The Easter Bank Holiday weekend saw us blessed with fine weather, and the even finer offer from Mr Matich for us to come up and visit him at his new digs up in Sheffield. The Sheffield convention for not putting any street names up hampered my car’s efforts to find Adam’s house, but the Sat Nav in the other motor proved infuriatingly accurate!! All assembled, we were bowled over by the quality of Adam’s pad. Decking seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see and it looked like it would be perfect for some prime sun-bathing and barbecueing!! [View Full Entry]

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Feeling the January blues after a fun old Christmas and New Year, the Baso boys were chomping at the bit when Shaun twirled his mighty mullet in the direction of a long weekend away in February to warmer, more cultural climes. Team G.E.L, (don’t ask!), was soon formed and cheap flights, and a cheap, but thanks to a first-hand recommendation from the legendary Sarah Lloyd, but brilliant hostel were all booked. All that was left was to find our passports and set the alarms - the 3a.m. start was not going to be pleasant!! Heavy snowfall on the day before we [View Full Entry]

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The final destination of my trip was to be Quito, but before arriving I had a few days to “kill” in the Galapagos Islands! Never the tallest of orders! I had left my tour on the “Free Enterprise” feeling genuinely saddened. Usually when I’ve left a tour I’ve been buzzing and ready to move onto the next adventure, but on this occasion I was particularly melancholy. I think it was partly because my tour of the islands was so unique and incredible, as well as the realisation that the end of my time on the “Free Enterprise” really did mark the [View Full Entry]

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Leaving the Ecuadorian mainland bound for the Galapagos Islands, I was hugely excited. With my 8 day live aboard cruise around the islands already booked, all that was left for me was to enjoy what would surely be one of the most incredible experiences of my life, as well as being a great way to bring the curtain down on what had been a fantastic 9 months of travel through Latin America. Rather than go for a blow by blow account of each day, I’ve tried to summarize the essence of the trip and mentioned some of the highlights - hopefully [View Full Entry]

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I think that leaving Arequipa marked a turning point in my travels. With only three or so weeks left, I felt that I wanted to start taking it easy and winding down my travels before my impending return. To that ended I decided to splurge on a stay in the Galapagos Islands before my flight home from Quito. However, this meant getting up to Ecuador pronto, and so in true road trip fashion "we've got a lot of driving to do!!” I broke up the journey north for one day at the tiny desert oasis of Huacahina, in order to both [View Full Entry]

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The colonial city of Arequipa stands in pleasant valley about 1,000 km south-east of Lima. It is undisputedly the commercial centre of southern Peru, and its people are known to have a general resentment towards the capital, attempting at every opportunity to refute the belief that everything in Peru is run from Lima. Thus stories abound about how dirty, dangerous, uncultured e.t.c. the capital is, and the locals seemed delighted when I told them that I was planning only to view Lima’s bus station!! Chris, Matt and I spent our first day exploring Arequipa, and visited the “Muse [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Cusco, ancient Inca capital and modern day tourist hotspot, starting to feel the fact that my travels were drawing to a slightly too rapid close!!! Thus I was determined to try and make the most of every possible day, and I ended up spending two very busy weeks in Cusco, managing to combine a couple of multi day treks, some tours of the sacred valley, a host of Inca ruins, a fair bit of World Cup footy and the occasional Cuba Libre or Pisco Sour!! My base for the duration of my stay was the popular LOKI backpackers, [View Full Entry]

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Overall, I was in Bolivia for 10 fantastic weeks, which makes it the country I have spent longest in throughout my travels. Thus, I warn you in advance, this blog contains a fair chunk of pensive reflection on what I thought about this vibrant and diverse country!!!! Though it is the poorest country in South America, and has had one of the most turbulent politic histories in the continent, I found the country absolutely fascinating to travel through. Both the landscapes and people I encountered were just incredibly diverse, considering I only really travelled the more densely populated sou [View Full Entry]

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Huayana Potosi stands proud and daunting at 6,088 metres. It is regarded as one of the easiest 6,000 metre peaks in the world to summit, as it doesn't require any real technical climbing experience and so any old Johnny-tourist like myself can pay $100 odd to be guided up to the summit. We even took the easiest route up there, but I can assure you it was almost certainly the most physically demanding thing that I have ever done!! Summiting this peak had been my ambition for quite a while now. Having got a taste for the heights in Nepal, it [View Full Entry]

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Surely with that great punning ability, a future career at the Sun is beckoning!!! My two weeks based in La Paz, Bolivia’s de facto capital, have come to an end, and while the city is certainly no architectural beauty, its location in the Andes' Cordillera Real (Royal Range), is pretty spectacular and in my mind makes La Paz pretty attractive. Set in a bowl or canyon at 3,600 metres, the city's housing and buildings stretch steeply up the walls of said canyon to the Altiplano 400 metres above. Handily this makes La Paz one of the easiest cities I have ever [View Full Entry]

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