cycling blonde

I decided to have a 2 day excursion from Puerto Natales and after a 5 hour bus ride back over into Argentina, I arrived into the little town of El Calafate whose only attraction is the Perito Moreno Glacier. The glacier is 3 miles wide, 60m high and 170m deep and is one of only 3 glaciers in the area that isn't retreating. I stayed at America del Sur hostel which was basically like a hotel. It had underfloor heating, gorgeous rooms, and the most delicious all-you-can-eat bbq. What made the trip even better was bumping into Rebecka who was in my dorm back in Buenos Aires and she was in the same hostel here too. She's a crazy swedish girl, alot of fun and great company, so we had a great laugh and shared the ... read more

After travelling with the group for 5 weeks I initially felt a bit weird properly travelling on my own and I was now massively out of my comfort zone. Felt rather scared for a few hours but then gave myself a good talking to and was fine from then on. With all the bolivian riots going on I ended up buying a flight to Santiago via Buenos Aires and was only supposed to stay in the city 2 nights and move on. I really fell in love with the city and 14 nights later I was still there and just extended my time in South America by another month. Because I'd booked the flight on a whim I hadn't read anything about Buenos Aires. In fact I couldn't tell you where it was on the map, ... read more

I’m laughing as I am writing this as this was such a hilarious day. Potosi is a pretty rubbish town to be honest and we were only there to visit a working silver mine. Before we got in the mine we were asked if we wanted to buy a stick of dynamite for 80p.. ´yeah sure why not’ and 2 mins later all 14 of us bought sticks of dynamite, with all the stuff you needed to detonate it! This is when we realised there is NO Health and Safety in Bolivia.. absolutely none. We all got kitted out looking like miners and had to decide if we were doing a normal tour or adventurous. I opted for normal as I didn’t like the though of crawling on my hands and knees in a tunnel, especially ... read more

Cusco, Puno, La Paz Did the best days mountain biking I could have imagined in Cusco, but it was really hard work. It was a full 10 hour day with about 6 hours cycling in high altitude and it was also very hot.. about 30 degrees. We got picked up from the hotel and were dropped off in the middle of knowhere called Moray, and cycled along alot of dirt tracks and ancient mule routes for 2 hours with the most beautiful views. I naively thought that the trip was probably for beginners as it was fairly tame. How wrong I was, as after lunch we experienced some hardcore cycling with our kamikaze guide. Even though I have cycled a fair bit, some of the gradients we were supposed to go down scared the hell out ... read more

I have never been so happy to wake up early as moving would mean I would be warm! We woke at 6am and got changed in 1 minute before a lovely breakfast back in the group tent where they served omelette and porridge. These guys were going to get tipped well as they were just amazing. Most of the camps are near a stream so all they have to do is boil and purify our water for our drinking and also washing everything. The weather here changes so quickly. We set off at 7am dressed in all our jumpers and after 15 mins of hiking we were stripping off. The weather was great and it was blue skies all the way. We came across a local woman and her children and learnt a few words in ... read more