The Pantanal! If we thought the dirt roads around Bonito were bad we hadn´t seen anything yet! We left Bonito and after about 4 hours of being bounced around in the back of a mini bus we arrived at Passo do Lontra in the Pantanal. The Pantanal is a huge swamp land which is bigger than france. There are no roads, just dirt tracks which turn to mud when it rained. We arrived at our "plush" lodge for the next 2 nights. We had been expecting hammocks...

After 2 very bumpy buses, and a mini bus transfer at 4am, we arrived in Bonito 13 hours later feeling pretty tired. It was really difficult to sleep on the overnight bus this time as the road surface didn´t seem too great and were are speed bumps everywhere. We are not entirely sure why we are in Bonito. It seems to be that whenever you have a long bus journey GAP think you should stop the next day. We are starting to wish they wouldn´t do this as w...

After almost 2 full days of travelling we have arrived at Iguassu falls. We left Ilha Grande on a boat that almost went on fire. We got the mini bus back to Rio to catch the night bus (15 hours) to Curitiba. The night bus was great though, it was like flying club world (loads of room and almost full beds with foot rests). We got to Curitba on Sunday morning at 8am. There is NOTHING to do in Curitiba, particularly on a Sunday. Nothing was open and it was like a ...

After a couple of days in Rio we headed South on the start of our tour. We started off in luxury with our own private mini bus from the hotel to the ferry for Ilha Grande. We got to the ferry only to find we had to wait about 4 hours for another GAP tour to join us. We think waiting around could become a common theme on this trip. To pass the time we headed to the only restuarant in the village. For less than GBP2 we had a feast of rice, beans, chicken and salad...

Hi eveyone, We made it to Rio safely. The flight was long, it stopped in Sao Paulo (further away than Rio!) first, and then the baggage and immagration lines were large and uncontrolled. Almost saw a fight in the airport when we jumped in to the line in front of people. We managed to turn down several very enthusiastic taxi drivers outside the airport who informed us it was four hours on the bus to Copacabana. and that he would take us in 2. We waited an h...