Hello. Julie Scardina here. A trip to the Pantanal, How cool is that?! Of course, being a career animal trainer up until several years ago, I hadn't been able to make many trips abroad for business, so I had never even heard of the Pantanal. Once I did however, my conservationist/biologist side took over, and I immediately wanted to visit this great wilderness area.

I was born with a deep passion for animals - I've always had it. That's why I selected training animals, it gives me the opportunity to develop amazingly close relationships and communicate with them. In essence, an animal trainer is parent, friend, and teacher all wrapped into one. Along with that love for animals I think it is inevitable that there is also a love of the land and water that sustains life. As a result, I care deeply about the health of wild areas around the globe, and want to see firsthand what's being done to protect the outdoors. Working as Animal Ambassador for SeaWorld, Busch Gardens and Discovery Cove has allowed me to become more active on the environmental and conservation front, as that is part of the Anhueser-Busch Adventure Parks' mission. So this trip allows me the opportunity to see our support, and look for animals in the wild at the same time. So ready or not Brazil, here I come!

Hello. I'm Jeff Flocken, and I'll be one of the two field reporters for this trip. I'm very excited about this upcoming adventure for a number of reasons. As a CI employee, I'm looking forward to seeing up-close Conservation International's work in the field. Additionally, I've never been to Brazil, even though I've been doing animal conservation work for eight years -- and Brazil has the greatest variety of wildlife in the world! This is also my third time visiting a country with wild tapirs, but I still haven't seen one -- so I'm hoping that three is a charm since tapirs are one of my favorite species.

My friends and family are cautiously supportive of the trip, as they know I am prone to misadventures when I travel: I've been attacked by African army ants, ambushed by baboons, and accidentally drank poison in the Sarenghetti while studying giraffes; I lost 13 pounds in one week from a stomach virus while filming tigers in India; I've been bitten by a giant catfish in Australia while working on laws protecting koalas; and while in the wilds of Costa Rica a month ago, I woke up in my tent with a jungle rat in my hair, and later the next morning slid down a rock embankment and banged up my leg during a five hour hike looking for…you guessed it - tapirs. Hopefully, this adventure will be just as exciting as my past ones, but better for my health.