There is a dark side of traveling, which all backpackers endure but few really remember later.This blog records the tiring (and disorienting) journey from Waitomo Caves in New Zealand to somewhere in the south of the Brazilian Pantanal.

On18th Feb, we left Waitomo for Auckland and to check in for our flight to Santiago, Chile.We boarded our 5:45pm flight laden with English language magazines and western snacks.The flight was uneventful, though neither of us got much sleep and as we were ready to land the pilot announced that the local time was 12:00pm - OF THE SAME DAY! Because we had passed the International Date Line we had gained a day which meant that we actually landed earlier than we had taken off.This might seem simple to most of you but Antony had to explain it to me several times and even wrote out the calculations until I too bored to care any more!

We got a taxi to our hostel looking like zombies and crashed out into bed.We woke up in darkness and dragged ourselves out bed to get some dinner and see a bit of the neighborhood.We found a nice restaurant and despite it feeling like 6am we ordered a delicious meal and washed it down with a great bottle of Chilean wine.This knocked us out again and we slept well until about midnight.Because people eat and go out much later in Chile, people were staggering into the hostel all through the night and the last ones in were greeted by early risers leaving to get breakfast.We heard each person come and go because we couldn't sleep a wink. At 6am that we finally fell back asleep, only to have to wake up at 9am to go back to the airport for our flight to Rio.

We arrived in Rio at around 6pm and it took until 7:30pm for us to figure out how to get transportation to the city.An hour later we checked into our Copacabana hostel and again forced ourselves to go out for some food.This time we were tired and apprehensive, given some of the warnings we had received about walking around at night, but luckily we found the streets filled with perfectly normal looking Brazilians and no one made any move to mug us. We had trouble sleeping again that night because of the jetlag but also because we were itching, what we thought were old bug bites.

After sleeping till noon, we went to four travel agents before we could purchase bus tickets to Campo Grande which took most of the afternoon.This was followed by an hour in an internet cafe so that we could book accommodation when we reached our destination.With what was left with the rest of the day, we walked to the beach and soaked in the Rio atmosphere; loads of narcissist men running along the beach in Speedos, women of all shapes and sizes donning thong bikinis, and people of all ages kicking a football around.This was followed by one too many caiprinhas and another itchy night's sleep.

The next morning Antony had huge welts all over his body, they looked a bit like mosquito bites but they were spreading and we feared that it might have been an allergic reaction to something.Hours later I also came out in little bumps that itched like mad but we were stumped as to what had caused it.It was only the next day when we were showing another traveler our rash that it was confirmed - we had had bed bugs in Rio (and the bites have been plaguing us for many days since).But back to the great journey…From Rio we took a 20 HOUR bus ride to Campo Grande which is one of the entry points to the Pantanal (a swamp the size of France which is meant to provide incredible wildlife spotting).

The bus ride wasn't terrible, in fact it was almost comfortable but we again made the mistake of sleeping during the day and being awake at night, so we rolled into Campo Grande at 9am feeling anything but fresh.We were about to check into our hostel when we were offered a 4-day trip into the Pantanal, but it was leaving at 10am.So after a quick wash we were back on a mini-bus for another 4 hours before being transferred to an open air truck for another 2 hours along an uneven, muddy, dirt track.

We finally arrived after countless hours traveling to our first real destination in South America where hopefully with a good night's sleep and some itch cream, we will be ready for adventure.

Love, R & A