14th March ’13 Iguacu Falls After sleeping in and missing breakfast (it finishes at 9am) we visited the supermarket, got some bananas and sandwiches and caught the local bus down to the Iguacu Falls National Park. It was the usual fight with the turnstile and a full bus. The sign said the bus seated 27 and had room for 65 standing!!!!!!!!!!!!! The buses we have been on in Brazil all have seating which disabled, elderly and pregnant people get ‘prefencial’ the buses here have an additional category – obesio complete with a picture of a big fat person, strange but true. I have never seen a big fat person use these seats and I very much doubt they could get through the turnstile to reach one anyway! I make sure I stand well away from them ... read more

9th March ’13 Rio, Sugar Loaf Mountain and Copacabana Well we got up early today and were first for breakfast so we could leg it round to the cable car for Sugar Loaf Mountain and hopefully beat the bus trips and we did. The sky was clear and so we paid our money and got in the cable car, which first took us to Urca Mountain (of mountain view room fame) and then on up to the top of Sugar Loaf. The views were glorious and stunning, a 360 degree panorama of Rio with all its bays, beaches, mountains, suburbs and the statue of Christ the Redeemer looking down from its perch over the whole city. There were paths leading down and around the mountain and I think we explored them all (no surprise to those ... read more

4-8 March ’13 Stockton to London We left our lovely new little home with mixed feelings (Leaving friends and family again and it’s so good to have our own place again and there is still so much to do to it but adventure awaits.....). Jo kindly gave us a lift to the station, unfortunately the Thornaby to Darlington train was 20 minutes late so we missed our connection to London due to signal problems at Redcar ha ha gotta love British railways. Tickets changed we caught the next one and by some random chance ended up on a train that only stopped once and we arrived in London 3 minutes later than our original train – bizzare. After making our way over to Clapham North we arrived at Gary’s and spent a lovely evening with him ... read more

10th Nov ’12 Lalibela to Addis Ababa It was a morning flight back to Addis with the usual drink and a bun and soon we were back on a bus in heavy traffic after having seen one of our group off at the airport. Then there were more goodbyes as another two people were dropped off at their hotel and once we reached the Ghion again it was our turn to say our goodbyes. It was quite sad to be leaving the group, they are a lovely bunch of people, good company and good fun. Sue is an excellent tour leader who always went that bit further to ensure we got the most from our time in Ethiopia, her love and passion for the people and the country was inspiring and infectious. One of the most ... read more

7th-9th Nov ’12 Lalibela It was a short one hour flight to Lalibela but the air hostesses still managed to get round us all to give us a drink and a bun before strapping themselves in just as the plane was landing! We drove up into the hillsides with views of high mountains around us and soon reached Lalibela which feels more like a village than a town. We past the newer area of town which is where all the people who lived in the traditional storey mud huts have been moved too in order to preserve the buildings, no idea about how they felt about this but I guess they didn’t get much choice! After checking into our hotel and grabbing some lunch we drove back through the town, down the straggly lanes and to ... read more