A mere three days away from the release of our soon-to-be critically-acclaimed cookbook, Forks in the Road: Recipes from Overlanding the Pan-American Highway, we feel it's our duty to provide you with a glimpse of the trials, tribulations, tantrums and alcohol-fueled late-night sessions that brought it into being.

What's the best way to test the relationship of the ones you love? Long-term travel. What's the best way to ensure you never want to see each other again? Travel long-term while simultaneously attempting to write, photograph and publish a cookbook.

We drove 25,000 miles through 13 countries while taking 2,780 pictures and writing more than 90 recipes spanning 210 pages and 45,000 words to make this happen. It was quite possibly the most difficult, delicious and time-consuming thing we did on this trip. And it was totally worth it. We hope you enjoy our efforts and a laugh at our expense.

April 7, Florianopolis
April 25, Santos
Cookbooks Sent to Publisher: 1!!!
World-Famous Beaches Walked On: 2
Pounds of Crap Given Away: 50
Types of Meat Eaten Off a Sword: 12

Well, this is it. The last trip update from South America. In a mere week we'll be flying home. Jared to start interviewing for work, and Jess and Kobus to meet Blue several weeks later in Texas. Before we return to the grind we'll have one last adventure as Team Life Remotely in Flagstaff, Arizona where we'll be attending Overland Expo to hang out with the cool kids and promote our new cookbook.

But I get ahead of myself. We've spent the last three weeks hopping along Brazil's spectacular beaches. After spending 10 days in a rental house in Florianopolis to wrap up work on the book, we head north to Rio de Janeiro for three nights of sightseeing before backtracking to Santos, our final destination in Latin America.

Start: April 3, Iguazu Falls, Argentina
Finish: April 6, Florianopolis, Brazil
Countries to Date: 17
Border Crossings to Date: 23
Portuguese Words We Know: 3

We are nearing the end my friends. According to our original plans we should have ended two months ago, but the lure of Brazil proved too strong to overcome. Never fear we have at least a month left on the books, and although Brazil is our last stop on our 19-month tour of Latin America, you haven't seen the last of us.

Before experiencing our final border crossing, we have one place left to visit in Argentina. Iguazu Falls is a long drive out of the way, adding three 8+ hour road days to our schedule, but by all accounts people say it's a worthy detour. We brace ourselves for mobs of tourists, but are much looking forward to catching a glimpse of a spectacle that makes Niagara Falls look like a leaky backyard sprinkler.

This article is part of our Border Crossing Report series.

Border name: Salto or Concordia
Closest major cities: Salto, Uruguay to Concordia, Argentina
Cost for visas: $0 (Not including previously paid reciprocity fees for Argentina, see note below)
Cost for vehicle: $0
Total time: 45 minutes
Date crossed: Saturday March 30, 2013

The Steps

1. Drive past the out-of-commission Uruguay border
   buildings, over the bridge and keep going, past the welcome to Argentina signs until you finally see the border buildings across the road. Park wherever.
2. Go into the building on the left. Get stamped out at the first counter, Uruguay immigration.
3. Hand over your Uruguayan vehicle permit.
4. Go to the Argentinian immigration counter. Hand over passports and reciprocity receipts (if required). They will be returned with a small slip of paper that records the number of people in your vehicle. This is your ticket to leave the border area.

Start: March 24, Buenos Aires
Finish: April 3, Iguazu Falls
Random Cow Parts Consumed: 12
Cuts of Beef Sampled: 4
Types of Sausage Ingested: 3
Duration of Meat-Induced Coma: 2 hours

We didn't originally plan to visit Uruguay, but we're glad we did. Since we added Brazil to the list we felt it was unfair to skip this tiny South American country. Before heading up to Igauzu Falls and into the third largest country in the world, we embarked on a 6 day circuit through Uruguay, including its capitol city of Montevideo.

Above all, we had one mission in Uruguay, and to be honest it alone was reason enough to come to this country. Ever since watching Anthony Bourdain chow down in front of a pyramid of meat in his No Reservation's Uruguay episode we knew this had to happen... a visit to Montevideo's Mercado del Puerto. A market dedicated to nothing but the art of grilling meat. Vegetarians may want to turn away from their computer screen now, things are about to get juicy.

Start: February 3, Leith Cove
Finish: February 4, Pork Lockroy
12,000 Year Old Ice Cubes Drank: 8
Nights Camped in Antarctica: 1
Feet a Penguin Can Projectile Poo: 1.5

Our third night near the Antartica peninsula sees us fulfilling one of our main goals of the trip: spend a night camping in Antartica. And drink 12 year old scotch on the rocks using ice that predates modern civilization.

We also stop by the historic British Antarctic research base at Port Lockroy where we are able to send a few postcards to our parents, sure to arrive home about the same time we do.

This article is part of our Budget and Money Report series.

Our per diem expenses cover food, lodging, gas and other supplies and travel costs for three people. We travel in a 1997 Toyota 4Runner, tent camp in paid facilities roughly 70% of our nights and eat less than 10% of our meals in restaurants. This budget does not reflect personal spending money, which is mostly used to buy souvenirs and booze. We don't track this money, but we do know we have not come close to spending our budgeted amount of $10 per person per day.

I'm going to try something a bit different for this budget recap. For two reasons: first, our esteemed, much valued and irreplaceable budget book flew the coop somewhere around our second ferry crossing of the Strait of Magellan. This leaves me with a three week gap in the records that cannot be reconciled, meaning a per diem breakdown is impossible to calculate.

Secondly, and much more importantly, Argentina is a financially screwed up country at the moment. Yearly inflation is estimated to be around 50% which has hugely devalued the currency. To compensate. the government has enacted a series of policies to attempt to stabilize the Argentinian peso and keep stores, money changers and banks from increasing rates and prices faster than citizens can keep up with. Quite a few of these policies are unpopular and are viewed by many as being ineffective.

Start: February 28, Bariloche
Finish: March 23, Buenos Aires
Pounds of meat devoured in one sitting: 7
Times Luis did the dishes: 1

Three days after the self-inflicted meat coma that resulted from the Badass Bariloche Bovine Bonanza we head to the Argentinian lakes district for a little fresh air and maybe some salad. We finish the last photos for the upcoming cookbook and haul it to Buenos Aires to get some pages added to passports and visas for Brazil.

We spend nearly a week in a amazing apartment with our totally famous friends Luis and Lacey from Lost World Expedition. And finally meet up with Ruined Adventures before gorging ourselves on the best steaks and miscellaneous cow innards we have had on our journey thus far.

This article is part of our Internet and Phone Report series.

General availability: Excellent
Quality of bandwidth: High
Frequency of internet in campgrounds: Medium
Frequency of internet in hotels: High

Areas Visited

We crossed at the southerly most bridge at Fray Bentos, then visited Colonia and Montevideo before heading inland to Durazno and Tacuarembo and exited on the west near Salto.

Overall Availability

Availability was excellent, very similar to Argentina and Chile. Expect internet in every hotel or hostel and there will be a good chance it is also in campgrounds. Many gas stations and restaurants also had wifi available for customers.

Bandwidth & Connectivity

Bandwidth was pretty good, at least compared to Argentina. We only tried out about a dozen networks the entire time we were there, so it's hard to know if your experience will be the same. Most places we visited had wifi good enough for voice-only Skype calls and your average browsing.