Laura Blackhall
October 07 - Friends, family and random people who stumble accross my blog: this is an account of my year away from the UK. I will be spending 6 months working in Tokyo and then 5 months backpacking across parts of Asia and South America. I hope you enjoy my stories... LauraBlackhall
September 09 - The travels continue so the blog continues...
Travel Blog Posts
The Big Apple
Published: February 22nd 2010North America » United States » New York » New York » Manhattan
February 22nd 2010
I made it New York on the evening of the 24th of December. I was sooooo excited! Jack was there, by way of the fact that he has been living there for the past 9 months, mum and dad were there, by way of the fact that Jack was there and now I was there, by way of the fact that everybody else was there! Even Rayna was there! We were all in New York! Lets here it for New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there’s nothing you can’t do, now your in New York, these streets will make you feel brand new, the lights will inspire you, let’s hear it for New York, New York, New York. Ahhh you’ve got to love that song! So first task was to get to the ... read more
January 31st 2010
Oh I am a lazy writer. It’s been seven weeks since I wrote a blog, and I've been back in England for four! According to my last blog I'm sat on a beach in Mexico getting all tantastic! This couldn’t be further from the reality of me huddled up in my winter woollies, wiping my cold drippy nose and nursing a hot cup of tea. So, I've got a lot of catching up to do.... If you remember the last blog, I'd just been held up at gun point in Guatemala. God that sounds like something out of the movies now! I'd been stranded without cash or bank cards and had had to wait around for a couple of days until I could pick up some money from the bank of mum and dad via western ... read more
From Brazil to Panama, Guatemala and Belize
Published: December 16th 2009Central America Caribbean » GuatemalaDecember 15th 2009
Oh look! Another wildly hilarious blog from Laura the intrepid traveller! But why does it look so plain and boring? Where are all of the awe inspiring, turn your face green with envy photos? Well dear reader I was robbed by two Guatemalan village idiots and they stole my camera with all of my beautiful beautiful photos on. Photos that were so beautiful they would have turned your face so green that you might well have turned into a frog. Or a pea. Or some other green thing. But that shit my pants experience only happened a couple of weeks ago so first of all I will tell you about these amazing places I visited that I no longer have photos of... I ended up staying in Manaus for 6.5 weeks, a little bit longer than ... read more
October 22nd 2009
I am typing this blog with two hands. I typed the last blog with one. Not because I thought it would be funny, or because I lost a bet, or because I like to time myself doing strange tasks but because I had an accident. Actually I've been having quite a few accidents recently. But i´ll get on to that in a bit. On 24th September we flew from Cartagena to Leticia, a teeny weeny town in the far south of Colombia on the boarder with Peru and Brazil. I cant tell you much about Leticia because when we arrived we jumped straight into a taxi and went to Tabatinga, which is in Brazil! Yes that's right, we took a taxi from Colombia to Brazil! And it only took 10 minutes! We went straight to the ... read more
October 7th 2009
On the 15th we left Caracas for Santa Marta, Colombia. Of course the bus left an hour late, took about 10 hours longer than the ticket lady had told us it would and broke down for a good hour when we were nearly there. But this should have been expected given that the transport fairy hates me. All in all it took about 24 hours and was pretty straight forward. On the approach to the Colombian boarder the bus was stopped about 5 times by armed police who came on board to check our documents and search the Venezuelan men. Italo, by way of being a hot Brazilian, was left alone. One lady was causing a problem at every check point, always being taken off the bus and then let back on. I'm not sure what ... read more
September 22nd 2009
Trinidad to Venezuela was one hell of a journey. It started at 6.30am on Wednesday the 9th when i jumped a couple of buses to Pier 1. That was where i met Julia and Patrick, a nice Swiss couple who had been travelling around the Caribbean for a few months! Nice huh. So that was my entertainment sorted for the 3.5hr trip to Guiria, the port on the eastern most tip of Venezuela. Everything was going surprisingly smoothly until we were about 30 metres from the dock. The captain cut the engines and we sat rocking backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards on the waves for 45 minutes. Unbeknown to me a little boat with two people wearing face masks was making its way out to meet us. Once on board we were ... read more
Taking the long way to Venezuela: London - New York - Miami - Trinidad
Published: September 9th 2009Central America Caribbean » Trinidad & Tobago » Trinidad
September 9th 2009
My dad would call it the scenic route. It definitely wasn't scenic. Chester to London was fine. I went first class. It was cheaper!? London to Heathrow was good, Rayna came and met me on route and hung out at the airport with me. I haven't photo documented this awesome last minute surprise because she'd been out the night before, hadn't had a shower and had a couple of big juicy zits on her face. Not that I minded, but she did. Heathrow to New York JFK was really good, I got a free upgrade to World Traveler Class which meant I had a much bigger chair with more recline, extra leg room and a big foot rest. Battling against jet lag i stayed awake for the entire flight which took me to 1am my time, ... read more
The Travels continue so the blog continues...
Published: September 4th 2009Europe » United Kingdom » England » Cheshire » ChesterSeptember 4th 2009
I’ve done a Madonna and got myself a Brazilian boyfriend. Mine is much hotter than hers. And has a more sensible name. Although I’m not really sure how to pronounce it. He’s a graphic designer, and a model. Oh and the lead singer in a band. He’s way out of my league, but he hasn’t noticed yet. Actually he hasn’t met me yet! He lives in the jungle in Brazil. Well he lives in Manaus which is in the jungle. So I’m off to meet him, in Venezuela! Fingers crossed he is the 25 year old he claims to be and not a 60 year old with saggy man boobs. Rayna thinks he’s going to skin me alive when I meet him. I’m pretty sure he won’t. I asked him if that was his plan. Me: ... read more
The Galapagos - Land Of The Giant Tortuga!
Published: September 1st 2008South America » Ecuador » Galápagos
August 29th 2008
When I left England last October I never dreamed that I would end up in the Galapagos, land of the giant tortuga, the archipelago that is home to wildlife that exists nowhere else on the plant, totally fearless wildlife that you can practically rub noses with. But, I was in Ecuador, at the end of my holiday, already over budget and I thought ah feck it, whats a little bit more debt?? After all the inevitable will happen soon enough, I will make my million and my little jaunt in the Galapagos will be but a tiny drop in the ocean of my heaving bank balance! :) So on August the 20th I found myself sat on a plane bound for Santa Cruz the most central of the Galapagos islands and home to about 18,500 people. ... read more
August 28th 2008
The streak of bad luck that had started in Bolivia didn't show any signs of letting up when I got to Ecuador. I hadn't been there 48hours before I was robbed by what I can only describe as a magician. I had my camera stolen and my purse emptied. I have absolutely no idea how they did it or when it happened. I can only guess that it happened on the bus during the 5 minutes that my bag was up above my head on the luggage rack. Put up there by a man that I later realised was only pretending to work on the bus. But how he/they managed to open the bag, take out my cardigan and books, open the camera bag, take the camera, find and empty the purse and then put everything ... read more
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