We arrived in Buenos Aires just after midnight and headed for a hostal in the San Telmo area, recommended to us by four South African lads we met in Ushuaia. What was ideal for them did not turn out to be ideal for us. We failed to pick up on some subtle clues as we checked in. The hostal was above a bar and all the residents were having a jamming session with bongo drums in the hostal courtyard at 1am in the morning, all a bit worse for wear. We hit the sack and I laid there until 5am chewing [View Full Entry]

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Yes! We made it! Before crossing the finish line let me bring you up to date with the final stages of our journey. After a boring drive across the Argentnian pampas we entered El Calafate surrounded by stunning scenery and after 200k of ripio (gravel/muddy track) and four firmly pumped up tyres we celebrated with a hot chocolate in a very expensive coffee shop. As the sun was shining we decided to camp but forgot that it didn't shine at night and it got a little chilly. We were met by Jack Frost and all his mates the next morning which [View Full Entry]

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We passed from the Argentinian lake district to the Chilean lake district with only a brief interuption by vigilant Chilean customs officials who found our fresh produce and confiscated eggs, apples and half a cucumber. I think we were lucky with the weather on the Argentine side as by the time we reached the Chilean side it was like a true lake district grey, bleak and chucking it down. The tent was given its sternest test yet and despite waking up surrounded by puddles we were amazingly still dry (ish). We managed a couple of short hikes before pushing on further [View Full Entry]

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Yes, green at last. We climbed back into the Andes and wiggled our way around 29 hairpin bends before reaching the Chilean side of the border, huge mountains all around but not a condor in sight. Drove through no-mans land and a 3km tunnel linking the two countries and we popped out the other side into Argentina. Getting past the border officials took longer than expected. We had great difficulty understanding a word as they rabbitted on so fast, sounded nore like a bad dose of verbal diarrhoea than any language we recognised. Two hours later we were through with everything [View Full Entry]

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Having spent (for us) a relatively long time in Cusco waiting for our Inca trail tour we were keen to push on. We headed towards Bolivia across the undulating Andean highlands of Peru. A scenic drive running parallel to the railway, a sort of Peruvian version of the Orient Express. At one point it crossed the road with its wealthy passengers waving enthusiastically at us. I waved back enthusiastically with my middle finger. Our final destination in Peru was the town of Puno on the shores of lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is a 8,000sq km lake, at an altitude of 3,820m [View Full Entry]

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Turned left back into the mountains at 12,000ft+, Tommy was struggling and so were we. The local llama and alpaca population didn´t seem so bothered. If you substituted llamas for sheep you could be fooled into thinking that you were in Scotland or the Yorkshire Dales, they were everywhere. Our stopover for the night was a little place called Chalhuanca. We were the only gringos in town and it just so happened that it was fiesta time. Nobody could explain what it was in aid of but it involved dancing around a tree all night in the pouring rain, taking turns [View Full Entry]

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A relatively straight forward crossing into Peru, a country five times the size of Britain with the Andes running down the centre, jungle to the east and desert to the west which runs down to meet the Pacific Ocean. We headed through the barren desert to the coast making our first stop at Chiclayo. Peru´s claim to fame is its history of ancient civilisations and recently excavated archaeological sites. Feeling somewhat ignorant in these matters we booked ourselves on a ´cram it in´tour of four sites and museums in one day. Our minibus whizzed from site to site as we learnt [View Full Entry]

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Our last few hours in Galapagos were certainly memorable, all for the wrong reasons. We had both eaten something dodgy and I spent the night not knowing which end to point at the pan while Nik saved his grand finale for the bus ride to the airport. Busy looking out the window for giant tortoises, I got a quick tap on the shoulder ´bag quickly´. Nik being quite a healthy bod had forgotten how to be sick gracefully and it was very hard to disown him when he started barking like a dog and filling his supermarket special with diced carrots, [View Full Entry]

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We have just arrived back from our holidays, after the eventful road trip through Central America and Colombia we decided we deserved a bit of a treat. Five nights and six days on a budget cruise around the Galapagos Islands. Not cheap but a one off we really wanted to do from the start of our trip. A bit ironic paying out all that to go on a boat when not so many years ago I would happily have paid the same amount to get off one. The Galapagos Islands are approximately 1,000 km off the Pacific Coast of Ecuador, famous [View Full Entry]

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Twas the night before Christmas and the Islands of Boccas Del Torres were beaconing us. We were weary from travel and needest food and shelter. Many people had gathered this day for the crossing of the rickety banana bridge into the promised land of Panama. Flood waters raged and thundered below, landslides nor torrential rain didst steer us from our path. Our faithful four wheeled companion led us safely to 'O Little Town of Almirante'. We were guided by a star across choppy waters in a sturdy vessel to the promise of shelter. Despondently we trudged the sodden streets with the [View Full Entry]

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