You know that emotion somewhere between excitement and fear when you take a corner too fast, and the car is almost on two wheels? And you know there's really no need to drive like that? Try to imagine that same emotion magnified to the realms of a coach journey. Lasting 7 bone-jarring hours over pot-holed tarmac and dirt tracks.

There's no breeze to pacify the sun. When the coach stops to cross a river, the temperature inside (no air-con) increases 100%. Now, we've all been irritated by a fly, midge or mosquito before, right? But by a cloud of them? As everyone stepped off the coach for the crossing by makeshift tug-barge, one by one they began a mad arm-flapping dance. It was as we stepped off into that same cloud of giant mosquitoes that we realised what all the fuss was about.

On our slow drift across the murky brown river, long brown 'logs' appeared on the surface, observed us, winked then submerged....Birds with unfeasibly long beaks and brightly coloured bellies flitted past. Our t-shirts stuck to our backs in the heat. Still the mosquitoes attacked. This was definite swamp country.

The coach spat us out at Corumba, and keeping our heads down we skirted the cowboy boots, Wranglers and stetson hat brigade (this was also cowboy country), and found possibly THE dingiest 'hotel' of our trip yet. Lying on the torn sheets and maintaining a sensible distance from the smelly pillows, we looked up at the bare electric cables and myriad of cobwebs in our room, and could not help but feel that perhaps we were the ones intruding on the resident spiders and mosquitoes. The luxuries of Terry's Sao Paolo apartment seemed a long way away.

Unfortunately the 3 day swamp trip we'd hoped for here proved too expensive. The allure of treading carefully amongst "snakes, piranhas, killer bees and the larger jacarés (crocs)" would have to wait until Bolivia, where it should be cheaper. We opted instead to drink one last caipirinha and one last Brazilian beer, and to sample one last Brazilian meal (a "would you like some meat with your meat?" type affair - god help any vegetarians out here).

Reflecting on our month in Brazil, we agreed that our lasting memory would be of an unashamedly sensual nation, for whom nothing comes more naturally than music, dancing and football. Also, given our previous concerns, we were delighted with our 2-nil victory over the Brazilian Bag Snatchers, and felt in buoyant mood for our forth-coming ties with the Bolivian Backpack Slashers and the Peruvian Pickpockets.

On to Bolivia!