01Day 1. Relaxing on one of Rio de Janeiro’s stunning beaches before setting out on our journey around Brazil.02Day 2. On the road at last, after six months of planning and preparation.03Day 4. The Nova Lima open-pit iron-ore mine just outside Belo Horizonte was a good place to learn about modern mining techniques.04Day 8. The main square in Salvador, a city with a strong Catholic influence.05Day 8. The interior of the São Francisco Church in the center of Salvador is almost entirely painted in gold leaf, a reminder of a time when Salvador was one of the wealthiest cities in the world.06Day 11. A drink of coconut water can be surprisingly refreshing after spending a long, hot day on the bike struggling through deep sand on the beaches near Natal.07Day 11. Regular and frequent water stops were essential as we headed north towards the Equator.08Day 12. The beach route north of Natal took us over sand dunes and on river crossings that would have been fun in any other situation, but that slowed us down so much we eventually gave up and continued our journey by road.09Day 15. As we headed deeper into the Amazon Basin, this small mountain provided us with some of the only twisting and winding roads of our entire journey.10Riding through the southern Amazon Basin in northern Pará, where the dirt roads took their toll on how far we could travel each day.11Day 19. In incredibly humid heat, the last thing you want to eat is barbequed corn, but it was that or nothing at this truck stop near Uruará in Pará state.12Day 20. Pausing for a rest on a relatively mud-free section of the Trans-Amazonian Highway (BR-230) just outside Rurópolis in the state of Pará.13Day 20. When the rain starts to fall, the red soil turns to mud, trucks begin to slip and slide, and passing other vehicles becomes potentially lethal.14Day 30. Our first day on the BR-319, which has a reputation for being one of the most dangerous roads in the world. The sign indicates that we were just 589 km (366 miles) from the town of Humaitá, in Paraguay, a journey that would have taken us almost a week at the rate we were currently traveling.15One of the 133 broken bridges that make the BR-319 the toughest and most dangerous road in Brazil.16Our support vehicle got stuck regularly in the deep, sticky mud of the BR-319 in the remote Amazon.17Day 31. These local Brazilian men, who had stopped to do some repairs on their car while driving north along the BR-319, also advised us to turn around.18Stopping to assess the rapidly deteriorating road as we ventured deeper into the Amazon on the BR-319. The mud was much worse than expected and made this part of the trip incredibly difficult.19Day 33. Sleeping under the stars deep in the Amazon jungle, in a hammock strapped to our support vehicle, halfway along the BR-319.20Day 35. On our last day on the BR-319, my cameraman, Chad Ingraham, catches the moment when I fall off my motorcycle into the mud.21Day 38. Having survived our journey through the Amazon jungle, we were on our way to the Pantanal when this picture was taken, of a beautiful stretch of farmland just outside the municipality of Jaru in the state of Rondónia.22Day 41. Birds fly in from all directions to rest on a tree in the Pantanal, which encompasses the world’s largest tropical wetland and is home to thousands of plant and animal species.23Day 47. Almost deafened by the roar of the water, and undaunted by the prospect of being soaked to the skin, we sat in the small rubber boat that would take us underneath the massive Iguazu Falls.24Day 61. Finishing where it had all begun, on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, after traveling 13,063 km (8117 miles) on an amazing journey around Brazil.
