de Janeiro is covered by forest, mountains and beach. In this ruin on the hills of Santa Teresa - once residence to the heiress of a rich family - you have a perfect view over the city. During the '20s the hostess invited intellectuals and artists to have party's in this great mansion. It's now a cultural center, which keeps her soul alive.

We visited park Trianon, which is next to Avenida Paulista. Here we met these risktaking bikers, who are avoiding to get stuck in traffic. Unlike us: getting home during rush hour was our biggest task. 
Read more about the cycling culture in Sao paulo here.

This nowadays popular tourist attraction (because of its graffiti art) is named after one of the first batman drawings in the alley. 🎨 After a period of incidents during the world cup in 2014, the alley is renovated and local community members take care of it. 💪

Every night and weekend the minhocão (the worm), a huge overpass in Sao Paulo, opens up for the people of Sao Paulo to stroll, sport or simply relax on this normally pollutant highway🌞🚴🛹 Read more about the tranformation of roads in Sao Paulo here.

Did you know that Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside Japan? An estimated 1.6 million people from Japanese descent live here today! The first immigrants arrived in 1908 and settled in the area Liberdade in Sao Paulo, which quickly became "Japan Town”. Although today most residents in Liberdade are actually Chinese and Korean.

The center of Sao Paulo has more than 12 million residents. So high-rise is everywere. There is not only life at streetlevel but also on top of the city. And above all, some magnificent views! 🏙️🌆

Designed by Oscar Niemeyer in the 1950's, the Copan Building is an icon of Brazilian architecture. It is the largest concrete structure in the country, and the home of more than 2000 residents! The view from up here is a dazzling experience, for the first time we see, and feel the enormous size of this city.

Every Sunday, Avenida Paulista - one of the most crowded roads in São Paulo - transforms into a huge city park🌴🌴. On this day, the streets are taken over by families👨‍👩‍👧, skaters🛹, runners🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️ and cyclists🚴‍♀️🚴‍♂️. It’s the perfect time to catch your breath before it’s business as usual and Paulista transforms back into one of the busiest streets of São Paulo🚦🚗🚕🚚🚛🚎.

Check out the full story here.

In the hills of Pinheiros in the west of Sao Paulo, lays the bohemian neighborhood Vila Madalena. It's famous for its boutiques, galleries and grafitti, but also because of its vibrant nightlife💃🏽🍹 that attracts a sophisticated young crowd👨🏽‍🎨 👩🏻‍💻 👩🏼‍🎤. 

Today we investigated this huge, crowded, cool street that kinda looks like fifth avenue in New York. Big skyscrapers, thriving businesses and many cultural institutions. On sunday it transforms into a huge citypark, read more about it here or watch our vlog.

As we are trying to find a bikestation to get around this huge citypark, we actually discover a Pokémon hotspot and a lot of dedicated players in front of the Planetarium! 🦄🦛👾 Eventually we didn't find the bikes, but discovered a beautiful, vibrant citypark full of surprises!🌴🚴🌻

Strolling around in the citycenter of Sao Paulo, we soon discovered why they call it the graffiticapital of the world🌎🌈🚦 

Day 1: It ain't the birds waking me today. Always #rushhour in #nairobi #kenya #hotelroomview #traffic #jam #trafficjam

Urban Hero #1 - Robert 'Rowbow' Ochola. The #amazing story of Robert 'Rowbow' Ochola will definitely get you through the day! With his slogan, ‘hope unaweza trust’ (hope you can trust), he is campaigning for the Kenyan elections that take place the 8th of August. Check it out!!

Most crowded island on the planet: CHECK. In the middle of Africa's biggest lake there is an island not bigger than half a football field but inhabited by hundreds of people. WHY? Check out the full story to discover everything about Migingo island. It's quite #amazing

Old vs. new in Dar es Salaam. Standing on the #oldest#building in Dar Es Salaam, we are looking at the  #city  #new  #skyline.  #skyscrapers are popping out of the ground like mushrooms, revealing the #city's #rapid#urbangrowth

Nairobi's very own Xzibit. Thx @mohagrafix479 for showing me around in your awesome garage. #nairobi #kenya🇰🇪#matatuculture #pimpmyride #artonwheels

Day 2: Strolling in Nairobi to see the #matatuculture in #nairobi. Public transport here comes close to clubs on wheels. Love it!

Day 3: Just some trash in the #streets of #nairobi #kenya🇰🇪

Urban Heroes #2. In his left hand he carries his phone, in his right the cross of Christ. For 17 years John has been managing this dumpsite, thereby witnissing #horrible things. Still John tries to make life easier on the dumpsite by organizing church services and meals for the  #streetkids on Sunday's. 

You want fake numberplates? A new #engine or just some #spareparts? Anything you want for your car, you will find in here. Grogan area (Nairobi) is the biggest black market and the first massive open air garage for vehicles i've ever seen. #traffic is #boomingbusiness!

#wemadeit #migingo #island #aka most #crowded island on the planet!!

Together with the rest of team Kalahari, #community group "Berlin" is organising important activities in their hood: #california (Nairobi, Kenya). Desert grounds is where the people from Calif come together, for example during this #footballtournament.

Day 20: Women selling fruits and vegetables in  #crowded #downtown #kampala.

Travel Nairobi your style. #nairobi #urban #goodlife 

#election time in #kenya . #visibility is important. And what better than putting your face on the back of a #motortaxi . Former #activist Boniface Mwangi #bonnie knows this all too well. Handing out #safety #reflectors in his district #starehe , making people happy and increase visibility is a #smart#campaingstrategy

Apparently #nairobi is not the only #city with some  #transport  #issues. Here in #kampala, the #taxipark #downtown is an  #amazing as well as #absurd scene to watch.

Maria and Suzan in front of their  #extraordinary  #matatu  in  #kampala #uganda. MatatArt is a mobile all-in-one structure that delivers #art to children's doorstep, even in places where there is little infrastructure, equipment, services or facilities.

The local chairman showing me around on Migingo. Taking a rest at the only concrete building on the island.