Crikey...it’s now 9 months since we returned from our ‘Big Trip’. Whilst it’s been great getting reacquainted with family, friends and normal life again, in the last couple of months it’s fair to say that I've been in need of a wee holiday. Sadly poor Ant had to stay at home and work, so I had the novelty of travelling solo again. Although I wasn’t particularly alone for long, as a quick nosey on the internet for inspiration had me booking on a ‘Big Game Safari’ in Malawi and Zambia with the travel company Explore. So after a quick transfer i [View Full Entry]

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We have seen The World, and it's massive. Huge! It's 644 feet long and 98 feet wide and is occupied by the kind of people whose idea of a property crash is striking an iceberg. And when we saw it, it was floating (somehow) out of Cartagena harbour like a morbidly obese person attempting to negotiate a rather small door. The fact that the world's most frivolous housing estate was blocking our view of the sky in one of the most picturesque cities on earth (we couldn't see the sky for the world - is that profound or just ponsey?) was [View Full Entry]

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And so, with a HUUUUUGE sigh of relief, and the knowledge that we were entering our 18th and final country of this trip, we eased quietly into Colombia. And as we sat on our small and quiet bus, trundling its way slowly across the very top of South America towards Santa Marta, the chaos and anxieties of Venezuela evaporated slowly from our minds, as the beads of sweat also evaporated from our foreheads under the welcome aircon. It had been a while since we'd taken a bus anywhere, having flown for freedom out of Venezuela, and the pint-sized Colombian coach had [View Full Entry]

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Preface August 2009. It's nearly a year since I wrote this blog and in that time I've calmed down. I've also heard from quite a few people with comments both in agreement and disagreement about what I've written. Please bear in mind that when I wrote this, it came from the heart and at the time, I was pretty pissed off with my experience of the country, as will be apparant. Looking back, I could probably have used a less angry tone and realise, looking at it now, that what I've written could incite equally angry responses. For those that think [View Full Entry]

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As a word 'travelling' implies movement, but as many of you may correctly suspect, this isn't always the case. Often travelling involves little more than sitting on a beach somewhere like Goa, buying a pair of fisherman’s pants and coming home claiming you've discovered yourself whereas all you've really discovered is fire juggling and hallucinogenic drugs. For others, travelling is going to Bangkok and seeing things you've never seen before...often flying across the room out of things you have seen before, but never doing the things you're seeing them do now. But occasionally travelling [View Full Entry]

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Here's a funny thing. Apparently a big problem for the church in South America is that the people here are more fixated on the Virgin Mary than Jesus. Certainly the number of statues and place names for that matter, back this up. If you didn't know your bible, you'd think she was what all the fuss was about and the little baby is just a bit of a nuisance. How unexpected! But enough about that. What about us? We last left you in Quito, from where we made vague plans to check out a bit of central Ecuador known as the [View Full Entry]

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With heavy hearts, we left the Galapagos and flew to Quito. Darn it. After six months of soil-treading around South America, covering every blade of grass, flake of snow and grain of sand along the way, we finally cheat and miss a chunk. But what the hell, it doesn't really matter in the long run, and besides, Ant loves flying. Shame Jen doesn't. Every flight sees us display polar opposites of emotions. As the plane gathers speed on the runway, Jen frowns so hard her eyebrows meet as she pretends to read a book, only to be yanked out of her [View Full Entry]

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In the words of Charles Darwin, 'Blimey.' We'd been looking forward to the Galapagos and had a feeling it wouldn't disappoint, and it didn't. Even us skinflint travellers, on one of the cheaper boats and without a zoom lens the length of a child's leg, were treated to a glut of wildlife and turquoise seas, which had us dribbling into our snorkels. It was as if David Attenborough and the good Lord on high Himself had conspired to throw at us every imaginable wonder of the world, and then some. For on top of the turtles, sharks, sea lions, whales, penguins, [View Full Entry]

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Peru, as it turns out, has been quite a joy. When it came to it, simple things like edible food and buses with springs ‘inside’ the seats made life seem that little bit more comfortable. And rather excitingly, we were within sniffing distance of the west coast after a thoroughly long and geographically schizophrenic haul across the middle of the continent. We'd been chilled to the bone, sweated it out on the fringes of the Amazon, been up mountains and down deep canyons...and eventually we were about to be spat out, gasping and wheezing onto the Pacific coast. In some far [View Full Entry]

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So, Peru then. And it's getting more and more like Gulliver's Travels by the day. Everyone seems so short and squashed compared with us mutants, and as we stare at them, they stare back gazing in wonder at the people who look so stretched. We've worked out why this is because we've been eating local food a lot recently. We've found that rice and potatoes feature in every main course (that is rice and potato soup followed by rice, chips and meat for seconds), usually followed up by a 'postre' that shows no evidence of any natural ingredient ever going near [View Full Entry]

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