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 40° South jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 
 
 We stopped for the night as it was getting dark early, this latitude just below 40 degrees south has not quite woken from the long winter slumber, even in the Southern hemisphere spring. Driving past dusk is an unnecessary danger we typically avoid: dangerous curves are usually unmarked, nocturnal animals are out, and if a drunk driver was to be on the road, these are the more favored hours. Some rules of overlanding are best agreed to without having to learn for oneself the hard way…. 
 
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 Dreamers Caravan jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 
 
 For 3 months time our van, tucked beneath a plastic tarp, sat in wait for our return. Unwrapping our van felt like a present once again, this gift to have access to see the world at large, so slowly travel through places both simple and grand. There is nothing quite so exciting as embarking on a new leg of a journey. New roads and adventures ahead, the plotting and planning giving way to the supple current of slow travel. 
 
 Read More → ||||| SAO PAULO (AP) — A California couple and their two daughters who had been missing since Sunday when pirates attacked their boat in the Amazon River delta area have been found alive. 
 
 Except for insect bites and scratches, Adam and Emily Harteau and their 3- and 7-year-old daughters were in good condition and will spend the night in a hospital in the small city of Breves, not far from where they were found, law enforcement officials in Brazil's northern jungle state of Para said Wednesday. 
 
 The Harteaus were headed to Breves when gunmen boarded the boat they were on and forced it to go the city of Porto dos Dias, said Sergio Chene, a spokesman for Para's Public Safety Department. 
 
 There crew and passengers were held hostage for several hours and stripped of their personal belongings before the pirates fled, Chene said. When police arrived there was no sign of the Harteaus. 
 
 Police found the van the family had been using in their journey abandoned in the jungle. 
 
 It's unclear how the family escaped the assailants. 
 
 Colby Guillory, a Los Angeles resident acting as a family spokesman, said friends and relatives think the Harteaus decided to flee the boat to get away from the pirates and have been walking in the jungle since. 
 
 "Me knowing Adam, he probably took it upon himself to save his family," Guillory said. "We just know that sometime between pirates overtaking the boat and leaving the boat, (the Harteaus) went missing. We think they jumped." 
 
 When Guillory heard his good friends were safe he said he began "super excited ugly-crying." 
 
 "We just can't wait to have them home," he said. 
 
 Adam Harteau's brother, Keith Harteau, told The Associated Press earlier that the attack happened as the family was on its way to move back to California. They were set to arrive in Los Angeles on Nov. 15. 
 
 Keith Harteau said the couple wanted to be closer to home and for their girls to be near their family. 
 
 "It was their time to get a little bit of foundation," he said. 
 
 He said Emily Harteau grew up in Sacramento and Adam grew up in Juniper Hills in the San Gabriel Mountains just northeast of Los Angeles. 
 
 The Harteaus had recently been living in the southern Brazil city of Florianopolis. They have been using a website to document their journey around South America, which began in 2012 as a plan to travel to Patagonia in their Volkswagen van and return to California one year later. 
 
 But the Harteaus fell in love with South America and have been there since after they "decided to embrace a future unknown and the rewards of slow travel," according to their site, which says Adam is an artist and Emily a fashion designer. 
 
 They wanted their site to "serve as a modern family portrait, as they shed their robes of comfort to re-examine the American Dream." 
 
 "They hope to inspire others to create, eat well, spend quality time together, and adventure into their own great backyards," the site says. 
 
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 Myers reported from Los Angeles. ||||| An American family who were reported missing following a pirate attack on a ferry in Brazil have been found alive, according to police. 
 
 The family of four from California -- Adam Harris Harteau, his wife, Emily Faith Harteau, and their two children -- were aboard a ferry traveling from the city of Belem to Macapa when the vessel was attacked by pirates on Sunday, according to Brazil's Civil Police. Officials said the pirates took the family with them after the attack. 
 
 The family were found at 5:30 p.m. local time Wednesday in Vila Curumu in the state of Para in Brazil, according to police. 
 
 ABC News was with Adam Harris Harteau’s brother, Keith Harteau, when he found out his brother and family were found alive. 
 
 “We got him back,” exclaimed Keith Harteau, who said he “cried a lot but did not lose hope” when the family went missing. 
 
 A man from Vila Curumu rescued them with help of villagers after seeing the family on a piece of driftwood in the river, police said. 
 
 It was unclear if the Harteaus escaped from their attackers or they were released. There were also no additional details from officials on what happened to the Harteaus during the three days they were lost. 
 
 Family members told ABC News the Harteaus were due to move back to California on Nov. 15. 
 
 “We don't ever want them to go anywhere again,” Keith Harteau said. “I'm really thankful for the strength that Brazil showed.” 
 
 ABC News' Aicha El Hammar and Shahriar Rahmanzadeh contributed to this report. ||||| BRASÍLIA—An American couple and their two young children, missing since Sunday after the barge they were traveling on was allegedly attacked by river pirates, were found safe Wednesday in Brazil’s Amazon, local police said. 
 
 Brazilian authorities said the couple, Adam and Emily Harteau, 39 and 36 years old, and their daughters Colette, 6, and Sierra, 3, were being taken to Breves, a town of 100,000 in the northern state of Pará, for medical examinations. 
 
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– A nomadic American couple and their two young children were found alive Wednesday, three days after they went missing in an attack by river pirates in Brazil. Police say Adam and Emily Harteau and their daughters, 6-year-old Colette and 3-year-old Sierra, were passengers on a ferry from the Amazon gateway city of Belem to Macapa that was attacked by pirates on Sunday, ABC reports. Police say the pirates held the crew and passengers hostage for hours and there was no sign of the family after they left. The Harteaus were rescued Wednesday by a villager who spotted them floating on a piece of driftwood in the river, police say. They were unharmed apart from scratches and insect bites. It's not clear how the family escaped the pirates, though Emily Harteau's father, Warren Brandle, tells the Wall Street Journal that he has seen a report that they jumped out of a boat with their surfboards and rode currents to safety. He adds that such an escape wouldn't surprise him because his son-in-law is a "build-a-fire-out-of-sticks kind of guy." The couple, who documented their travels on the "Our Open Road" blog, left California in 2012 intending to spend a year traveling South America in their Volkswagen van, but ended up making it a much longer journey. Adam Harteau's brother, Keith Harteau, tells the AP that the family was planning to move back to California later this month so the girls could grow up close to relatives and "have a little bit of foundation." (River pirates killed a British traveler in the same Amazon region in September.)