We arrive at the Pantanal to find we will be unable to drive to our lodge as the entire area has been hit by devestating floods ... the worst they've EVER had!  We board the truck supplied by our lodge, that has had it's tray converted to open air seats.   We drive 10 minutes down the flooded roads, spotting an armadillo on the way and sadly seeing a dead cow lying on the road.  One of the 1000 plus that died when the waters roise quicker then expected. Fro...

We leave Ponta Pora early and get a nice cozy air conditioned private bus to Bonito!   This is our bus for the remainder of our time in Brazil and also takes us to the Pantanal and then onto Corumba. The only draw back is that there are no toilets on board ... A positive though, is this gives us an opportunity to stop at random places to use their roadside loos and get amongst the locals! Locals who sit at the roadside shacks, on their plastic chairs, at tab...

We only had a short stop over in Curitiba, arriving 5.30pm one day after a 7 hour bus ride from Sao Paulo, and leaving on the overnight bus to Foz Do Igassu the next night. Our tour group caught taxis from the bus station to the hotel.   My driver hands me his card before exiting the cab and looks into my eyes when handing me the bag and says, 'You are beautiful!'. My god I love Brasil!  Ok not that I want my Indian cab driver back home doing this, but it is...

We arrive in Sao Paulo after a 6 hour bus ride from Paraty. We do our orientation tour of downtown, passing through the mall. We momentarily feel like we're on a movie set when we all have to rush to the side as 2 police cars go racing down the middle of it, the second car with an officer half hanging out the window, gun poised in hand. The crowd all continues as normal and our group crack up laughing in shock if what we've just seen! Welcome to downtown Sao ...

Zoe and I joined the Tucan Tour the 2nd last day in Rio but didn't really get to meet everyone properly until we headed to Parati. After a huge final night in Rio the previous evening, we weren't too chatty and slept most of the way! Disappointingly, there were 20 on our tour, instead of the small group promised in their brochure. We were happy though, to find that the lady who was supposed to take our tour couldn't do it and we got the awesome Hernan from Cus...