Iguacu Falls

Iguacu Falls

Saying goodbye to Buenos Aires, even after spending only six days there, was a sad day. Not least because as a parting gift it had given me a solid day of rain. But it didn’t matter, because I was about to experience my first ever flat-bed bus ride. The journey...
Six long days in Buenos Aires

Six long days in Buenos Aires

I have had twelve hours’ sleep in the past six days. In BA, people don’t eat till 10pm, and if you get to a nightclub before 4am you’re like, so uncool. I’m far from cool. Apparently I’m supposed to nap between 4pm and 7pm and spend the...

Getting hot in Chile

Coming straight into desert of San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, from the Uyuni salt flats tour, we were treated to more of the same stunning landscape as south east Bolivia. Said to be the driest place on Earth (although it rained just before we got there, sparking...
Leaving La Paz

Leaving La Paz

My flight out of La Paz, Bolivia, finally arrived not a moment too soon, and within an hour I was in the beautiful capital city of Sucre. With no plan other than to enjoy a Bolivian city that wasn’t La Paz, I soon bumped into a tour group made up of English, Canadian,...

La Paz, Bolivia – no me gusta…

The days following Death Road I spent wandering around La Paz. I’m not taken by the city. It’s busy, fumey from the buses, smells of wee and the altitude is so high I can’t breathe. Plus it’s all uphill, which doesn’t help with the inability to breathe. I have a...

A quick trip to Disneyland, Machu Picchu

Leaving Huaraz, I was sent off at the bus station by Hannes, Katherine, Jim, his wife and Lucas, then settled in or a six-hour bus ride (with the amazing Cruz Del Sur) to Lima then got straight into a cab for the airport. In the cab I thought I was going to be robbed...

Getting very high at Laguna 69

Three hours on a bus, three hours climbing a mountain at 4,800m altitude and this is my favourite picture of the beautiful Laguna 69 near Huaraz, Peru. It was so hard to breathe on the way up and my legs turned to jelly, but we eventually made it, and the journey was...

Farting puppies and snotty kids in Huaraz, Peru

I feel like I should talk a bit about the volunteer work I was given the opportunity to do, as it really made my trip and was brilliant to actually see what these NGOs do rather than just giving someone a fiver towards some charity for running 26.2 miles every April...

Huaraz, Peru: Way Inn Lodge

I arrived in Huaraz at 5.30am, in the pitch dark, only to be accosted by two other travellers (Dutch Sabina and Israeli Elad) asking where I was staying, so I very kindly offered them to join me at my remote mountain lodge. We arrived at the mountain lodge to hidden...

All aboard the cargo ship along the Amazon

After years of dreaming of visiting the Amazon, I’m finally here! Sadly, the Amazon attracts the twattiest of travellers – a breed of people that is pretty annoying already. They’re all here solely to try Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drug that you do with a...

All aboard the puke bus to Bogota

The morning after my fun jaunt through the death zone of Medellin was finally time to move on – to Manizales, coffee capital of Colombia. But not before finally meeting the Aussie guy also on a homestay across the street – the one the girls were doing...

Slumming it in Medellin

My last day in Medellin started off well – my visa got sorted in five minutes and then I went for a wandering Spanish lesson in which my teacher Jorge and I walked around town and ate a huge lunch. Then he had to go teach another class and I had a task to attend...

In which I get really drunk in Medellin

I’m now four/five days into my homestay and Saturday night was a great turning point with my family – we got plastered together, Colombia style. But my story begins a few hours earlier, when I shunned Spanish lessons in favour of taking a day trip to Gautape, a...

Expanding my waistline in Taganga

After cramming more exercise into five days than I have in my entire life, I just wanted to lay my butt down on a beach and eat lots of food for a couple of days – so that’s exactly what I did. We got back to Santa Marta on the Friday night, I slept like a baby...

Carnaval in Colombia

So the day after getting back from Cabo de la Vela (which I promised to continue – basically we had a bad journey back, being ripped off and arguing with taxi drivers a lot), we went to Laura’s cousin’s apartment in Barranquilla, a swanky place in a...
Further off the beaten path in Colombia…

Further off the beaten path in Colombia…

After Cartagena Laura and I went off the beaten path (even more so than just being in Colombia…) to a place called Punta Gallinas. The Lonely Planet describes it as being near impossible to reach without being on an organised tour that costs $350 (for 3 days!), and...

Panama

A retrospective post about Panama, as things have been such a whirlwind that I’ve blasted through to Colombia and been too excited about this amazing country that I just want to write about here. But Panama was really gorgeous. The landscape up north was similar to...
Crazy Cartagena, Colombia

Crazy Cartagena, Colombia

My experience of Colombia really began when I got on the plane in Panama City. After chasing an ambulance through gridlocked traffic to get to the airport, the plane left early, arrived 15 before schedule, we got off the plane the moment it touched down, walked...

Ometepe, Nicaragua

Day 14 – last week Santa Cruz, Ometepe, Nicaragua Today was our first full day on Ometepe, the volcano island in the middle of lake Nicaragua. It’s a beautiful island, and the side we stayed on was very windy and the lake was really wavy. Women clean their...

Costa Rica and Nicaragua

Costa Rica Day 10 Another night in the tent, which was so much fun. It was also quite interesting to share a bathroom block with loads of other people – meeting people for the first time as you stand side by side brushing your teeth together is a funny way to...
Pura vida in Costa Rica

Pura vida in Costa Rica

Flying from Cuba to San Jose, Costa Rica, I was finally officially travelling on my own. I’d left my boyfriend behind and had four months of solo travel ahead. It didn’t take me long to meet new people though, and before I’d even got on the plane I...