Bora the Explorer

After a relatively short bus trip of only 4 hours, trundling through the flat expanse of nothingness that is the altiplano, your first glimpse of La Paz hits you like a smack in the face. The city is nestled in a huge valley amongst towering mountains and just sprawls up all sides like a swarm of locust. It’s a breathtaking sight as you wind your way down into the city centre at the lowest point of the valley (a very handy thing to remember when navigating the urban maze of La Paz is to just walk downhill and you’ll eventually get to the main street). Since arriving in Bolivia me and Yvonne had stayed in some chronically basic (but very cheap!) hostals so en route to La Paz we agreed to up-grade our digs a bit ... read more

To be honest, I had anticipated my first long distance night bus with a strong sense of dread and a hint of anxiety. Being 6’ 5” tall has many advantages in life but when it comes to long distance bus travel it’s a curse. However, if you want to travel in South America on a backpackers budget you don’t have a choice. It really is impossible to get to grips with the size of this land mass until you stumble off of a 20 hour bus ride, bleary eyed and as stiff as a corpse, look at a map and realize you’ve just covered a distance comparable to walking down to the local shop back home! As I write this I am currently 2 hours into a 17 hour journey from Puerto Iguazu to Buenos Aires; ... read more

Due to a combination of my chronic malaise and infrequent wi-fi I now find myself about 4 weeks and 3 countries behind in my travel blog. This has led me to the inevitable conclusion of condensing a couple of weeks travel into one blog or risk just giving up completely (something which I would eventually regret). So, here we go! We arrived in the city of David eagerly anticipating an extraordinary stay at the infamous Purple House hostel. Lonely planet gives this place an outrageously good review but I was seriously disappointed. Stuck out in the dreary suburbs the purple monstrosity stands out like an elephant in a chicken coop. The reason it received such high praise was the reason I hated this place with a passion; the owner. She lives in the hostel and treats ... read more

Its a great feeling waking up in the morning and just picking somewhere to head off to wondering what adventures await! This was the not so unpleasant predicament we found ourselves in when we left San Jose and hopped on a bus down to our selected destination of Puerto Viejo De Talamanca on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. As we had missed the white sandy beaches and chilled out feel of Roatan Island in Honduras (due to that damn volcano) we felt the need for a bit of beach time. The bus to Puerto Viejo usually takes about 4 hours but due to a mudslide wiping out a big chunk of road on the mountain pass we head to take a detour adding an extra hour and a half onto the journey. We got talking ... read more

La Fortuna and the invisible volcano… After two wonderful nights in Monteverde we set of around 8 in the morning heading for a small town nestled at the base of Arenal volcano called La Fortuna. I have to mention the fantastic drive down the mountains as we approached Lake Arenal; possibly one of the most impressive drives I’ve ever been on. Unfortunately, due to excessive alcohol intake the night before, many of the other people on the tour didn’t appreciate the winding decent from Monteverde and were more concerned with not vomiting on each other in the back of the mii-bus, much to my amusement! Once we arrived at the western shore of the lake we boarded a small boat to take us across the lake, saving us about 3 hours of road time. Crossing the ... read more