James and I are back safe and sound from our second major attempt at trekking in Patagonia. Again it was very succesful and we got to enjoy some top views along the way. The terrain was easier than last time with much less climbing to be done, but the notoriously fickle Patagonian weather made sure that the trek was never easy, with lashings of wind and rain to keep us on our toes!! A quick summary and some piccies follows: Day 1 - I hadn´t been feeling all that well in the run up to this trek so I found the [View Full Entry]

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The main (only) reason for visiting El Calafate is to take a trip to the incredible Perito Moreno Glaciar. Unfortunately, the glacier is located 75km away from the town and no public transport runs out to it!! Therefore you need to book on a quite expensive tour, or use your wits to get there. Fortunately, as James and I don´t have much in either of those two departments, we found secret third option C, which was to bump into some Israeli guys that I had met in Buenos Aires and for them to have 2 free spaces in the car that [View Full Entry]

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Hi guys, Here´s what James and I got up to... Day 1 - The first day saw about 8 seasons in one day, ranging from sunshine, to sleet, a bit of rain, snow, the odd blizzard, some bitter, bitter wind and a rainbow for good measure!! We reached the end of the day´s walking, a place called Refugio Frey, located on a very scenic, but pretty much unsheltered glacial lake. The biting wind and snow storm that greeted us soon meant that me and James were scurrying half an hour back down the trail to a forest camping site that was [View Full Entry]

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Yep it seems my ability to sit still, read, listen to music and watch some of an incredibly bad romantic comic starring Paul Nichols (yep, that guy who was on Eastenders once and covered his bedroom in tin foil or something!!) reached new levels as i´ve just stepped off an 18 hour bus journey feeling almost refreshed!! Currently we're in Bariloche, which is the aforementioned 18 hour bus ride South-West of the capital Buenos Aires, near to the Chilean border in an area called the Lake District. The area is beautiful: Bariloche is situated on a vividly blue lake and surrounded [View Full Entry]

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From Montevideo we headed to Buenos Aires for New Year, where we met up with a friend Chico who we’d met at Iguaçu Falls. The people of Buenos Aires seem akin to vampires, eating at midnight, heading out at about 3a.m and then partying till way past breakfast. The climate in Buenos Aires was fantastic, beautiful blue skies and baking hot Sun. We had about a week to enjoy the city and got to explore quite a lot of it, mainly on James’ magical mystery tours which were always good fun. One such wandering took us the area of La [View Full Entry]

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Post Rio we have stopped off at the Iguacu falls, which have been a real highlight of my travels. We visited both the Brazilian and Argentinean sides, and found the Argentinean side to be just amazing. They had constructed trails and walkways which allowed you to get really close to the vast amounts of water pouring over the falls. The main cascade is, (appropriately), called the "Devil´s Throat" and is suitably awe-inspiring given the name. We were standing less than 10 metres away from a massive horseshoe of thundering water. The highlight of the day was probably when we decided [View Full Entry]

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My time in Mexico had, unfortunately, come to an end and next stop was rio. My experience in Mexico was fantastic, and I can’t thank Sarah and Mandi enough for putting up with me and letting me stay on their sofa. I hope I wasn’t too bad a flatmate!! In Rio I was to meet back up with Steve and Chris, who had spent the last four weeks island hopping around the Caribbean. Getting between two of the largest cities in Latin America would usually involve a single direct flight, however, in keeping with the shoestring nature of my budget, my [View Full Entry]

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Since I was last in touch at the beginning of November I spent a month livng in Mexico City with Sarah, a friend from university, and her housemate Mandi. I loved my time in Mexico City, I thought it was a great place - easy to get around, loads to do and really good fun. Because it has grown so much so quickly and swallowed up surrounding villages and towns, there are parts of the city that have remained as quaint, sleepy villages even though they are near the heart of one of the world´s biggest metropolis´. If you read the [View Full Entry]

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For the last two weeks the three of us have been on the road hading east across Mexico. The first couple of stops were Oaxaca and San Cristobal. In Oaxaca we visited the Santo Domingo cathedral which was beautiful inside. All of the walls and ceilings had been ornately carved and decorated and it was quite a sight. Next stop was Palenque - where we really started to appreciate the best of Mexican culture. Yes, apparently there were some ancient jungle shrouded ruins located there which we visited and found very spectacular, but the cultural highlight I'm talking about is the [View Full Entry]

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It seems somewhere along the line I've picked up some of Palin's genes and that one world trip has not been enough. So its off to Latin America for a planned 9 month adventure. First stop is Mexico, where I'll be spending the best part of 2 months before moving onto South America. My flight arrived just before dawn, and so my first view of Mexico City was an unending sea of lights. Its obviously a big place, hella big, but its also incredibly easy to get around because of the metro they have. Because of its size there's lots to [View Full Entry]

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