TravelBlog » Ruth from Wales

Ruth from Wales - Ruth John

I am a big fan of travel. This is my travelblog, a place where I can record my trips, write down my experiences, share my ideas and note my memories. It is partly for me, partly for friends and family, and partly for strangers looking for tips. So, all in all, it is multi-use!

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to visit Latin America. After much planning and saving I was finally able to live the dream - a year in Latin America, from Argentina to Mexico, from September 2007 to September 2008. Below you will find my blogs from the trip as well as accounts of previous travels a bit closer to home (mostly Europe and North Africa).

Since our 2008 return we have gotten back into working life in London and back to taking holidays when we can. I try to blog these as often and fully as possible but time is not always available!

Pretty much all of my travelling is done with my lovely boyfriend Barry who has his own blog.

Please feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions or just want to say hello. I love getting comments on by blogs!

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Joined on: May 17th 2006
Last Login: November 17th 2009

Blog Entries: 68
Photos: 1223
Recommended by 16, Recommends 7

TB Code: [blogger=17161]
Status: BLOGGER

Blogs & Travel Journals

by Ruth from Wales, order by Date newest first.

By Ruth from Wales
October 4th 2009

A place I really should live in: Andalucia Europe » Spain » Andalusia

Arabic inscriptions, Alhambra, Granada

As a treat before starting my new job, Barry and I took a nine day trip to Andalucia. We had been to this part of the world before but were keen to return to see the places we had missed, as well as to brush up on our Spanish. And to eat lots of nice food of course! We flew into Málaga and hired a car. As Barry can't drive, it was up to me to do the hard work whilst he sat back and navigated..! As always, it all went very smoothly. We stopped off at a little village near [View Full Entry]

Fountains in the Generalife, Alhambra, Granada

By Ruth from Wales
July 20th 2009

A week in Montenegro Europe » Montenegro

Barry jumping into the Adriatic, Budva

So, after our weekend in Dubrovnik, we got our hire car and headed for the Montenegro border. The border crossing was easy enough, although the sun pounding down did make the car turn into a bit of a sauna! Some 40 minutes saw us leave Croatia and enter Montenegro. I am guessing that most people don't know too much about Montenegro (the second newest country in the world), and I am happy to admit that until a few weeks ago I was one of those people. However, Barry saw an article in 'Wanderlust' magazine talking about how lovely Montenegro was and [View Full Entry]

By Ruth from Wales
July 17th 2009

Enjoying the sun in Dubrovnik Europe » Croatia » Dalmatia » Dubrovnik

Me on the City Walls, Dubrovnik

Time is not on my hands these days. I would love to be able to blog as much as I did when we were travelling for a year, but it is just not possible! Therefore, our recent few days in Dubrovnik, followed by a week in Montenegro will exist in these two short (but sweet?!) blogs... Some of the highlights of our couple of days in Dubrovnik included: * the weather! I loved the blue skies and sunshine. We had perfect weather for our entire trip. If anything, it was too hot, hitting around 35 degrees on most days. This meant [View Full Entry]

Jumping into the sea from the City Walls

By Ruth from Wales
February 2nd 2009

Snow Day in London! Europe » United Kingdom » England » Greater London » London City

Sign at the Museum of London

Whilst I do live in London and therefore this is not strictly a 'travelblog', I couldn't resist putting up some photos from today's pretty exceptional events. London rarely gets snow, and it very rarely gets snow that sticks for more than 5 minutes. This has been one of those rare days! Work was more or less called off, but I braved the cold and snow to walk in just to quickly turn on the computers before coming home again. On my way I took a detour to take some of these snaps. I even got to build a snowman which is [View Full Entry]

By Ruth from Wales
September 3rd 2008

¡Viva Mexico! North America » Mexico

Hot!

I have been home for over three months now, and it has taken this long for me to build up the courage to produce my final Latin America blog. I think it is a bit like an electronic-mental block. Once I complete this blog, then the trip is officially over. No more exciting adventures! But, such is life. Below is the final (for now) Latin America blog. We took a long, but sometimes fun, crossing from Flores in Guatemala to Palenque in Mexico. The journey involved a bus, a 20 minute boat journey along a river, and another bus. Oh, and [View Full Entry]

By Ruth from Wales
August 20th 2008

Good times in Guatemala Central America Caribbean » Guatemala

Local girls in Antigua

From Honduras we cheated a bit by taking a direct shuttle bus to Guatemala. This went against our usual method of cheap chicken bus travel, but even we need some luxury sometimes! The shuttle was significantly faster than the alternative, although still took nearly 6 hours. Distances here look so short on the map but seem to turn into mini epics every time we travel. Antigua Our first proper stop in Guatemala was the colonial city of Antigua. It is easy to see why this place has become a backpacker hot-spot, with its nice architecture, quirky cafes, bagel shops, etc. The [View Full Entry]

By Ruth from Wales
August 7th 2008

A race through Honduras Central America Caribbean » Honduras

Two toucans

A long journey (including 5 different chicken buses!) took us from Matagalpa in Nicaragua across the border to Honduras' capital city Tegucigalpa. We had head many bad things about Tegucigalpa and would have avoided it if we could, but it was too late to move on and so we found ourselves taking a taxi into the city centre to get a hotel. Well, I don't know if it is directly because we weren't meant to like Tegus (as it is commonly known), but we found ourselves not finding it too bad at all. It has some nice architecture and is definitely [View Full Entry]

By Ruth from Wales
July 30th 2008

My favourite Central American country (so far..!) Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua

First view of Isla de Ometepe

Nicaragua is a country I could not help but love: it is a fascinating place, full of history, culture, natural wonders and good food. It is also very cheap! We left Monteverde, Costa Rica at 6am in order to start our epic move to Nicaragua. Well, maybe "epic" is too strong a word, but it was certainly a bit of a trial, involving 4 different chicken buses, a taxi, a boat and a long border crossing to finally reach our first destination, the town of Moyogalpa on Isla de Ometepe. We arrived just in time to check into a good cheap [View Full Entry]

By Ruth from Wales
July 21st 2008

Costa Fortune Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica

Me with an orange-kneed tarantula named Cleopatra, Santa Elena

Costa Rica is probably one of the world's best travel destinations, but only if you have the money to be able to afford it. We spent the majority of our week in Costa Rica being shocked by the price of things, especially after 10 months in South America. Sadly, as 'budget' travellers, I don't think we got the most out of the country, but still we did manage to do some very cool things and have left other stuff for when we are older and richer...! San Jose To get to the Costa Rican capital city San Jose from Panama we [View Full Entry]

Baldi hot springs (with slides!) in front of Volcan Arenal

By Ruth from Wales
July 13th 2008

Moving on up Central America Caribbean » Panama

Panama City skyline

Panama City and the Canal And so after 10 months of travelling we left South America and headed up to Central America. We took a flight from Cartagena to Panama City and - apart from big security checks on the Colombian side - it all went very smoothly and we were in our Panama hotel by lunchtime ready for some exploring. We spent the afternoon discovering Panama's historic old town which until a few years ago was mostly off-limits to tourists. It had apparently become very rundown and was not a safe place to wander. But lots of regeneration has taken [View Full Entry]

Volcan Baru summit, note the multitude of TV aerials!

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