(Byron)  And so from Brazil to our final destination: Madrid.  Now after previous experiences of flying with Iberia (lost bags, scary trolley dollies and missed connections), I had expected the worst, but the flight was actually OK.  Not exactly luxury, but we landed on time, all in one piece and with bags, so that was a bonus.  We then had 3 days in Madrid to re-acclimatise to the northern hemisphere before our final flights home.  Madrid is actually a really nice city - we have been meaning to go for a "city break" for a few years, but as our flight back from Rio went through there, we thought we`d get off and have a few days, as our round-the-world ticket allows us to do just that.  We had a lovely few days eating Tapas, looking at great art galleries and drinking decent coffee (Brazil seems to export all its good coffee, and that which they keep is served with more sugar than coffee.  Urgh.)  So a cultural three days, but largely uneventful with maybe only a couple of notable observations worth writing about:

• Europe is bloody cold!  Now I know that the rest of the world thinks Britain has crap weather, but when you are used to it, it doesn`t seem so bad.  However, when you`ve basically been following the sun for 10 months, it`s shocking.  Madrid was about 11 degrees during the day.  Doesn`t sound too bad to a Brit, I suppose, but we worked out that it was probably our coldest day since we left home (yeah I know .. no sympathy from any of you).  Seriously, we were both freezing ... about 4 layers, gloves, hat, scarf and I still couldn`t get warm.  I also found that every time I leave a bar / restaurant, I forgot my coat until we got outside.  I`ve basically been wearing t-shirts for 10 months so am not used to having to remember to pick things up.  I`m still doing it a week after we get home.  Clearly my brain is addled through the extended holiday, and I`m going to have to find a way of re-activating it before I go back to work on 6th April (that`s in 25 days, not that I`m counting.  Actually, I got my first work email yesterday.  It was sent to my personal email account, so after 30 seconds of looking at it and wondering what the hell all those acronyms meant, I deleted it.  Hopefully it will go away ... I think I`m suffering from ostrich syndrome.  if only I had some sand to bury my head in I could pretend that I was still in Brazil and it was warm).
• The pedestrian crossings sound like budgerigars.  In most other places, you get a "beep beep beep" to accompany the green man to tell you that its safe to cross the road.  In Madrid, there are no beeps, but intead it sounds like there is a family of budgies trapped in the lamppost.  It`s weird .. and very distracting. I nearly walked into a bus as I tried to locate said avians. Indeed, if a real flock of budgies ever found itself in Madrid, there would be traffic chaos and blood everywhere.  It`s a potential death trap ... you heard it here first.

Anyway, that brings us to the end of our travels, so here is some information about our trip .....

• We visited 20 different countries, in 4 continents, and made 26 border crossings. Our brand new extra large passports are now half full.
• We flew 54,000km by air, taking 19 flights, with 9 different airlines.  And we didn`t lose our bags once, or get delayed by more than an hour.  Not even at Heathrow terminal 5.  Miracle ....
• We drove about 48,000km over land, through various tours and seven different hire cars.  We didn`t crash once (though there were some near misses and hairy moments on the truck on the way to Rwanda!).
• We travelled around 400km over water, by ferry, kayak and booze cruise.  I only got sea sick once (admittedly for about 2 hours) ... on the way back from Zanzibar.
• We walked huge distances .... but I forgot to take my pedometer so I can`t tell you how far.  I did wear out a pair of hiking boots and a pair of sandals though.  Only my trainers survived (just).
• We were away for 311 days ... but through the magic of time difference - we got through 27 time changes - we had 312 nights away.  You work it out.
• We slept in 159 different places ... swags, tents, hostels, hotels and the houses of friends and relatives.
• We travelled with people from 25 different countries and 6 continents.  Almost all were fantastic people.
• We took nearly 10,000 pictures .... so I need those 25 days to get through them all and sort them out before I go back to work! 
• We survived on about 4 changes of clothes each - as you can probably tell from the photos.  Most of which are now in the bin.  It is SO nice to wear something different!  I`ll never take jeans for granted again.  (Wearing proper shoes feels weird though!)

We`ve spent the last week catching up with friends and family.  The most commonly asked question has been "what was the best bit?"  It`s actually really hard to answer.  For me anyway; for Becca it was obviously Easter Island, where she spent the 3 days in a state of over excitement reminiscent of a 4 year old who`s just raided the Sunny Delight factory.  There are so many amazing memories .... the volunteer work with the elephants, sleeping with the cheetahs at Harnas, microlighting over Victoria Falls, tracking the gorillas, flying over the Bungle Bungles, sleeping under the stars in the Australian outback, climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, playing with wombats at Australia Zoo, the whole of NZ, Easter island, the salt flats in Bolivia, the Iguassu Falls, the Pantanal (other than the mosquitoes) and the Rio Carnival.  And of course seeing friends and family in various places around the world.  And that`s the abbreviated list.  Needless to say, it`s been an awesome 10 months and we have so many special memories.  I`ll probably write some more in the next week or two, but now I`m off to watch some TV ... that`s one thing that I (sadly) did miss!