I woke up early on Sunday morning at 5.30am, packed my bags and jumped straight on the bus to kick start the 9-10 hour journey to Brotas. But that doesn't tell the whole tale of the previous 8 hours...

Having gone to bed around 10.00pm the previous night in preparation for the early start, my stomach started doing cartwheels and I didn't feel so good. What followed was 5 hours of vomiting and.. well you know the rest. Faint, weak, cold, dripping with sweat and laying in the foetal l position on a questionable bathroom floor I wondered how the hell I was going to get myself out of this situation, recover and feel fit enough for 6.00am.. and then endure a marathon bus journey.

While trying my best not to wake my room mates, and not succeeding by walking straight into the lockers, somehow I managed to drag myself up off the floor and make my way down the hostel stairs to the reception area. It was dark and quiet but fortunately an overnight worker was there.. I needed Lucozade of some sort to try and regain some strength and energy but all they had in the fridge was beer and fizzy pop. He told me to go to the hospital because he could tell I was in a bad way.. but I knew I just had to ride it out.

I took a big bottle of water and requested a bowl of sugar and literally collapsed on the sofa in the hostel common room. I got the water down and spoon fed myself the white sugar in between drifting off with my Liverpool towel wrapped around me.

I remember waking up about 3.00am in the dark common room, the overnight worker asleep on the sofa opposite. I felt a little more human but nowhere near 100% with the added additions of a tender throat and sore stomach muscles. I threw down some more water with a few more spoonfuls of sugar and made my way back to my dorm and bed.

So back to the start.. 5.30am. My alarm goes off and I feel remarkably well and fit for the forthcoming bus journey. Somehow I'd managed to recover! I apologised to my roommates for making noise and waking them but they were understanding after I explained the situation.

Sorry for not telling you ma.. I didn't want you to worry xx

The whole group boarded Amber for our first big stint of driving. Ria, Ollie and I sat near the back by the tables and we set off to the remote town of Brotas in southwestern Brazil where we would be camping for 2 days. If you know me well, you'll know how much I hate camping with a passion. So why do it you may ask? It was part of the 18 day tour but I also wanted to take myself out of my comfort zone and do things on this trip that I wouldn't normally do.

Completely unprepared, but not without trying, I rock up to the tour with no sleeping bag, no roll mat and no head torch. Tents were provided thank goodness. I'd managed to buy a standard roll mat in Paraty while I was there and I also managed to blag myself a spare sleeping bag off Duncan. As for the torch.. the iPhone would have to do! I wasn't ready to walk around like the rest of them looking like little Minions.

However, my personal image/dignity.. whatever you want to call it went straight down the pan halfway through our journey over, much to the delight and amusement of my fellow group members.. especially Emma who drives the bus, as we'd been constantly back and forth trading light hearted insults since we met.

With it being another roaster of a day and no A/C on the bus all the windows on the right hand side were wound down. Minding my own business, looking out the window admiring the scenery and locked into my iPod, I got a sudden splash in the face from outside. Where the.... did that come from? It certainly wasn't raining. A few seconds later I got it again, and so did Ria sat next to me. Seriously, WTF?! So I prop my head out the window to look where it's coming from.. 3 seats in front is a woman called Andrea from Australia, being sick!! Diving back into the truck, frantically trying to wind up the windows and attempting to scramble desperately over Ria to save myself I get an absolute coating in the face and all over my top with a big mouthful of her spew! Ria took a hit, as did Anthony sat behind me from New Zealand but I took the brunt of it. Yuk! It was seriously gross but luckily I saw the funny side of it once the bus had stopped so I could go take a wash and the others could clean out the whole vehicle. Shirtless, washed and back on the bus I was greeted with a lot of laughter and jokes.

Could this day get any worse? I was still feeling a little ropey from the after effects of the food poisoning/stomach bug or whatever it was. Turns out a few others had similar symptoms throughout that previous night too.

After many more miles and a few more breaks in between we arrived at the campsite in Brotas late afternoon. Equipped with a swimming pool, nice showers, kitchen facilities and plenty of trees and green areas to pitch our tents.. the camp looked pretty decent.

Duncan gave a demonstration on how to put up the tents before we attempted our own with a little assistance from one another.

Emma, Ria, Ollie and myself had a walk to the supermarket to grab some supplies for dinner and a lots of alcohol to make a punch.

Emma had teased me earlier in the day saying things usually come in 3's. I'd already had a shocking night with the food poisoning, then someone vomiting in my face. This time on the way back from the supermarket my shorts decided to fall down while I had a heavy shopping bag in each hand. Why me?!! Needless to say the others had another massive laugh at my expense.. like they needed any more ammo today!

Dinner was being prepared in one of the outdoor kitchens.. all of us pitching in wherever necessary but then the heavens started to open, Paraty style.. only this time I was under shelter and it came with a massive twist of the loudest, most volatile thunder and lightening I've ever heard. These tropical storms are something else.. the volume of water they throw down is just insane, relentless!

By this time I was fearing for the state of my tent being such an amateur and I was starting to regret not upgrading to a dorm room. When the storm had finally subsided I went to check on my tent. I nervously unzipped what was my home for the next 2 days and popped my head in.. I couldn't believe it, bone dry! Happy days :)

We enjoyed a nice meal cooked by some of the group and then quite a few of us got on the drink under the shelter. It was another fun night with everyone.. Tom, Ralph and myself being the last ones standing before calling it a night at 2.00am.

My first nights sleep in a tent wasn't too bad actually, probably due to the alcohol consumption the night before.

A few of us visited the local Cachaca museum in the morning.. there wasn't all that much to it except for free shots of the locally brewed spirit which is lively to say the least. Brotas is only a small town so there is not all that much to do there.

We had dinner around the campsite and stocked up on groceries for forthcoming meals before another tropical storm hit.. not quite as bad as the previous one mind.

We ate tea together and had a few drinks but most people headed to sleep before 10.00pm as we had another early start.

The next morning we began our long journey to Southern Pantanal, part of the vast wetlands that covers much of inland central and southern Brazil. With over 1000km's to cover we had to split the journey over two days which meant we'd have to wild camp somewhere close to the city of Campo Grande.. that's right, I said wild camp!

We drove for approximately 11 hours along endless straight roads through a mass of untouched green land. We covered about 700km's, the clocks went back a further hour and it had almost gone dark which meant when we had finally found a suitable spot we'd be pitching our tents in the dark.

Eventually we found a small service station in the middle of nowhere with a patch of land by the fuel pumps to set up camp. Everyone was pretty wiped from the long drive but we managed to get our tents up and cook our dinner in the dark.

There was nothing for miles around.. just us, a small shop, several massive trucks with truckers getting some overnight rest, and some unbelievably dodgy and grotty toilets/showers! These toilets were filthy and full of creepy crawlies.. no doors on either the toilets or showers so anyone could walk in on you while you were doing your business. You either had to brave it or hold it and maybe not shower too, but the heat and humidity was making it very uncomfortable.

Pretty much the whole camp cleared off to their tents after having dinner as we have another early start in the morning. I stayed up for another couple of hours to have a few more beers and avoid the hot sweaty environment in my tent.

This is proper wild camping, a first for me and one I'll never forget.. very bizarre, kind of peaceful under a clear night of stars but kind of creepy too. I have an extra early start as my team are cooking breakfast for the camp at 6.00am so I've got to get up in about 5 hours time and brave those showers first.. say a prayer for me!

Caio Caio xx