Blogs from Blackheath, Greater London, England, United Kingdom, Europe

And again, a week creeps by without me posting. I do hope that you don't think that I'm neglecting you, my dear readers. The truth is that there's not much to tell with regards to preparations. Well, OK, there's a bit. Shall we crack on? A brief history of (my) time (over the past week) On Thursday I got my yellow fever jab. It takes 10 days for it to start working so I'll be covered for the trip. And it didn't hurt a bit (except for the £40 that it cost me!) I also popped into TK Max and picked up a lightweight fleece and a pair of jolly good walking socks. The fleece is really lightweight and quick-drying. And I was pleasantly surprised when I got to the till to see that it was ... read more

My challenge should I choose to accept it... ...find an interesting way to write about towels. Hmmmmmm - wish me luck! It's actually more interesting than you might think. Well, it is for me (because I'm the one who's got to carry around everything that I need to live for 3 and a half months)! So, those who've been avidly following this blog so far will know that I actually bought a super lightweight, super quick drying towel from Itchy Feet. I've not tried it but, by all accounts, it will do the job nicely. However, before I went there, I'd actually already ordered some of these lightload Towels. Allegedly the only towel that doubles as a survival tool. Well, they arrived yesterday (I got two packs of 3, together with couple of the bigger brother ... read more

...Well, more Spanish Flight, really Makes for a good title though, don't you think? (For those who don't get that, check out this wikipedia article or - more importantly - this...EVH - you're a legend!) Any way, back to business. It's done! The flights are booked! There's no turning back now! (Well, not until May at least). I got (what I think is) a decent deal from Journey Latin America. I went through these guys rather than booking directly because they can arrange an "open jaw" flight - apparently this refers to a ticket type where you arrive in one country but depart from another. (All this new lingo is already making me feel like a seasoned traveller) Also, they appear to have pretty knowledge... read more

I've been looking through some other blogs on this site (and of course, the discussion forums), trying to glean any information that I can about good places to visit, where to stay, what to pack - even what level of spanish proficiency other travellers have had when setting out. As a first time traveller, this is all totally new to me. What type of luggage should I use? Should I take my DSLR camera? What about my iPod? Grrrr, a billion questions. So I thought that it might be useful to post occasionally with the lowdown on how I'm preparing for this trip. Hopefully if there is anybody setting out on a similar journey with similar levels of experience, you might find these posts useful. As an added bonus it will help to convince my family ... read more

For anyone who is interested you can see vaious details of the bike I will be using on these these links The bike shop building the bike is Ghyllside Cycles who I met a few years ago at the London bike show. Calvin and Kevin are really helpful and really know what they are doing when it comes to touring/expedition bikes. You can see some example builds of the type of bike I will be getting in the frames section. The Rohloff Speed hub, this component was over half the value of the bike. It is an internal gear system which means I will have less to worry about on the road and enables me to build a stronger wheel as I the spokes do not have to compensate for the rear casette and deraliur. url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7USVMrg5phY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sheldonbrown.com%2Fharris%2Frohloff.html&feature=player_embedded ... read more