Somewhat surprisingly for a region known for its generally vast expanses, Patagonia can feel like a bit of a small world at times! You tend to see the same faces on the same boats, buses, and trails. With this in mind, when Rob & Lindsay (an English couple we met on the Navimag) suggested hiring a car with the intention of getting off the ´Gringo Trail´, we jumped at the chance. The car in question was authentically Latin American, by which I mean to say totally knackered. Miraculously it survived the 7 day road trip, but not without incident, breakdown, and [View Full Entry]

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The southern part of Chile is composed of hundreds of tiny islands, and only a small strip of mainland. One of the best ways of travelling up the coast is via the Navimag ferry, a big cargo ship that has been adapted slightly (and I mean slightly!) to allow tourists to make the trip too. Other cargo included food, scrap metal, mattresses, and sheep! We bid a fond farewell to my (almost) namesake town Puerto Natales (which has the attractions of the best pizza restaurant we've encountered so far in Latin America, and a dried fruit and nut shop blasting out [View Full Entry]

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Why do so many good things in life have to begin with an early start? Holidays, Christmas day (well, if you´re 8), and erm... other stuff. Like the 5 day trip to Torres del Paine, a particularly jaw droppingly lovely national park in the south of Chile, on the border with Argentina. As usual, we´d put in hours of meticulous preparation the night before, only to blow it all by getting pissed on Chilean wine, coming home with Mr Gorilla (to borrow from Mr Collins), and trashing the carefully laid out piles of clothing and equipment in a red wine haze. [View Full Entry]

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Amigos! This is going to be mainly a photographic blog as we've spent the last three days hiking in the north part of the Parque Nacional los Glaciares, seeing landscapes pretty much more stunning than I thought possible - and which I'm not feeling nearly poetical enough to describe...best leave the piccies to do the talking! We've been staying in a small town called El Chalten which is very odd - it just grew up mainly as a centre for hiking and climbing and feels strangely temporary, even though its been there over 40 years. It is very dusty but the [View Full Entry]

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Ushuaia bills itself as ´El Fin del Mundo´ (the end of the world), despite not actually being the southernmost town (the Chilean town of Puerto Williams is slightly south of here), and more importantly, not displaying any evidence of the Legion of the Undead devouring the flesh of the living, which I´m fairly certain will accompany the end of the world. (It´s taken me 4 months of travel to mention zombies in this blog - how´s that for restraint?) Finally after several months of scorching sunshine, volcanoes, and gorgeous beaches (you really hate me now, right?) we have arrived in the [View Full Entry]

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Our first stops in Patagonia were the towns of Puerto Madryn and Trelew, in Chubut province (a 17 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires!) Puerto Madryn was founded in 1865, when a group of Welsh settlers were given land here after fleeing Wales due to religious and cultural persecution by the English. They landed at Puerto Madryn, and gradually moved west, founding Trelew, and a few other towns and villages on the way. The area is surrounded by scrubland - the Patagonian Steppe is the fifth largest desert in the world, covering 673,000 square kilometres in the south of the country. [View Full Entry]

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I spent about an hour and a half the other night writing an epic blog of brilliant wit and razor sharp insight, which was crammed full of worldly knowledge and life-affirming anecdotes. Or at least it seemed so at the time. In retrospect I was a bit pissed, so it´s probably all for the best that my computer somehow managed to lose my drunken ravings. Suffice to say it probably included some ill-willed barbs at the sulky folk of Panama City (cheer up you bi-continent spanning miserablists!), and some very nice things about Argentinians (who are all quite lovely, but admittedly [View Full Entry]

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Scientific Fact: It´s actually mathematically possible to measure your exact distance from the Caribbean sea by counting the number of times you hear Shaggy being played. For this and other reasons I´m throwing my lot in with the Pacific, if you force me to choose. There´s less rain, better surf, and everyone isn´t so stinking grumpy! The Caribbean has perfect white sand, azure blue sea, boiling sunshine, yet everyone walks round with a face like a London Bus driver when you´ve asked him for change from a tenner. Maybe it´s over exposure to Shaggy? Anyway, I digress. We´ve le [View Full Entry]

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Fig trees are the subject of various legends, curses and blessings around the world. The Panamanian version runs something like this - on the night of Good Friday, you go to your local fig tree and spread a white sheet on the ground. At midnight, the devil will appear and offer you a choice of two swords, one new and one rusty. Choose the rusty one. You then sword fight the devil and your rusty sword does you proud and you beat him. He then bows down to you and grants you whatever you desire. Although if you were thinking this [View Full Entry]

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Well, it's January, and you're all probably at work, having visions of Nat & I drinking cocktails served by Monkey waiters in the cloud forest, hating our guts... Well, prepare to engage the schadenfreude portion of your brains, as the travelling backlash starts here. I'm not going to write anything about the brilliant two weeks we spent with Sarah and Aoife, as hopefully they're doing that right now (ahem, you're late guys!) However it's fair to say my impressions of Costa Rica went down a fair way, firstly after someone tried to nick Sarah's bag on the beach at Mal Pais, [View Full Entry]

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