Accommodation: We used hostels.com and hostelworld.com to book almost all of our accommodation. Private bedrooms, many of them ensuite, were available in almost all locations in South America and didn’t cost significantly more than dormitory rates. There are relatively few hostels in the USA but cheap motels/hotels are widely available.

Banking: Carry a few hundred dollars for emergencies. Use ATMs to get all your cash. Getting good exchange rates on your cards is essential; nationwide building society have a history of having exceptionally good no-fee exchange rates on their Flex account and credit card, the flex account also gives you a VISA debit card which is more widely recognised than Maestro. I dread to think of the amount of money it would have cost us in charges and rip-off exchange rates if we had used a high street bank account.

Language: The lonely planet Latin American Spanish pocket phrasebook is invaluable, there’s also a Lonely Planet Brazilian Portuguese phrasebook that we wished we had. We had language lessons in Quito, just the two of us and a teacher cheap and affordable. Michel Thomas Spanish CDs are a great way to get started in the UK.

Photos: Buy plenty of memory cards for your digital camera, they are relatively cheap these days and will save you a lot of stress if you never run out of space and can go for a long time, perhaps your entire trip, without having to mess around burning photos to CD in an Internet cafe which is just a waste of life.

Planning: Don’t book anything more than a few days in advance, the moment you have a reservation to pick up a car or meet a tour group it will cause you undue stress trying to get there (only possible exception is galapagos cruises).

There are some handy gadgets worth getting before you leave the UK; a folding dry bag, pegless washing line, gorilla camera mount, combination-code padlock for hostel lockers and rucksacks when out and about, earplugs, a handheld WiFi device such as an iPod touch (free WiFi is widely available in hostels, cafes and very occasionally in airports, whereas computer terminals with Internet access can be harder to find and can be queued out of the door). Probably the most useful gadget was a pocket notebook and pen on hand at all times – invaluable for scribbling down addresses of hostels, places people recommend you visit, email addresses of new friends, flight details and resolutions to do when you return home, and it makes an excellent souvenir.

We made extensive use of flights around South America, long-distance overnight buses have their uses but they are false economy for travelling very long distances around what is a truly massive continent; coming from the UK it is almost impossible to overestimate the size of South America! You’ll get stung by heavy airport taxes for tourists, there’s nothing you can do to avoid it but make sure you carry plenty of dollars in cash as they often don’t like credit cards. When flying put anything you want to keep in your hand luggage, this is not Europe or the US; checked in baggage gets searched through and anything worth taking will go, we only lost some makeup and a penknife. Flight prices varied drastically between different national carriers depending on which border you’re crossing and in which direction so it’s well worth shopping around. Beware, some airlines (aero argentinas for one) don’t accept credit cards from foreigners without going to their office!

Anti-malarials: malarone’s the one you want, it’s very expensive but worth it. You can take it for up to 3 months, we took it for about 2 months with no side effects at all. This pharmacy was the cheapest in the UK when we went, you’ll need a prescription from your GP. To work out where you need malarials we used this NHS website which is excellent, click on the country you’re interested in for a detailed map.

Visas: We found having a US visa very helpful for getting in and out of the US without an onward ticket. We would have run into hassle a few times without it, we’d probably have got by but found immigration staff treat you almost like a US citizen if you have a visa. It’s well worth keeping your passport numbers handy at all times even when you don’t expect to need them as you’ll be asked for them regularly.

Clothes: Don’t take too many clothes, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn you can buy new clothes on your travels very cheaply and it’s fun wearing local fashions. Many hostels offer full-service laundry priced very reasonably by the kilo if you ask them and it’s much better than washing your own in the sink!

Phone calls: We didn’t make many and rarely had the need to in South America. In the US we walked into a mobile phone shop and picked up a pay-as-you-go SIM card for nothing except the price of the credit on it which we could then top up online from credit card and was incredibly useful for making cheap calls to book hotels.

Day 2: After a late start the beach beckoned and we hid from the sun under some hired parasols with an Australian couple we met before jumping around in the crashing waves. In the afternoon we took a small tour with some other people from the hostel up to the christ statue and on the way back dropped in by the never ending tiled stair case in Lapa area of the city. We spent the evening testing the Caipirinhas in the hostel bar.

Day 3: Another lazy day, we had lunch by beach, explored our surroundings a bit more as far as the local shopping mall for ice cream and had dinner in Ipanema at gula gula restaurant before walking back along beach until we got tired of being eyed up by thieves and took a taxi back to Copacabana sea front which was much safer at night despite being less classy by day.

Day 4: We took the cable car up sugar loaf mountain and had our last swim on copacabana and final caipirinha’s in the hostel bar.

Day 5: We had a sea food feast for lunch by the beach taking in a lobster thermadore for good measure before heading to the airport. We got our connecting flight at Paris the next morning (where they confiscated the cachaca we had in our hand luggage) and were back at beautiful Heathrow by midday for the cab back to our house. We even thought we’d brought the sun back with us for a couple of hours but it wasn’t to last.

Day 2: Had a very relaxed day around the apartment and the beach just over the road. It was good preparation for what was to come; after starting late with a few drinks at a beach front bar it was back to Joao’s (a friend of Abilio’s) beach-front apartment with a carrier back full of limes, a couple of kilos of sugar and a bottle of cachaca to perfect making our own caiphrina’s, singing 80′s songs and watching Abilio dance until the sun came up over the horizon.

Day 3: We walked down the road back to Abilio’s apartment and managed to get a couple of hours sleep before catching the bus to Rio de Janeiro from Ubatuba’s bus station leaving Abilio and Carlos behind. All was going well until on the outskirts of Rio a car going in the opposite direction hit the central reservation, took off spinning through the air and careered into the side of the coach about a metre below Caroline’s window. Miraculously the bus driver kept the bus on the road and away from the slope beside the road and the driver of the car walked away from his upside-down vehicle. The side of the bus must be stronger than it looked as while perforated down the side of the bus it took the impact well and after the driver had been interviewed by the local TV station and the police had cleared the road we continued on in the same bus to Rio. We checked into our hostel 4 blocks back from Copacabana beach and took it very easy, counting ourselves very fortunate our Brazilian lottery ticket hadn’t won and the luck had instead been used elsewhere.

Day 2: Very lazy day following the late night before. Raining cats and dogs in SP today so taking it easy, eating pizza and trying to plan our next steps. In the evening Abilio and Carlos took us to a bar with a band playing excellent traditional Chorinho samba until the small hours.

Day 3: An exceptional day today, starting out with Gilberto and Renato (two people we met at Santa Catarina) taking us on a tour of the city in Gilberto´s car, we visited the Luz station and Portuguese language museum and outside we drank the water from a coco nut bought from a street vendor. Gilberto took us to his house where we met all the very welcoming family and were fed a top class meal of lasagne and Baiao de dos (rice and black beans) and were introduced to the wonder of corn juice! After lots of conversation in Spanish, to finish off they took us to Ibirapuera park where most of the city relaxes on Sunday afternoons. In the evening Abilio and Carlos took us to a bar where a band plays Forró music and we had a go at learning the steps and dancing until late along with a few more Caipirinhas, Gilberto and Renato showed up too with some of the ladies from Santa Catarina .

Day 4: We checked out of the hotel in the morning and spent the afternoon taking the metro and walking around Sao Paulo; we took in Praca de Se and Republica and walked most of the way along Av Paulista. In the evening Abilio and Carlos picked us up in Abilio’s Alcohol-fuelled car and we drove out to Ubatuba on the coast to stay at Abilio’s family’s beachfront apartment.

Back to plan A, we sat in a traffic jam in unbelievable temperatures behind the rest of Brazil (who were all heading to the beaches) to get to our tent. Once we arrived, hot and bothered it turned out the tent had not been bought yet and in fact didn´t get bought at all that day. Fortunately it later transpired there were some beds left in the single sex dorms which we eagerly checked into.

Late in the evening we went to the beach and watched a African influenced religious dance of some description with lots of candles, white clothes, spinning, jumping, smoking of pipes, clapping and drumming, with the Star of David set out in candles it was a very curious affair.

New Years Eve: Struggling with Florianopolis somewhat, after discovering that the main Brazilian airline won´t let non-Brazilians book tickets online, we arrived after an hour bus ride back to the centre only to find the airline office had closed until 2nd January ten minutes earlier. We´d been told that Brazilian ATMs in general don´t accept European cards so weren´t surprised when none worked, fortunately we´d already stumbled across the one bank in Florianopolis that does work (three cheers for HSBC!) and have booked a night bus from here to Sao Paulo for 3rd Jan. Back at our hostel on the South of the island we finally made it into the sea, and loved it!

In the evening we got a lift into Florianopolis centre with about 20 new Brazilian friends who wanted to show off their New Year driving skills (the Brazilian way) before we watched the fireworks and saw in the new year on the streets with the rest of the city, all very good.

New Year´s Day: Had an excellent lazy day around the hostel and the beach and it was a lot less busy in the area. In the evening we took a stroll along the beach to the next village with some friends from the hostel for a mountain of fresh fish. We were thoroughly impressed with the glow flies and the sand burrowing crustaceans we found on the way back in the dark and watched the fisherman wading in the surf catching fish in their nets. Santa Catarina is an excellent place to be when you do what it is meant for (beach) rather than the frustration of admin tasks of the previous days.

2nd Jan: The whole area has gone from full-to-capacity to near-empty in 24 hours and there´s hardly anyone on the beaches so that´s where we spent the day. The Costa de dentro beach that we´re on has to be one of the cleanest beaches we´ve ever seen, not only is the water clean but there´s literally no litter on the beach at all.  So we spent another day swimming in the waves, dodging the jelly fish and having another lovely night stroll on the beach followed by a tasty exotic version of fish and chips at a local fish restaurant.

3rd Jan: Another tough day at the beach jumping the waves before taking the hottest bus ride in history back to Florianopolis to catch the night bus to São Paulo. We had fun boarding the right bus in a busy station because we only know 3 words of Portuguese – they don´t seem to sell Portugese-English phrasebooks out here, so we are having fun guessing what people are trying to say to us. Being the body language experts that we are, we have found ways to get by.

After walking around above the falls on elevated walkways we finally got our first light soaking at the largest waterfall called the devil´s throat from the water vapour thrown up by the falls. More was to follow with a power boat ride under two of the water falls where we felt the thundering water landing on us before the boat hastily retreated and then powered down the river to drop us off for a truck ride back through the forest.

After leaving the falls we drove across the border into Brazil (where a local TV crew wanted to film us and worryingly got the border police extremely agitated) and to the very pleasant San Martin hotel in Foz do Iguaçu.

On our second day we toured the Brazilian side of Iguaçu for the amazing views of the falls on the Argentinian side that we had walked above the day before and then had lunch by the end of the falls.

On the 3rd day around Iguazu we parted company from Dave´s mum and sister when they headed off to Rio de Janeiro. We spent the morning panic booking accomodation for Florianopolis with little luck other than securing a one person tent, a kind lady on the phone informed us there were no rooms left on the island and that water shortages were being reported due to the enlarged population for new year. Despite this we had a leisurely day by the pool and headed off to the night bus from Foz do Iguaçu to Florianopolis that we´d booked the day before.

The next morning we took a trip down to La Boca, we didn´t visit the football team but had photos taken with tango dancers in the street. We wandered the streets of San Telmo around the Sunday antiques market and Caroline created a minor-craze in the area by buying and (ab)using a chicken noise machine from a street vendor. We dropped by the Cathedral and saw San Martin´s tomb (general who led Argentina, Chile and Peru to independence) guarded by soldiers. We wandered past the Casa Rosada presidential palace where Evita and Juan Peron made their famous appearance and settled into Cafe Tortoni for dinner (but narrowly missed the tango show).

First thing on Christmas Eve morning we dashed out to the Air France office (online booking wasn´t working) and booked our flight home to avoid the BAA strikes scheduled for the week we need to return, we´ll be landing in Britain early on 16th January. After some leisurely strolling around the shopping malls and past the Malvinas war memorial (with the names of all the 650 dead) we had lunch at a Buller brewing company bar and enjoyed their sampler of beers. After lunch we visited the famous Recoletta cemetery where Argentina´s rich and famous are buried in grandiose tombs and most famously, Evita´s grave. After a swim in the hotel pool we had dinner on the excellent Palermo Viejo roof terrace dinner and watched Buenos Aires light up with fireworks over our champagne.

On Christmas day we took a walk in the blazin heat to the obelisk on 9 de Julio and had an early Christmas day beer at the cafe before heading back to the hotel via the Congress building, we then enjoyed a very lazy day and finished up with evening dinner at an excellent parillada which served a truly fine T-bone steak the size of two fists.

On Boxing day everything was open again so we took in the Japanese gardens and the Evita museum and Dave had a long overdue hair cut before we all went to a superb Tango show in the evening.