Had a fun and interesting morning on Monday. A few of us went for breakfast and I was harping on about desperately needing a pedicure (sound familiar Phil and Young?!) and as we had the whole day to kill in a one-horse town, it seemed the perfect place to do it. Anne and I asked the lady next to us if she knew anywhere and she said she would take us (at least we think that's what she was saying as she was speaking in Portuguese but she didn't seem to mind that we started following her as she left the cafe). She took us to a hair salon that looked like it was stuck in the 60s. As we were waiting, Anne decided she would get her hair dyed. Yikes, I thought as I was scared enough in HK and Singers when I got mine done but she seemed fairly confident. As they started doing hers and it looked ok an the lady seemed to know what she was doing, I decided to get mine done too (I've really started resembling a skunk again and needed to sort it out). Got the colour chart and we picked the right blonde and, fingers and toes crossed, off we went! That all worked well (phew, the relief!) and then he said she would cut my hair as it was a total mess (I believe that's what she was saying as she was running her fingers through it, scrunching her face up and showing it to everyone in the salon). Pequeno I said (meaning a little in Spanish) which she translated as roughly 2 inches - aaaargh! Still, she then blow-dryed it into a bit of a glam bouffant and off I went. By the time I had traipsed back to the hotel I had sweated so much, you couldn't tell I'd had anything done but it was definitely a success. Oh, as was the pedicure and I got the whole lot for about GBP30 - cheap as chips!

It's now Wednesday and I've just had an awful 32 hours or so! Our truck finally turned up on Monday afternoon so we were due to set off early on Tuesday. Got my backpack back and realised it was full of dirty clothes as I haven't had the opportunity to do any laundry since Trinidad. Still, nothing smelled as bad as my daypack so I felt clean at last. Also managed to get laundry done (hurrah!) and everyone and everything survived!

I forgot to tell you earlier that our truck has a completely smashed windscreen. And when I say smashed, I mean totally shattered. You'll see the photos when I eventually upload them. There are a few gaps of intact glass on the driver's side (thank goodness) but it was looking really hairy. Basically a bird or duck or something (looking at the scale of the damage I personally think it was a pterodactyl) flew into the truck 2 weeks ago, while the other group were driving to Brazil. Because the truck is European, there are no parts in Brazil that fit it so the tour leaders are trying to get a screen made or shipped to us somewhere enroute - not an easy task. The cracks are spreading by the minute and we had to drive the best part of 1,000km. As we could only drive at around 40km an hour, the boys decided to drive through the night so that we wouldn't be delayed on the next leg of our trip. It was horrendous. The truck is pretty basic - there is no aircon (you just have to open the windows and risk getting your head chopped off by passing traffic) and the seats don't recline. Added to that it kept pissing down with torrential rain and the wipers couldn't work properly. We set off at 5.30am yesterday and arrived in Pocone on the edge of the Pantanal at about 1.30pm today. The poor boys were swapping the driving every couple of hours during the night. We are hoping that a windscreen will arrive in Brasilia before us in the next few days but nobody is really holding out much hope.

We cooked 2 meals enroute yesterday as we have all been assigned to cook groups. Not much you can do when there are people on board who don't eat one of either of red meat, chicken or fish and we're also limited to what can be cooked by the side of the truck, is fast and comes in under the budget of around 60 pence per person! Still, so far so good and when you're hungry, anything tastes good. Viv will appreciate the job allocation having done it herself. The funniest thing is drying the dishes. You basically have to stand and flap your arms holding whatever you've washed (even pans and chopping boards) until they are dry. Looks very comical but gets the job done!

Think that's about all for today. Am glad to be in a hotel with a hot shower (first one in Brazil) and free wifi - aaaah, the luxury! We are off to the Pantanal tomorrow for 2 days where we'll hopefully see a whole load of wildlife including capybaras. More on that when I'm back to civilisation!

Oh, and my arm volcano (I groaned outloud at that awful joke Dave) seems to be on the mend. It's more of a watery white crater now. Nice!

Hope all is well in your part of the world and keep those messages coming!

Linda x