Since I left Salvador on the coast of brazil none of us have met almost any tourists at all. It's really the road less travelled, a highlight itself course. And it's hilarious passing by on the street in the truck and everyone just stopes what they're up to looking at us and waving. As fast we got in to Santa Elena in Venezuela it changed.  Started to see other tourist already on the first hour. Santa Elena doesn't have much at all so we left they day after we got there heading north to the next big city doing one bush camp between. That was our plan.. The South part of Venezuela has a lot of waterfalls, so we had a few nice stops a long the road. Turned up that the camping spot wasn't a camping so we find ourself a nice hotel on the way.  During the evening Manuel and his son turned up and started to talk to us, we all become friends and he invited us to his home in a small city called otamina a couple of hours away in the same direction we were heading.. We changed our planes and took of to his place in the morning the day after. Met his wife and daughter over a lovely local dinner at there house. ( we brought alcohol of course ) and again they invited us to there friends the next day doing a boat trip. Keen as we are we did that to. Spend the hole day whit family and friends, barbecuing, chillin', boat trip. They took us out on a lake to a completely empty beach. No people and no boats as far we could see and the beach were untouched. Peaceful. Their all so friendly and I just love them. This is absolutely one of the biggest highlights on my trip. Venezuela, so far so good, loving hablas espaniol. :)  - Gringo loco. 

The most north town in FG is Saint Laurent, a small but interesting place that once been like the rest of the country a French colony. They kept the old prisons, which were still used in the 70/80th. Saturday morning keeps the town bustling with a lovely (mostly) fruit and veggie market and the early bird competitions on Sunday mornings. The competitions seems to be the man type of thing, the winner of course has the most singing bird. Be aware of the local drink, punch, it's rocking and almost undrinkable. You never get enough time to see everything, taking a couple of hours  with border crossings and Suriname doesn't have to much to offer but  stopped in Paramaribo for 2 days. Doing the normal city sightseeing, trying local food. Their roti is to die for. Indian I now, tasty !  Our second day some of us went for a bicycle ride seeing the areas closed by. The bike rental handed us a planned tour in Dutch ( Suriname was a Dutch colony. ) I find it funny that I was able to read parts of it. A mix of German, Swedish and English. I turned out being the guide of the day, their English spoken who doesn't have a clue what the book said. (UK, Aussies and Yankee's) Anyway, did two river crossings on local boats, wobbling around old forts with prisons, gun powder cellars and old cacao industries. Didn't do more than 60km, but with the heat is more than enough.  A twelve hours truck ride, with border crossing took us to Eena's guest house in Georgetown, Guyana. Started first evening with local beer and rum. Couldn't do it better. Our next day we made our way to Eldorado rum distillery, a guided tour that finished with rum tasting and of course buying rum in there own shop next door was cheap. Bought myself one of their spice rum, with rich of cinnamon flavor cost me ALMOST 4 USD or 22.50 SEK. Finally we got to a cheap country.  Second day was a bit more expensive but worth every cent of the 270 USD that we paid each person. Nine of us hired a small airplane, 10 seats witch our pilot, to take us to Kaieteur falls. 75% of Guyana is covered with rainforest so more than 16 million hectare and I'm happy seeing parts of it. Kaieteur falls, situated within Kaieteur National Park on Potaro river. The highest sheer drop waterfall in the world of 226 meter makes it one of those oh my god moments. Five times higher than Niagara. The environs of Kaieteur is home to a number of rare species, for me, the golden frog was impressive. You can only find them in one place and thats at Kaieteur. Their entire life cycle plays out in the water that collects in the giant - second largest bromeliad in the world, which is a kind of green bush likely palm tree. I was expecting a normal sized frog, schh so wrong I were. The golden frog is not bigger than the nail of my thumb. Quit small. Kaieteur National Park is Guyana's first National Park and established in 1929, encompasses 242 square miles of raw jungle. The surface of the highlands is roughly 2 billion years old and the earth oldest, also one of the three richest tropical areas on earth.  Never been in such a small airplane before, a bit scary but amazing. Our view was just stunning. All green with some creeks and rivers breaking in. After an hour tour seeing the closest area around we had a great local lunch and jumped back on the airplane heading more south to Orinduik falls. Orinduik falls thunders over steps terraces and swimming there was the best natural jacuzzi you'll get. Nice and cool for the hot weather and great views. The falls is on the border to Brazil so literally we were in two countries at the same time. Got back in the afternoon, exhausted for being awake since five having a wonder in botanical gardens first.  Hit the road at six in the morning the day after giving us 3 days of driving trough the jungle of Guyana. I really wanted to see some Jaguars and Tucan's but was unlucky..  Our second day we drove through Iwokrama, a protected area, almost like a park. Went to a lovely butterfly farm and in the afternoon we did the canopy walk. A walkway 30 meters up close to the tree tops surrounding jungle. Some of us saw Tucan's. I didn't, FAIL !  Crossed the border into Brazil and made it all the way to Boa Vista. Had a nice last dinner for Jo and Mark.  This morning I woke up at six with the door to my room completely open and Paul wasn't there.. Sat up and there he was laying with his feet in the room and the rest of him was in the corridor. Started to laugh, taking pictures and yeah I was on my way to leave him like that but as nicely I'm I didn't. He was a bit confused and was back sleeping after five seconds.  Big goodbye hugs to Mark and Jo and now we are on our way to Santa Elena, Venezuela. - Morning Glory.

French Guyana, here I'm. The roads between Brazil and FG is dirt roads so we were all prepared for some digging if we would get duck somewhere. We were only stuck once, or the trucks before us was stuck which made us wait until someone could pull it up the hill. Tree hours of waiting with poring rain, lacy brazilians and mud everywhere.. But we had fun, as usual. The road had one of the best views of the jungle so far. It was on both sides of and thick. You couldn't see anything through it and some rivers coming up to. I was just sitting paralyzed watching the view. Crossed the river and entered French Guyana, road less traveled, and arrived late in the evening at the capital Cayenne.  Got the visas for Suriname which cost me 42€ and it's the only visa I need for South America. Anyway, cayenne was a small like the rest of the country but I did like it. A huge difference compared to brazil. It's not just very very expensive but so much Europe and yeah French of course. You could actually walk around without worrying.  None of us wanted to spend some days in the city so we left further north where we stayed for a night watching turtles laying eggs on the beach. The first turtle I spotted was a "normal" kind and she tooled 2,5 hours to lay her eggs and go back into there water. Turned out to be very long but we watched her all the way trou. Loved to sitting on the beach, watching those massive turtles doing there crazy sound trying to scope the sand over the eggs. We spotted some leatherbacks to, the biggest turtles. Tried to found out how big they are so I laid down close to it and the first one was in my size around 1,65 meters and the biggest we saw must have been something like 1.85m. They can get a weight up to 900kg. They way there looking makes me think of dinosaurs.  No tourists, big moon and a lot of turtles. Didn't get back until half two. Unlucky you can't take pictures with flash because it scares them so I don't have any pictures but I keep it in my memories. This night we did our camping in the garden to some locals that invited us. Had a wonderful night dancing samba and drinking to strong drinks. Hit the space center ESA in Kouru this morning and went on a tour around the area. Cool to see a real space center where they send up satellites for european countries. The reason why they have it in FG is because it's on the equator and the speed of earth gives the rockets extra power to lift so its using one/third of fuel than normal and they also have the power to send heavier satellites. Maximum weight for the satellites is 10tons, that's only 1% of the total weight. 90% is fuel and the last 9% is engine etc. It's using 200 tons of fuel in two minutes and that's when the two boosters on the side is falling of back in the sea. At 36.000 km from earth is our biggest satellites and they last up to 15 years. We been sending over 4000 satellites into space and only 10% is working so right now they're trying to find a way to take them back.  If something would go wrong and the rocket will explode it's gonna make hole in a area of 1km.  South Africa where gonna send one satellite up last Friday but something with the Vulcan engine didn't work. The rocket stopped and they are gonna try again next Friday.

24 hours on the boat across the amazonas was probably enough. Went from Belem to Macapa. Its the same all over but the view was just amazing. Laying in my hammock watching the worlds biggest rainforest passing by. A highligth so far I think.
Specially when we trough plastic bags out of the boat with food inside, gifts for the people living on the side banks of the amazon. They came up to us in there small wooden boats hoping to get some free food.
Enjoyed that moment. Hard to describe the trip, it was crowded with hamocks everywhere and you could hardly move without poking the person on your side. Sunny and I kept pooking eachother. But we all sleapt well.
Vodka is sometimes doing you good. I even woke up on my side in the hammock.

Had a good night practising samba on the boat. Though I was better after a while but apperently I was wrong. :)
Macapa its not the biggest place in earth and its nothing fancy to see at all. Celebrate Matt our first evening for his 51th birthday. Had dinner and Caiprinihas on the street and the traditional naked poolswim until sunrise.

Paul and I happend to do some sigthseeing the day after, saw the old fort and today we went to the equator. Zero Zero Zero. Nothing very special but thats all you can do here. Think we are all happy to leave tomorrow. Even if Miguel is not coming with us. Gonna do a big goodbye party tonigth ! 
Heading for the Guiyanas tomorrow, will get there in about two days I think.


                                                                                                                                                - Rock on.

On our last night in Sao Luis, Matt was mugged so he lost his wallet. Annoying when it happens. Arrived to Belem at noon yesterday.  Me, Joe and Lou decided to go for a walk, some food and a drink. We walked for a while and just when we hit the end of the main street, the tiniest woman runs up and attack Joe. Grabbing her bag so she started to scream. Me and Lou started to hit her with our umbrellas. I punched her in the head so she lost the little knife she had.  Luckily she let go and we all run at different directions.  We are all fine and Joe still got her bag. You just get so surprised when it happens. This women was not taller then 140cm and skinny like hell and it was three of us where I am the smallest.. Last time when it happened to me in rio I thought the biggest reason was because I was alone but even now when it was the three it happened. You just get so surprised.  Yeah, the north/east part of Brazil is supposed to have the biggest crime.  So far I've just seen brazil and I would never recommend anyone to travel by them selves. I love to travel by myself but nit here it's to fucking dangerous. When the tour ends I think me and Lou are going to Peru and Bolivia together and then I have to get on a tour to see Argentina and chile. I'm not shore if I have the coverage to go by myself. I always though I was tough but maybe I was wrong. Let see in a couple of month how it works out. - there's nothing wrong with change if it goes in the right direction. Winston Churchill. 

Oi is portuguese slang for hello. Love it.  My home at the moment is a big truck with a weight of 17.5 tons. It has sets for around 20 persons and has a kitchen so we can do all our cooking by ourselves. Right now we are 8 with Adam who's the owner of the truck. As usual I'm the youngest one, then there is; Sunny, which is 29 and from Norway and Adams girlfriend. Cool girl. Louise is about 32 and from the UK. Crazy beer drinker with a big smile. Pikney from Singapore is 35 and probably the one thats get the most out of the trip. She's just crazy about the sightseeing.  Adams is also from the UK and he's the owner of the truck. Running the trip for the first year so he's exploring as much as we do. - southamerciaoverland.com  Then there is Joanne, 36, from London. She is, compare to the rest of us, on a short vacation for only one month.  Jane is from the beautiful NZ but been living in London the last years. In her 40th. The oldest of us is Matt, from Colorado. Turning 51 in the beginning of April. ( load up the booze. ) He is the oldest on the paper, but the most craziest in the group. Always with some funny stories and a mug with booze in his hand.  In a couple of days Paul from Perth and Miguel from NY is going to join us. I've met them in itacare, they are the reason how I found out about the trip. They been on the trip since September with a start in Quito, Ecuador. They took a break for a month and gonna joint us soon. Glad I've met those two epic guys.  - Forget yesterday, dream about tomorrow but live today. unknown.

As always we arrived late. So, we all went for in drink in the small town called Praia de pipa. Turned out to be such a sweet place, just those small places you enjoy.  Went to a bar called beach bar, on the beach of course. Started with a caipriniha which is always good but in that bar I picked my favorite. A drink called coco loco, made with ice, coconut and loads of vodka. Tasty. Matt and I just had to try all there tasty drinks with fresh mangoes, passion fruit, pineapples and so on.. The good thing for me was that's the bartender filled my drinks with extra booze all the time. ( they are well filled before.. ) everyone except me, Matt and sunny went back to get some sleep.  We left for another bar up the street that had Brazilian live music. The guys playing was just amazing, what a feeling. That was the bar where Matt ordered more caiprinihas and some shots to that..  Lost the others and it took me years to find my way back to the camping but I made it ! Proud ! The day after wasn't to funny to handle. I was in a bad shape after all, not just me, think Sunny was even worse. Made it to the beach and around the area, shopping. Met Matt later on so we ended up in the beach bar again for a couple of coco loco's.  Pipa, as we read about it was going to be a small and cozy hippie town. It was small and cozy but not hippie. I did like it a lot anyway.  Left early morning Ubujara national park. Long way to get there so there was time for another bush camp. Turned of the highway and got in a small village. The bad thing was that we got stuck driving in the sand and it was getting dark quickly. So we had no choice, had to camp where we were. Which was a nice place anyway.  There were just 1500 living there so we were the excitement of the day. Imagine 20 Brazilians trying to help you dig up the truck speaking portuguese that none of us didn't understand. Good fun.   Anyway, they all left and there was another guy coming up. Alexander who was one of the two English spoken living there. So, the day after it was easier, even thou it took us about 1,5 hour to get the truck out of there.  Left for Ubujara national park that's famous for there caves and nicely waterfalls. We found some good news and some bad ones. The bad ones that the cable car to the caves was broken and had been like that for a couple of weeks. Typical brazil. So, some of us wanted to walk, which we couldn't because of the rain. Damn it ! We did a short trail and had a stunning view of the area and waterfalls. From there we went to another national park called the seven city's, that had some crazy rock formations. Cool to see, did 2 of them the first day then the rain started like crazy so we had to go back. The water was up to our knees, we all had to hold hand because of the stream. Fun thou.. But the best part was to drive to motorbikes, I was the only one of the girls that been driving before so I just had to drive which I don't complain about !!  Saw the rest of the park the day after. Definitely cool to see. We took off to see the sand dunes that's further up north. Went on a 4W drive over then. Really wanted to do a buggy tour but it wasn't available from the town we were staying. Means i Got to do it in Peru.. And yeah now we're in Sao Luis. Started my day to get the yellow fever vaccination, wasn't the easiest I've done but I made it. Vaccination center was really crappy and looked like a closed down buss station and they kept the vaccinations in coolers. The same ones you will bring with you to the beach on a hot summer day. Funny.  Tried to pay them but it didn't go to well so I actually took of. Free yellow fever vaccination, oh yeah ! Left for a hospital trying to get malaria medicine, so fucking hard in this country. Yes, I don't make it easier not to speak the language so I have to blame myself a bit to. I had four doctors around me that all thought I HAD malaria so they where checking for fever and so on. Took me half an hour to explain that I was fine and just wanted my tablets. Didn't work at all so I left.  Sao Luis isn't very big so to see the most interesting places doesn't take more than one day maybe two but that's all.  It's famous for the historical part, not my biggest interest but cool to walk around and look at crappy houses. It also says it's famous for being a reggae place. Our last night we went out for dinner. Friday night and the city was completely empty. But out of the blue we found a big square with shit loads of people, Live music, food and drinks. Got some cheap egg burgers and tapioca filled with banana, coconut and cinnamon. Tums up.  The drinks were cheap as usual, 3 reals for caiprinhia's, about 12 SKR. Started to dance samba, as awesome as we are. NOT. At least we had fun and the people around did to. There's a few people over here that impress me and this guy did, Houmos, he was born in Sao Luis, only in his 19th, very well English spoken, good in French, was on his way studying Spanish and in the university. You don't met a lot of does people over here.  For once I was able to have a good chat with a local. The night was just fantastic and it's always even better when you are the only foreigners or gringo's as they say.. - Sunshine, Sunshine reggae. 

Our first stop on the truck was Praia de forte where we sound the afternoon whatching turtles, sharks and some other special marine life. Learned that the black back turtles could be around 2 meters long and have a weight up to 900kg. P de F, was a small but touristic place. Not really a city more like a bigger resort. I had my first camping night with loads of rain that night but it went out fine. Find the biggest frog under my tent in the morning.. We started our trip up to olinda which is a long journey up the coast of brazil. So, we had some bush camping by the beach half the way. Beautiful place to stay just by the beach, my tent isn't the best so it collapsed around 5am. So I went for a run and a swim on the enormous empty beach. Not bad, oh no.  Arrived in olinda late the day after because we couldn't find our camping so we all checked in to a hostel. Which was nice with hammocks and a pool area.  Olinda is a really small place on the hills just outside the big city recife so you'd get a stunning view over the city from there. Is a place famous for it's different types of arts that they have in all sorts of ways. So walking was a good option to check it out. Up the hills and down the hills.. In the evening we went for some food of the street. I tried tapioca ( some kind of rice with different choice of fillings that they put into a frying pan. I had coconut and cheese. Yum. ) and Acaraje ( fried potato with tomatoes, onions, prawns and some other fillings. Tasty. ) both of them are special for Bahia the north east state we are in. Of course we find our way to the nice man with the alcoholic drinks. We made a choice of a fruit and the mashed in a can with some ice and pored a huge amount of vodka inside, shake it and done. I picked a cherrylicious drink, yum. The drink only cost me 14SEK. ( around 2 USD/AUD ) I'm not gonna complain about that. Alcohol is actually the only cheap thing here in brazil otherwise it's fucking expensive. Even worse than Australia, no doubts.  So yeah, for being a backpacker we all can effort to drink a lot.  At the moment we are on the road again heading for another small hippie town called Praia de pipa. Hoping to get an hour or two on the beach with a young coconut and a beer in the other hand. Also, hoping to find the earrings I been looking for. Really want one of those dreamcatchers. Brazil have a lot of good shopping, sadly it's expensive. You find amazing earrings, bracelets and neckless of the streets which is nothing you will find anywhere else..  In the end, its not the years in your life that count. Its the life in your years. - Abraham Lincoln