The Big Trip. Stephen, Laura, James and Sinead head for an epic adventure: 17 weeks in South America 8 weeks in New Zealand 2 weeks in Fiji 11 weeks in Australia 14 weeks in South East Asia.

We spent a week  on the coast south of Rio in what is known as the Coste Verde. Our first stop was four hours south of Rio in a small colonial town called Paraty. The journey down was amazing. The road hugs the coast and around every corner was another astonishing beach and deep blue sea. We stayed in Misty Chill. It was a really cool little hostel located right on the sea front. We were lucky enough to get the room with doors out to a balcony overlooking the beach. We chilled out here for three nights. We spent our time swimming, sea kayacking and just generally bumming around. The highlight of the stay wasa tour we did which took us to a number of waterfalls in the rainforest.

After Paraty we heading back up the coast for two hours to Angra dos Reis. From there we caught a schooner to Ilha Grande. This is Brazil's biggest island. It covered in rainforest and is a protected world heritage site. People are banded from entering a large part of the island. There are no cars allowed on the island. The girls were not impressed when we had to carry our bags for twenty minutes up a steep hill to reach our poussada. The room was a bit of a kip and we were not impressed. That night we were all awoken by a screem. "Get it off me!!, Get it off me!!". A large cockroach was crawling across Sinead´s chest. We laughed, Sinead screamed. She didn't get any sleep that night and the lights were left on for the following three nights there. The island had nice beaches to see during the day. Sinead and James walked a trail to the top of a hill and saw a family monkeys in the forest. There was no night life on the island. Everywhere shut up at ten o'clock and no one was ever in the bar. We found ourselves home every evening by the magic time of 11:26. In the end we were delighted to get off the island. It was nice but we wanted to be in a more upbeat spot. After this it was off to Iguacu falls.