Where the hell are Catherine and Matt

(Matt) We decided a while ago that our last two weeks would be a ´holiday´ rather than ´travelling´. You may agree with the English hotel owner in Paraty who, when hearing about this and the rest of our travels, muttered ´greedy b@$****$´then, without pausing, he slipped back into his role as perfect host and followed with ´just let me know if there´s anything at all we can do to make your stay more enjoyable´. Travelling vs Holiday On holiday we´ve started to choose from a menu with taste as a priority rather than price. Our practical travelling clothes now make us look like we sleep on the streets and eat from dustbins, I have shorts I can´t wash anymore because they´ll fall apart! We´ve talked a lot about how many sunny days there´ll be before we ... read more

(Matt) Many months ago I was looking at a map of South America (whilst enjoying a glass of wine) and said to Catherine in true Andy from Little Britain style ´I wanna go to that one!´. ´That one´turned out to be Isla Navarino the southernmost inhabited place in the world (excluding Antarctic research bases!). Catherine responded with ´can I have some wine?´ and ´what´s there?, how do we get to it? And how much does it cost?´, all good and reasonable questions in the circumstances ´Errr here´s the wine I´ll get back to you on the rest´! I knew I wouldn´t get away with a George Mallory (the mountain climber who was famously asked why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest and replied ´because it´s there´), so after some serious research we found that it was ... read more

(Catherine) Border crossings are usually very boring affairs that inevitably involve filling in lots of forms, having your bags half-heartedly searched by a bored official and getting ripped-off by money changers because you can´t get your head around the exchange rates quickly enough. So when we discovered that our Bolivia/Chile border crossing could be tagged on to the end of a three-day trip crossing the largest salt flats in the world, passing numerous colourful lagoons and taking a dip in natural hot springs, we could hardly believe our luck! We dutifully headed to Uyuni, the starting point of the trip and, after doing our research on the internet, visited a company that had received lots of good reviews. Learning from previous experience, we double-checked that we would actually be going with them and wouldn´t be grouped ... read more

(Matt) -The World´s Most Dangerous Road- It is estimated that every year, 200 to 300 people die travelling down the 43 miles of vertical descent that basically consists of a dirt track road carved into a canyon from La Paz to a village called Coroico. With no safety barriers or guard rails and drops of 1,600 ft, cycling down the road (aptly nicknamed ´Death Road´) is not the first thing that springs to mind. However, that´s what I decided to do (thanks Soph for your blog on this!), Catherine didn´t fancy it. This was firmly in the category of things you tell your mum afterwards! A number of companies run mountain biking trips down the road but this is the kind of thing where saving a few extra pounds doesn´t really cut it, like Stella Artois ... read more

(Matt) We had a full 8 days in Cuzco just to take it easy for a while and to acclimatise in preparation for the Inca Trail Trek to Machu Picchu. ´The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry´ ...how true that is, with one day to go before the four day, 26 mile hike that crosses a 13,750-foot pass ominously named ´Dead Woman´s Pass´we were both lethargic from illness and recuperating in our hostal room watching cable TV, Catherine with the remains of a virus and me with a stomach parasite (a bit like in the Alien films!). With aching limbs and a preference for watching trashy American TV we dragged ourselves to our tour operator´s offices (Llama Path) for our briefing as to what we could expect over the next four days. ... read more