Rio De Janeiro: 28 November - 3 December 2011 And so we've reached the last stop on our trip: Rio De Janeiro. Until recently it had never occurred to us that the weather in Rio would be anything other than bright sunshine. Then we started hearing stories from people who had been to Rio recently and had seen the city shrouded in cloud and fog. It wasn't too much of a surprise then to see rain streaking down the bus windows as we arrived. The 16 hour bus h...

Ilha Do Mel: 21-27 November 2011 The penultimate stop on our world tour was the small forest-covered, sand-fringed Ilha Do Mel; a small island a couple of miles off of the south east coast of Brazil. With less than two weeks left of our trip, it was time to hit the beach one last time for some tan-topping before travelling up to Rio and our flight home. Ilha Do Mel (or Honey Island) was a bit of a mission to get to - another overnight bus, a long wait for a c...

Iguazu Falls - 17th November to 20th November We took a bus from Bonito to Dourados where we boarded the overnight bus to Iguazu. The bus was already packed when we got on and we hadn't been able to book seats together so ended across the aisle from each other. There was a small boy (maybe 3 years old) already asleep on my seat so his mum had to wake him and drag him onto her lap. Easier said than done when she already had a small infant laid across her enjoyin...

The Pantanal & Bonito: 9-16 November The Pantanal had been on our list of things to see in Brazil since the very beginning. It struck us as a fascinating place: the world's biggest inland wetland and one of the best places in the world to spot wildlife. We were visiting at the height of the dry season so, according to our research, we would be easily able to see the vast numbers of Caiman alligators and birds clustered in and around the remaining wet areas....

Salvador: 4-7 November We arrived in Salvador in the early hours of 4th Nov, having spent all night on the plane coming from Manaus, via Belem. We managed to get some sleep, but having spent 4 of the previous 6 nights in hammocks, we were both pretty tired by the time we arrived. Salvador is a big city (c3 million people), with a beautiful old town sat on top of a hill overlooking the new city and out onto the bay. During the 4 days we were there, we spent th...