We started our adventures in Rio on a rainy Thursday morning, and if it was not enough, all hostels were fully booked! The golden era of our kind of hard-core backpacking is over! The backpackers world is now filled with spoiled nancy-boys who book weeks in advance and don't live life the adventurous way! So against our will we were forced to book the two last beds in Rio over the internet. The first night was in a hostel full of Israelis. This means you are in the cheapest place in town, but also means that there are women selling their services and cocaine around, so the next day we left Copacabana for Botafogo. (another neighbourhood in Rio) Our first day in Rio we went shopping with moderate success and ended the day on the famous Friday-night party in the streets of Lapa. The setting was just amazing, the music truck stopped in front of a kind of aqueduct that has some tram rails on top.

The next day we spent the afternoon on Ipanema beach at Posto 9, the place to be to be checked out and check others out. After an amazing sunset, we strode back home to prepare ourselves for the carnival parade of the six best carnival schools of Rio. The whole event goes from 7pm until 7am and doesn't take place in the streets like you might think, but in Rio they have a stadium that is only used once a year for this occasion! It looks like a kilometer long road with huge tribunes on both sides. The whole parade was just breathtaking!

On Sunday, while Carlos did his laundry, I went rock climbing around the famous Pão de Azucar with an Israeli friend and some Brazilians we had met. It was the physically hardest climb of my life, but the location was just too incredible that I had to do it! To celebrate, we went that night to a favela, which are famous for their Sunday-night funk raves.

My last days in Rio we spend visiting the surprisingly pretty center, the Cristo Redentor (one of the seven new wonders of the world) with its stunning view over 'la Cidade Maravilhosa' build between beaches and huge rock formations. And to end in style we went to a soccer game in the Maracanã stadium! The Mecca for every soccer fan!

As the team I support in Belgium is performing quite poorly during my absence, I temporarily switched to cheer for Flamengo (last years champion of Brazil) and we chanted, jumped and cheered them to a 2-0 victory over Universidad Catholica de Chile in the South American Champions League: Copa Libertadores.

The next day I separated from one of my two loyal travel companions. Sadly enough the wrong one. Carlos decided to stay a little longer in Rio, so I left him in the pouring rain in Rio to take my chances on better weather in the Pantanal. I bought a bus ticket for a 23 hour ride to Campo Grande and got 25 hours instead. I slept most of it, because I forgot my earplugs with Carlos and without these, the only piece of technology I own out here is totally useless.

In Campo Grande I arrived in the most shining and glamorous bus terminal ever! The airport of Bogota looks like a rusty old shed next to it. I was amazed to find such a construction out there that pretty, but sad at the same time, because my guidebooks said that my hostel would be across the street of the terminal, but I had a strong feeling that this one was a new one. And so confirmed the utterly friendly lady at the info desk for travelers. Luckily for me there was a local bus-line connecting the new terminal with the old one.

With a smile on my face and happy of my choice to come to Campo Grande I walked out of the terminal to go search for my bus, but soon my mood changed when I saw a little boy fall off the motorbike of his grandfather, who drove too fast over a speed bump, and got run over by a truck. (The next day I read in the newspaper that he was only 11 years old. These things happen out here more frequently than you might expect)

On this sad note I stepped on my bus and went looking for my hostel in a dodgy neighborhood of the old terminal. The next day I found myself on the road, again, with too many Aussies and Israelis deep into the jungle of the Pantanal for a three-day adventure. Our campsite was one kilometer from the Transpantanal, which is not much more than a dirt-road with a lot of wooden bridges. One kilometer is not that bad with your backpack, unless it is through muddy shallow water (waist deep) in the middle of the night!

The following days it was all about spotting wildlife, swimming in the Rio Negro, waiting hours for our jeep/truck to get fixed (we broke down four out of the six tires!) and feeding piranhas (they weren't too keen on biting my hook, so I ended up feeding them more than catching them, at the content of the vegetarians in our group!) That night I started my adventure down south with a first one-day stop in Bonito. This place is famous for it crystal-clear rivers packed with the most colourful fishes. I woke up early, went swimming with them and in the afternoon I continued my trip and went looking for my two Belgian friends in Iguaçu: Carlos and Vincent. After a night with a reasonable amount of caipirinhas, a reunification with Argentinian wine and our world famous spaghetti bolognese with a lot of good stories, we went the next day together to the Argentinian side of the falls. They immediately took a solid place in my top five of most beautiful things I have ever seen! I've now seen three out of four of the world's most famous waterfalls. I hope one day I can make it to the Victoria falls, because I've been told that they are even more breathtaking!

With two months of the best life-time memories, I said goodbye to my dear friend and travel-mate with a tear in my eye. It was better than what we ever would have expected and I hope we'll be on the road together one day for more good times! Que te vaya bien, ché!

So now it's again me.. alone, on the road! I got in Bariloche after a 45hour bus-ride via Buenos Aires and now I got everything ready to go hiking in Patagonia with a previous travel-mate of mine. Today we registered ourselves at the mountaineering office that we will be out there for the next four days in the mountains! Far away from civilization with our cans of tuna, crackers, fruit and biscuits!

Hasta pronto for more adventures!
G. on the road