Carrauntoohil Climbing Ireland's highest mountain, Carrauntoohil, is something I had planned to do for many years, probably ever since I first learned the name in school, but it wasn't until 2011 that I finally got around to attempting it. At 1040 metres altitude Carrauntoohil is certainly no giant, but the trek to the top makes for a fantastic day hike, involving a fair bit of scrambling in places. It belongs to a range of mountains called Macgillycuddy's Reeks, a rather strange but quite compelling name for a mountain range, named after a local character "Macgillycuddy of the Reeks" who owned much of this land hundred's of years ago. The origin of the name Carrauntoohil itself are uncertain. Ruth and I have climbed mountains in many exotic places around the world so sooner or later I felt ... read more

A warm up for Kilimanjaro To give ourselves a better chance of climbing Kilimanjaro we did a warm-up hike on Mount Meru, the second highest summit in Tanzania, at 4652 metres altitude. Meru is nowhere near as popular as Kilimanjaro, but it's becoming busier as more and more people realise they need a proper acclimatization before tackling the big one. The Meru hike is a 3 or 4 day climb depending on how fast you do the descent. The summit attempt begins very early on the third morning, when, like on Kilimanjaro, you set off for the summit at midnight. Ruth and I had already been in Tanzania for 4 days on a safari before we met up with the rest of our group, who flew in the night before Meru. We were joined by our ... read more

With Kilimanjaro creeping ever closer we decided to visit the Lake District again for some last minute training to ensure we were in perfect shape for our attempt on Africa's highest peak. To make it a little more interesting we decided to try wild camping. Neither of us had wild camped before, but Trail magazine, to which we subscribe, had run a feature on it the previous month and it had immediately sparked our interest. Is wild camping legal? Officially, it's not allowed in England unless you have the landowners permission. However, provided you follow a number of rules it's apparently tolerated by the National Park authorities! Trail recommended camping at above 450 metres altitude, and as far away as possible from the nearest farm or settlement. We also had to delay putting up our tent ... read more

More Mayan Magic Sometimes you get a good feeling about a place and know you're going to love it; that's what happened with us in Mexico, as from the moment we arrived we felt right at home, and throughout our 2 weeks in the country, as we got to know more of Mexico, it just got better and better. Palenque was the first stop. The journey from Flores in Guatemala involved 7 hours of travel on roads that when they were paved they were good but when unpaved they were very bad. The border runs along the Rio Usumacinta, but there was no bridge between the countries at the point where we crossed, so we had to enter Mexico by boat - a very scenic way to arrive. The town of Palenque exists mostly for tourism ... read more

Next stop Honduras As we travel from the Nicaragua/Honduras border to Tegucigalpa a small girl, aged about 9 or 10, boards the bus alone. It's the middle of the day so why she is not at school I don't know. She carries a box down to the back of the bus, takes out bags of banana chips and starts trying to sell them to people on the bus for 5 Lempiras (about $0.25) a bag. Seeing people selling food on buses is a common sight in Central America, but I've never before seen so young a person. It's difficult to imagine a 10 year old boarding a bus alone like this in Ireland or in any European country. And even more hard to imagine what it must be for this girl to have to go out ... read more