Vern: We arrived safe and sound in Rio and after an uneventful flight and an hour long immigration queue, the airport bus driver was determined to give us a little taste of buses to come. He ignored all 'Pare' signs and read the maps which tourists handed him while driving at full speed. We slept in a six bed dorm in a clean, professional hostel in Ipanema. Today it is 25 degrees, but unfortunately we brought the clouds and sporadic rain with us. Unperturbed, we...

Andrea: These are our lives for the next year! Vern thinks we overpacked and I have to disagree with that. It will definitely be a challenge, but let's hope we hurry up and use those 10 packs of tissues we bought for toilet paper to free up half the bags. We fly tomorrow at noon to our first stop, Rio! We stay in a hostel the first 2 nights and then a hotel, which is actually cheaper than the hostel during Carnival! We'll be in Rio for about 8 days. Hopefully we...

Vern: We're hard at work trying to tie up our lives in London and getting ready to hit the road on March 1st, 2011. Lots of work to do so I should probably stop writing...