Planning a route

I got bored with tidying things today and so I started looking at guidebooks and maps for where we will go next. This is just a vague kind of planning, we have a direction and there will be a few 'must-sees', but many things will be made up along the way. 

Currently we a staying with friends in a town between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. From here our basic direction will first be to the Pantanal. 

The Pantanal is a massive wetland area that mostly lies in Brazil, but also with parts in Bolivia and Paraguay. It floods every year in summer (ie, the Southern Hemisphere summer). The best time to visit is May to September, but it's recommended to still go whenever you can. Why? Because although the Amazon is world famous, this is a much better place to see wildlife (apparently there's plenty of wildlife to see in the amazon... If only the jungle wasn't blocking the view). So we're hoping to see a Jaguar (although we missed its peak season by one month) and lots of other animals. 

From the Pantanal we're heading North, and East, to the Guyanas. 'The Guyanas' is a collective term for the countries at the top of South America, ie, French Guyana, Suriname, and Guyana. These countries aren't often visited by overlanders and in general they seem to be unknown even to the people of the other countries of South America. 

I haven't yet researched what we'll discover up there in the Guyanas. Being that one speaks French, the next Dutch and the other English I'm expecting some cultural difference, which, for me, is part of the joy of travel. 

Anyway, like they used to say on a commercial for travel to the Northern Territory (of Australia): Ya never never know if ya never never go.