Sand, sand, sand… Sand as far as the eye can see, and beyond. Whatever scenery I was expecting from my first week in Peru, 500m high dunes, desert oases, and hundreds of kilometres of arid coastline was not it. And if the landscape has changed dramatically from Ecuador, so too has the pace of travel. …
If the common travel adage is true that one should always leave a reason to return when leaving a country for the first time, then omitting to visit the Galápagos Islands on this visit to Ecuador should pretty much guarantee a return trip in this life rather than my next incarnation. That it is my …
Here we go again. My view of the quite majestic Volcano Chimborazo (furthest point from the centre of the earth, and closest to the stars), disappears from my bus window seat view as we dip into a valley and are engulfed yet again in the white mist. The sky too is gone. Only the very …
And here it is, the hardest task of the entire trip so far… How to condense 704 photos and two months of such varied aesthetic rapture into a single digit gallery, the sole purpose of which should be to make every single recipient immediately open another browser window and book the next available flight to …
Bogotá never stood a chance. With all the Colombian marvels that had preceded it over the previous two months, the city that not a single person had anything positive to say about was always going to struggle to live up to the rest of the country’s experiences. Infamous for its terrible weather, horrendous traffic, and …
And breathe… Wow, that was intense. As desperate as I always am to arrive at each new destination with zero expectations and a blank canvas onto which to paint my new adventures, sometimes it simply isn’t possible. When backpacker gossip and itinerary discussions with proud locals repeatedly combine to highlight one specific locality, the hype …
All good things must come to an end, even if you really don’t want them to. And I really don’t want to leave the Colombian Caribbean and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. As I near the completion of an entire calendar month in this astonishing country, I am very conscious that I have barely …
“Bothrops atrox, or Talla X in Spanish: a highly venomous snake with a bite that will kill a man within two hours if no antivenom is available. We found it and killed it just outside the camp last night.“ In other words, a mere fifteen metres from the bed in which I was peacefully dreaming …
I have a very peculiar code of appreciation for the places that I visit. It is of course highly pretentious, to the surprise of absolutely no one reading this. I engage emotionally and intensely with everywhere that I go, often very quickly and always in the most judgemental manner possible. I do not want to …
Dubai was open for business, to all intents and purposes. Malls, restaurants, bars and museums were all operating fully, though with reduced capacity, and the metro was uncomfortably crowded at all times. São Paulo felt like a city that knew harsher restrictions were coming (they just have) and decided to double down in a last …