Hi All The last 4 days have been fantastic!! The Inca Trail was everything I expected but better- it was tough, my legs still hurt, I sweated buckets but I loved every minute (ok except for when I really couldn't sleep at night as the tent was too short to stretch out, but even that seems to pale into insignificance!) We had great weather- hardly any rain except at night, the food prepared by our chef in a tent would have graced any fancy kitchen and our group of 15 got on brilliantly. The trail took us up to 4200m before [View Full Entry]

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Hi friends and family Sorry I have been very slack keeping the blog updated since we got to peru- we haven't been staying in one place for any length of time since we've been here and my days are so hectic... okay rubbish excuse but there you go. So to update you all on what's been happening here over the past couple of weeks here's a whistle-stop tour- we entered Peru on the 19th February on a flight into Lima. After Bogota it was nice to be back in a warm climate and the area where we stayed, Miraflores, felt like [View Full Entry]

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Bogota- I didn't really know what to expect- would it be a modern metropolis, a colonial gem or a dirty developing sprawl? The answer is probably all three and its all the better for its diversity and bagfulls or character. The Lonely Planet describes the city as having every modern western convenience and every 3rd world problem and I couldn't put it better (obviously, otherwise I'd be getting paid for writing about this trip!). We are staying in a hostel called Platypus in the Candelaria district which is the old part of town. The hostel is run by a Colombian ex-backpacker [View Full Entry]

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We came here to Colombia's second city a couple of days ago on a day bus from Cartagena. We spoke to lots of people about the journey trying to decide if we should do the usual and go by night bus (save a night's accomodation costs and not waste a whole day on the bus) but in the end we decided that although Colombia is not the battle-zone the FCO website makes out, better safe than sorry, plus the ride is through some beautiful countryside. We caught the 6.15am bus arriving in Medellin about 14 hours later. By now it goes [View Full Entry]

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Well that doesn´t really paint a fair picture of Cartagena which is the jewel in the colonial crown of Colombia. This steaming city on the Caribbean is a UNESCO world heritage site due to its uniquely perfectly preserved colonial architecture. It really is out of a picture book with narrow streets lined with balconied stone buildings trailing brightly coloured flowers down to the streets and wide plazas with fountains and colonnaded walkways The old city is surrounded by massive stone walls which were erected by the Spanish to protect their treasures from marauders like Sir Francis Drake who repeatedly attacked the [View Full Entry]

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After a day of rest from the diving (by the way we passed the exam and all that- good old multiple choice :-) today we went into the Parque Nacional Tayrona- a national park which covers a large chunk of the Caribbean coast east of Taganga. We did most of our dives in the western part of the park but the eastern part is said to have the most beautiful beaches so we took a bus and spent the day there and it truly was the most beautiful place I have seen. That side of the park gets a lot more [View Full Entry]

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We are now at the end of our first week in Colombia and so far not a sniff of a guerilla, cocaine or a kidnapping! On the contrary I have found the country to be beautiful and the people really friendly and welcoming (unles you come from the USA when they may be less so although most of them seem to have the broadness of mind not to blame all Americans for the sins of Mr Bush...) Our journey here from Venezuela was a real experience (most journeys in these countries seem to be memorable!). We left Merida as planned on [View Full Entry]

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Hi All Slight change to the plan as very inconsiderately the famous Merida cable car doesn´t open until tomorrow; Lonely Planet have really let us down on that one as they made no mention of it being closed for any period!! So yesterday we went for a short hike in the mountains near here, a place called Mucubaji which is on the edge of a national park. It´s about 3000m up and when we got there (after 2 hours on a very full bus..) the clouds were moving in rapidly. Nevertheless having come so far we decided to press on, after [View Full Entry]

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After the amazing but wet experience of Angel Falls I was desperate for a bit of sunshine so we left Ciudad Bolivar on the 20th at 10pm on the night bus for Maracay, a city of some 600000 people near the Caraibbean coast west of Caracas. Not much to say about the journey of a mere 10 hours; nothing to a veteran of Argentinian bus rides such as myself ;-) Uli and I and a couple of Dutch guys we had met at the Falls slept most of the way and arrived into the heat and bustle of Maracay's bus station [View Full Entry]

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Well apologies that its taken a while to get the Blog up and running again but my feet have hardly touched the ground since I got to Venezuela!! Landed on Sunday 15th Jan and got a connecting flight straight to Puerto Ordaz in the east of the country. Missed Caracas out as the bridge which links it to the airport has apparently subsided and been closed, which means a 5 hour bus ride from the airport into the city through some pretty dodgy areas- didn´t fancy that!! Puerto Ordaz was pretty unimpressive and uninteresting so we only stayed a night before [View Full Entry]

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