Nil: This is the last blog entry we´re going to make. We fly home tonight, it´s all come to an end. We´re incredibly sad to be leaving, but it´s about time we came home now. Living out of a bag and not being able to flush paper down the toilet has taken its toll! I don´t want to gush on the internet, but a little gushing is bound to come out. We´ve had such an unforgettable time. I´ve always wanted to do some backpacking, and now that I finally have I fee...

Tom: We´ve had a great few days in Rio so far, topped by a really good tour organised by our hostel of the city and, of course, Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor) on Corcovado mountain. Oh and then we went out on the tiles - something we´ve not really done on our trip (well, once in Sihanoukville, and once in Sydney). Anyway the tour took us around some favelas which are the poor sort of shanty towns dotted around the city, and up through the millionaire´s...

Tom: We´re back in the tropics for our final destination, and it´s a stunner! We´ve only seen Rio de Janeiro for a few hours at night and already it´s pretty much blown our minds. We had great views of Christ the Redeemer (photo) from the taxi as we headed to our hostel in Ipanema from the bus terminal. We´ve already blanked out the last two days spent on a bus, more specifically 12 hours from Montevideo to Porto Alegre and a further 29 hours from there to ...

Nil: Hey, hey, hey!!! We´ve arrived in the last country of our trip sans problems. Porto Alegre isn´t really much to write home about, but it´s so cool to have finally made it to Brazil. The bus ride from Montevideo to Porto Alegre was the most comfortable, efficient ride ever. So efficient, in fact, we weren´t required to leave the bus in order to show our faces at immigration, our bus attendant did all the work for us! So, right now we´re sitting in a bus...

Tom: Just a quick blog to right a small wrong. Montevideo is actually much better than Asuncion. With much more to do. Yesterday, after describing the place incorrectly as having not much to do of any interest, we went to a cubist art gallery, a mausoleum, several awesome coffee shops and the seaside! It turns out that Uruguay has more bookshops than Buenos Aires, and an even greater appreciation for art too. We went to Joaquin Torres Garcia's art museum and con...