Flashpacking Tibbster

Bolivia - La Paz & The Death Road

2010-08-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

La Paz is the highest capital in the world (3,660m above sea level according to Wikipedia). The high altitude is really noticeable just doing simple things like wandering around the city – its very easy to get out of breath. La Paz is a bustling city full of people and traffic but it is cheap-as-chips, has some interesting sites (like dead llama foetuses in the witches market), great hostels and restaurants serving international food (such as a British Indian restaurant!) making a welcome break from usual South American dinners of rice, meat and salads!!

A must-do on the gringo trail of Bolivia is to spend a day mountain biking down the Yungas Road... otherwise known as... El Camino de la Muerte (The Death Road)!! The majority of the road is a gravel track hugging the mountains with an unprotected sheer drop on one side of the road into the valley below. Hundreds of people used to die each year travelling the road hence the name. More recently a safer tarmacked relief road has been built which means the majority of the Death Road users are tourists getting their adrenaline fix on a mountain bike!

The route is 64km of downhill riding mostly on gravel track, descending 3600m in altitude. The main challenge is to keep away from the sheer drop which isn't too hard as long as you can ride a bike and don't go too crazy!! Unfortunately the morning I was due to do it I wasn't feeling well at all. I felt sick and also had diarrhoea. The trip to the British Indian curry house might have been a factor but also the early morning long and bumpy minibus ride compounded things. By the time we got to the start I was feeling really ill and I needed a quick exit from the minibus and a dash into the bushes to vomit. This was the start of a long day cycling sections of the road with many visits to the bush to vomit, and then when possible visits to some of the worst toilets in the world to relief myself from the other end of my body !! I managed to spend the entire day on two wheels without falling off the edge or wimping out and getting on the support minibus. I did get some enjoyment from the beautiful scenery and thrill of the ride but having spent the whole day puking and shitting this was definitely a low point of my trip.

During my stay in La Paz a group of us from the hostel went to see the Cholitas Wrestling event. This is basically a show for tourists where women in traditional costume fight masked opponents and occasionally the biased referee joins in the fight. It was entertaining for the first 30 mins or so!

Bolivia - Copacabana & Lake Titicaca

2010-08-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

My first border crossing by bus was drama free. After gaining two more stamps in my passport and then a 100m sprint to catchup with the bus (which had already rolled across the border and out of sight) and I was into Bolivia.

First stop was Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca. The town at the time was in festival mode, celebrating Bolivian independence day which meant chaos - people and market stalls everywhere. Unfortunately for me and my travelling pals this meant a very limited number of available beds for the night, and an evening of walking around to almost every hostel and cheap hotel in the town before managing to get something that (a)wasn't akin to a prison cell, and (b)didn't blow the travel budget.

Neglecting to heed the warning in the guide books about there being no ATMs in the town, I found that on this occasion the guide books were right - there were no ATMs in the town. I had just crossed the border from Peru so I didn't have any local currency and therefore had to pool my remaining peruvian soles and some emergency US dollars to afford the cost of my bed, a day trip to Isla del Sol and most importantly my bus ticket to La Paz where i could get some cash! The trip to Isla del Sol and Lake Titicaca were beautiful, helped by a lovely day of blue skies and sun, I just wish i'd had enough money to stay overnight to have been able to see the much hyped sunsets / sunrises.

Peru - Puno & Uros Floating Islands

2010-08-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

Last stop in Peru was Puno, a town on the shores of Lake Titicaca and close to the border with Bolivia. From Puno we took a half day tour to see the Uros and their floating islands on Lake Titicaca. The Uros are a pre-incan people who settled on the lake to avoid more powerful communities like the Incas.

The trip to the islands didn't get off to the best of starts. The boat pulled out of the harbour so swiftly that one of the boat crew promptly fell off the back of the boat into the lake and spent 5 minutes thrashing around before a group of people managed to haul him onto the pier.

When we reached the islands we were welcomed by the Uros, dressed in their colourful traditional clothes who gave us a demonstration showing how the islands were constructed out of the local reeds. From here on it became a bit of a tourist trap, with the persuasive locals ushering us to the market stalls. We then had a ride on a traditional boat with a few of the local kids singing us songs in different languages before arriving at another island and more market stalls.

Peru - Arequipa & Colca Canyons

2010-08-06T11:56:00.000-07:00

During the Salkantay trek I'd met a fellow brit called Steve who was heading the same way as me after Cusco. A new travelling buddy!! We headed from Cusco to Arequipa together on a night bus. Arequipa is the base for trips to the Colca Canyon. At 4160m the canyon is more than twice as deep as the grand canyon in the USA (although its walls arent as vertical). We went on a 2 day trekking tour of the canyon which basically was a long trek down to the bottom of the canyon and then the following day a long trek back up again. On the drive there we got the opportunity to stop and watch condors soaring on the thermals above the canyon - they were HUGE!! It took a few hours to trek down to the bottom of the canyon where we stayed at 'The Oasis' - a very small settlement that has half-a-dozen hostels, each with their own spa pool. With no electricity we ate dinner by candlelight and afterwards we were soon in bed as it got very cold after sunset. Next morning we started the hike up the wall of the canyon at 5:30am in the dark, before the suns heat would have made it a lot harder. It was another tough climb taking us 2.5hrs to ascend the 6K zig-zag path, rising 1100m in altitude.

On the journey back we were chatting away when i heard a thump and one of the girls on the bus yelped. I looked out the back window and saw a horseman looking at his helpless dog (well i assume it was his dog) who was trying to stand but his back legs weren't working. Our minibus had just run over the dog. Our driver hadn't made any attempt to swerve to miss the dog, nor did he seem at all affected afterwards and just drove on. It made me feel sick but I guess people in this part of the world don't have the same affinity to dogs to what I am used to back home.

Peru - Cusco & Machu Picchu

2010-08-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

The journey from Nasca to Cusco was a long one, about 16 hours in total and up and down across the Andes. It was my first night bus adventure and went without dramas. I stayed at Pariwana Hostel in Cusco which gets a special plug because it was one of the best hostels i have stayed in during my south american adventure. It had everything a traveller like me would want as well as little extras like power sockets in each locker so you can charge your camera or phone securely!

Cusco is the base for trips to Machu Picchu. The floods earlier in the year had closed the area for 3 months and because of that the actual 'Inca Trail' was booked up for months. I therefore booked myself on one of the alternatives called the Salkantay Trek, along with a few other travelling pals i'd made in the hostel. The Salkantay Trek is longer and harder than the actual inca trail, significantly cheaper and far less touristy (although you don't get to walk the actual inca trail obviously). Salkantay is a quechua word (quechua being the language used by the incas) meaning "Savage Mountain" - a 6271m peak capped with a glacier which you hike near the base of during the trek.

The trek was amazing and varied. It was 5 day trek with the final day spent at Machu Picchu. Each day there was different scenery as the trek took us up into the mountains to the base of Salkantay, and then down into the valleys to be surrounded cloudforest. It was freezing at night so I got used to wearing the same clothes during the day and then at night too in my sleeping bag. On the 4th night we stayed in a hostel in Agua Calientes where we had the luxury of a hot shower.

The next day and the ascent to the Machu Picchu entrance was to be very surreal. Only the first 400 people at the entrance get a stamp allowing the bearer to climb Waynu Pichu, one of the peaks looking down onto the ruins. There are buses that shuttle people up to the entrance but they normally arrive after the first people who have made the journey by foot... so we opted to do the latter. We left the hostel at 4am and got to the bridge at the bottom of the valley about 10 minutes later....only to find a large queue of people already ahead of us. The bridge was opened at 4:45am by which time a huge number of people were behind us. The race had begun!! It was pitched black still but the area was illuminated by a hundred or so head torches. To begin with people were running, dashing to make overtaking maneuvers, pushing others etc. Soon after everyone settled into more of an orderly procession as it became an exhausting climb (especially after a tough 4 day trek!!). The climb was about a 45min non-stop ascent on steep stone steps. All the time in the back of my head I had the images of buses starting their ascent on the road and it spurred me on. Eventually I made the top to find i was in the first 100. I was tired, covered in sweat but very happy to have my Waynu Pichu stamp !!

Machu Picchu was very magical... made even more so by the four days of trekking to get there. I felt we'd earnt it! We watched the sun rise over the ruins and then spent the rest of the day wandering around seeing the site and also just relaxing while taking the view in. The Waynu Picchu peak was an adventure in itself with narrow inca steps stuck to the side of cliff faces and a long climb to the top. At the top we were rewarded with spectacular views of the ruins and the surrounding valleys.

Peru - Lima, Pisco, Huacachina & Nazca

2010-08-01T17:25:00.000-07:00

It was very hard to finally leave Medellin and say goodbye to Dani and family, with no concrete plan as to when I was going to see them again. I had been very spoilt by her and her family who had really looked after me while I had been staying in Medellin. I could easily have stayed there for the rest of the year but I had a dream at the beginning of the year to travel to all corners of South America and I was determined to see fulfill this dream.

The first week in Peru was a low period for me. It felt strange to be solo again after so many fun times in Colombia. I felt sad and pretty antisocial as I boarded the plane from Colombian soil. This low feeling persisted for a few days. Lima wasn't that exciting... another huge capital, another Plaza de Armas, some interesting colonial architecture, more attractive looking churches... but not a huge amount to excite me!

After Lima I headed south to Pisco. Pisco turned out to be a dump!! There was a major earthquake in 2007 which destroyed 80% of the homes and killed hundreds of people. Three years later and they are still recovering from it. The reason for travelling to Pisco was to take a trip to the Islas Ballestas which are a collection of islands alternatively named 'Poor mans Galapagos'! As I skipped on the real Galapagos Islands this sounded a must do. The morning of the tour the mist had enveloped the coast and therefore I had to wait around at the harbour in the cold for 3 hours until the boat was eventually allowed to leave. The wait was justified. Just 10 minutes into the boat journey, we spotted a pod of dolphins surfacing near the boat. The skies were filled with birds racing us to the islands. At the islands we saw sea lions, cormorants, penguins, pelicans and rather amusingly named blue-footed boobies!!

Next stop was Huacachina for a night. Huacachina is a typical Oasis town built around a lake in the middle of the desert surrounded by huge sand dunes. I met Jerre getting off the bus who stuck out as the only other gringo on the bus. Jerre is a young dutch chap who ended up being my travelling buddy for the next few days. In Huacachina we shunned the opportunities to do sandboarding (snowboarding ...but with sand!!) as a tour and in the end just hired a board and trekked up the biggest sand dune we can see. It was good fun but such hard work climbing the dune that in the afternoon we went out into the dunes, this time by dune buggy which was like a roller-coaster ride.

After Haucachina, Jerre and I headed further south to Nazca, famous for its Nazca Lines. The best way to see the lines is from the air. Unfortunately on the day we were due to take the flight over the lines, again the weather was determined to disrupt our plans. A sandstorm had whipped up in the desert and eventually became enough to close the airport. I got as far as having a photo taken by the plane and then getting in and putting my belt on with the plane running, before we were told we'd have to head back into the airport. At 11am in the morning and with tickets for a late night bus much later that day, we decided to stick out a wait in the airport and hoping for a change of fortunes with the weather. Unfortunately that change didn't come so after 6 hours of waiting in a tiny airport, it was announced there would be no flights until the next day!! So I went to Nazca (the town itself is not a very nice place) and didn't get to see the lines! Oh well!

Colombia - The Caribbean Coast

2010-07-07T17:24:00.000-07:00

Cartagena is beautiful colonial city on the Caribbean coast of Colombia which is a UNESCO world heritage site. It has an old town full of colonial architecture, narrow streets and plazas, and then there's another part of town with huge modern sky-rise apartments and flash hotels. We spent a leisurely few days wandering around and exploring different parts of the city. It was so hot that one day we were craving a swimming pool. We stumbled across the Hilton Hotel in Cartagena in our search and boldly strolled in past security pretending to be hotel guests. In the depths of the hotel we found a lagoon of pools which we cheekily used for free but decided against using the swim-up-bar to avoid getting rumbled! While staying in Cartagena we took a very fun day trip to El Totumo mud volcano. Its basically a big natural mud bath which you jump into and cover yourself in mud (see pic below) For a small amount of cash, there´s a guy to take your camera and photos, another to give you a massage in the mud, and then a bunch of ladies in the local lake who helped wash you down afterwards (and order you to whip off your swim clothes in the process!).

From Cartagena we headed east to Santa Marta where we only stayed one night and wasn't a highlight. There is a beach there but both the sea and the sand isn't clean and was packed full of colombian holiday makers. That night we spent ages trying to find somewhere to eat some decent food before giving up and jumping in a taxi. We then asked the taxista to take us to one of our favourite restaurant colombian chains who promised he would but then mucked us around by dropping us off somewhere that didn't! The next morning we then woke up early to eat breakfast while watching the world cup second round game between England vs Germany, only to watch the germans totally outclass us!! All in all Santa Marta doesn't hold good memories !!

Taganga was our next stop only 15 mins away in a taxi from Santa Marta but felt like a world away. Its a very relaxed fishing village well visited by backpackers, with a couple of beaches. Again the beaches again weren't top quality and very busy with colombian holiday makers but it was nice to chill out there for a bit.

Next stop was the Tayrona national park. Its a beautiful part of the world; a long stretch of coastline with amazing beaches surrounded by Jungle. The bus dropped us off at the entrance where its a fair trek to the first beach and accommodation options. Most options are either a hammock or a tent... or for real luxury a cabina. We ended up continuing to trek for the next few hours until we got to Cabo San Juan one of the nicest beaches. After a really long hot sweaty trek with all our bags we decided to lord it up and stay in a cabina. The cabina was in the 'mirador' - a hut perched at the top of a rock with privileged views over the beach and out to sea. Tayrona is really beautiful and perfect to spend a couple of days relaxing.

Next stop was the Guajira Peninsula at the very north of South America and close to the Venezuelan border. Its a contrasting place to the rest of Colombia with a very arid desert landscape. Theres no tarmac once you are on the peninsula so travel is slow going off-road through sandy dirt tracks. While visiting a salt extraction facility we stumbled across a beauty queen show. One of the ladies had a 'costume malfunction' which i unwittingly got on camera and felt compelled to add to by blog! The beaches on the peninsula were a world away from the other popular north coast destinations like Cartagena, Santa Marta and Taganga. We stayed on an amazing beach one of the nights in hammocks, sleeping in the open only a few metres from the sea .

At the end of the north coast adventure both Dani and I started to feel unwell. Dani had a fever which I soon developed on the day we returned to Medellin. I seemed to have had a worst time with it and spent the next 4 days or so with a fever and a significant time in bed , followed by several more days feeling like a 90-year old man! Nights were the worst as I was overcome with an itcheness all over my body yet no bites or anything to show for it. I also had a delightful spotty rash on my arse and back of my legs. After several days of fever I was on the verge of visiting the doctor when it subsided and I started to feel better. I therefore didnt end up seeing a doctor (typical bloke!) but self-diagnosed myself with having had the tropical disease Dengue Fever! We are both fully recovered now though!

Medellin (Part 3)

2010-06-23T17:24:00.000-07:00

It felt so comfortable flying into Medellin. I had got to know it pretty well during the 3 months i'd spent there studying spanish. Dani picked me up at the airport and after 3 weeks apart it was great to see her again.

That evening something fishy was going on. Dani had told me of the need for us to go to our friend Rahul's apartment but was being very vague about it all. I thought it was some sort of surprise welcome-back party so just went with it without asking too many questions! Next thing I know we we driving to pick up some random dude (who was carrying a big box) from the local metro station and then the three of us headed to Rahul's. We arrived at the apartment where there was only Rahul and Luke. After 5 mins chatting I was ordered to get the lift back down to car park in the apartment block basement and get something from the car. Rahul and Luke came in the lift with me, but only as far as the 1st floor and then left me!! When i got back to the apartment I found that a table for two had been setup on the balcony, and the random dude was now standing there holding a saxophone!! The guy then proceeded to play for us while my girlfriend spoilt me with a delicious dinner with an amazing backdrop from the balcony of the city lights of Medellin !! What an awesome welcome back !!

I spent the next week spending time with Dani and her family and catching up with friends. I'd arrived back in Medellin to say farewells to some of the friends i had made at language school who were now finishing school and leaving Medellin themselves. We had a few more legendary Medellin balcony barbecues, some ron-fueled nights out... oh and a little more you-tube karaoke!!

Quito... again

2010-06-15T17:23:00.000-07:00

After Cotapaxi it was time to have a few lazy days to recover, relax and watch as many World Cup games as possible!! For three weeks I had dashed around Ecuador and so I was really looking forward to some time out before I flew back to Colombia.

I had left a bag of washing with the hostel before my Cotapaxi expedition so was looking forward to once again having a backpack full of sweet-smelling clean clothes. Unfortunately when I got back to the hostel and went to pick them up, I was given some apologetic looks and the owners wife proceeded to explain that there had been an accident while washing my clothes. I soon discovered that half of the clothes I had given them had been returned to me covered in bleach marks...including some of my favourites!! It was so annoying as these clothes form most of my possessions for a whole year - north face, oakley, animal t-shirts etc... oh and a brand new disco shirt I had only bought recently in Colombia and worn only twice! Que Rabia !!

The expense was one thing but i was more annoyed about the hassle of being forced to spend time clothes shopping. I REALLY hate clothes shopping. Its even worse when you are in a strange land with unfamiliar shops and where the t-shirt fashion looks to me like someone has vomited down the front and the back! After a while I soon relaxed about the accident and treated it as a lesson learned and only to backpack in future with clothes that I wouldn't be too upset about if they got ruined. Worst things could have happened to me and also the hostel had offered to pay me compensation (although it was only after hours and hours of negotiation with the hostel owners would i actually see any of this compensation).

I already wasn't a fan of Quito (see previous posts) and this experience just compounded that. I felt very happy on the last morning leaving the hostel in a taxi bound for the airport and excited to be returning to Colombia.

Cotopaxi

2010-06-13T17:22:00.000-07:00

Cotopaxi is the worlds highest active volcano at 5897m, at least this is what you read in all the tour agencies in Quito. With a bit of googling I found out it can be considered the highest because it is closest to the sun (as its so close to the equator). Using height above sea level its about the 5th highest. However technicalities aside, in summary its bloomin high and is crowned with a spectacular glacier making it an awesome sight.

I'd heard about Cotopaxi when i first arrived in Quito and looked at what things there were to do in Ecuador. At that time I didn't have any interest in climbing it. However during my time in Ecuador it was something I continued to hear about and the idea of this challenge slowly grew on me. Helene (see previous post) had spent a lot of time during our trek in Quilotoa talking about other treks she had done in South America as well her plans to attempt a climb of Cotapaxi. This was all inspiring stuff and proved to be the final tipping point - i was in. Both Helene and I knew that we'd be roped together lead by a guide and therefore if either one of us couldn't make the summit (because of altitude sickness or exhaustion etc) we'd both have to turn back. The weather also was going to be a complete gamble. During the same week other groups had failed to make the summit because the weather was so bad having not got very far at all. We waited a day or so until the news that there had been a break in the weather and then that was it, we were off to climb a mountain!

The first morning we were taken to get fitted out with all the gear and introduced to our guide, Christian. We were given waterproof thermals, mountaineering boots, crampons, ice axe, head torches.. you name it!!! It was a leisurely couple of hours drive on tarmac to get to the national park and then another hour or so off-road, slowly ascending towards the volcano. The car park we eventually stopped at was 4,600m above sea level and then its a slow trek up to 4,800m carrying all the gear to the refuge. At that altitude though ever step is tough on the body so it took us a while to reach the refuge, our guide deliberately setting a very slow pace to help our bodies acclimatise. After dropping off our sleeping gear we then trekked up from the refuge to the glacier where Christian taught us the techniques we'd need using crampons and the ice axe; how to walk up, how to walk down, as well as how to fall!! After this we headed back down to the refuge to conserve energy, eat an early dinner and get to bed before 7pm. Christian told us we needed to get up for breakfast at 11:35pm.

I hadn't been feeling good since returning to the refuge. During dinner I was feeling really light-headed. By the time I got to bed i was feeling nauseous and was so cold I couldn't stop shaking even though i was wearing almost all my clothes. I lied there for about an hour like this, all the time listening to the wind and snow battering the refuge and thinking 'what the hell am i doing?!?' and clinging to the hope sleep would give me an escape. It was clear to me that it was the altitude that was affecting me and I started to worry about the climb and the possibility of letting Helene down by having to turn back early. After an hour of shivering and with no sleep I was time for me to seek help, so I went to the dining area where only a few people were left. They realised I needed help, gave me aspirin and a hot drink and woke our guide Christian. Rather embarrassingly Christian made me a hot water bottle... but at the time it was the best thing in the world!! I headed back to bed already thinking there's no way i'd be climbing the next morning or even if I wanted to Christian would probably not allow me to because of the nights events. Thankfully I stopped shivering, felt a little better and drifted into sleep.

The alarm went at 11:35pm and then it was up for tea and breakfast. It was very very surreal with the wind still howling against the refuge and pitch darkness outside. I'd slept pretty well and was feeling much better. I talked things through with Christian about how i felt before compared with now, and he seemed optimistic about my chances and left the decision to climb to me. After an internal pep talk my decision was made - i was going to do it and give it my best shot and and hope I didn't let Helene down.

We left the refuge about 00:30am in the pitch blackness with only head torches to illuminate our way. The weather was poor from the start - howling winds combined with snow. The gear we had been given was great and I kept warm and felt sheltered. Christian, Helene and myself quickly established a steady rhythm and surprisingly it wasn't long before we had overtaken all the groups who had left before us. Some of these people looked much more professional climbers than us amateurs! After an hour of trekking on dirt we got to the glacier where it was time to put on the crampons and get roped together before continuing the ascent.

For several hours we trekked in silence, concentrating only on the next step and trying not to think about how much more further we had to climb, or paying to much attention to the sheer drops into darkness either side of where we were walking! We'd hardly taken any breaks during the first couple of hours through just taking it slow and steady. Climbing in crampons through the snow and ice at an ever increasing altitude became really hard work so towards the end both myself and Helene were becoming very exhausted and having to take more and more breaks. We finally made the summit about 7am both extremely fatigued. It was daylight but the weather at the top was very poor so we couldn't see very much at all and it was bitterly cold. In good conditions the view over Ecuador is supposed to be incredible but also there is an opportunity to peer down into the crater and see it smoking. For us the weather didn't allow this but it really didn't matter. It felt so incredible just to be at the summit and the added bonus that we were the first group to make it that morning!! We didn't stick around and slowly made our descent. It took about 3 hours to return to the refuge, tracing our steps but this time with the daylight being able to view into crevices and underground ice caves only feet away from the path we had taken!

After some hot tea and snacks in the refuge it was time to pack up the gear and head back down to the car park. Everything felt a struggle. It was 11am which felt very strange. We had achieved so much yet still had most of the day ahead of us. England vs USA were going to be playing that afternoon in the first world cup group match which meant we had a leisurely afternoon ahead of us in the bar recovering!

I ran the London Marathon in 2007 which was a hard challenge but I think Cotapaxi has probably trumped it as the hardest thing i've done so far in my life!!! It was incredible!

Cuenca, Guayaquil & Quilotoa

2010-06-11T14:47:00.000-07:00

From Baños I headed to Cuenca in the south of Ecuador. It took 9 hours on the bus and was unusually easy to basically watch a whole day go pass by, looking through a bus window. I think i was hypnotised by the scenery for most of it!

Cuenca is Ecuador's third largest city and felt to me much more European than the north with its cobbled streets and colonial architecture. I spent lots of time on my own just wandering around the streets taking photos and soaking the place up. On the last night i randomly came across a huge street festival in one of the main squares which i later discovered was a religious festival for Corpus Christi. It was madness. In one corner there was a group of locals letting off chinese lanterns into the night sky. The only problem was the wind was blowing and so as soon as they rose a few metres they'd then veer off, usually colliding with a tree or the surrounding buildings and sometimes coming to rest on roofs where they'd continue to burn. On other sides of the square there were some large towers that had been erected and were covered in fireworks. Every half hour or so a tower would be lit, without any warning being given to the people who were stood right by it at the time. The tower would burn and on several occasions the catherine wheels would fly off the tower into the crowds sending everyone running!!

Guayaquil was my next stop; the largest city in Ecuador. There was little I wanted to see in Guayaquil. Its the main commercial centre of Ecuador but as a tourist there isn't a huge amount to do. The main touristy highlights are the Malecon (a modern pedestrian walkway along the coast), a lighthouse / viewpoint and a park with huge iguanas just wandering around. However part of the motivation to visit Guayaquil was to see Susi, a spanish conversation partner i'd met via livemocha. I'd spent several days wandering cities on my own and getting a bit bored so it was great to spend time practicing spanish and being shown round by a local. My main memory of Susi was that she is probably the worst driver i have met in my life. This made for a few 'interesting' journeys drifting between lanes on busy multi-lane highways! Her car is covered in dents and scratches. On the way to the bus terminal on the last morning we got pulled over by the police who promptly gave her a hefty fine for an illegal u-turn.

Fed up of wandering around cities, after Guayaquil I was keen to head into the countryside and do some trekking. I traveled to Quilotoa which is a few hours south of Quito and where there is a 800 year old volcanic crater and turquoise lake in the middle. The journey to Quilotoa was interesting - about a 2 hour bus ride from Latacunga, the nearest significant town. I was the only gringo on the bus and later discovered that I paid a gringo price for ticket, 3 times more than everyone else was usually charged. An hour into the bus ride the tarmac disappeared and from then on it was just dirt tracks. At this point the bus driver stopped the bus, turned off the ignition and got off. I was thinking perhaps he'd gone for a toilet break or something. I was wrong. One minute later a young boy hopped in the drivers seat and started up the bus. I was thinking maybe he's just parking it for a moment while his dad took a pitstop. I was wrong again...very soon i realised that the young boy was our new bus driver for the next leg of the journey... along tricky mountain dirt tracks with steep drops either side! For the first few minutes I was pretty tense but with time I started to relax as he was actually handled the huge coach very well! When we finally got to Quilotoa I was the only passenger left. I asked the driver on my way out the door how old he was to which he responded 'Tengo trece años' - I'm thirteen years old !!

Quilotoa provided such a nice contrast to the time i'd spent in the cities. It has a small indigenous community living in the mountains, all dressed in traditional clothes and were very friendly and smiley. I only stayed one night but met a few travelers including Helene from Austria who I spent the next day with, trekking around the volcano crater. It took about 5 hours of trekking to walk around the rim of the crater which was fairly challenging at points but had amazing views of both the lake and surrounding countryside.

Baños

2010-06-02T20:08:00.000-07:00

Ecuador is cheap cheap cheap. The 4-5 hour bus ride to Baños cost me $3.60USD! I have also discovered that i can eat a 3-course lunch here and get change from $2USD. The best thing is the accommodation. Step off the lonely planet trail and you can get a private bedroom with double bed, television and ensuite bathroom for $8USD !

The trip to Baños was my first long south american bus ride. By south american standards however this was going to be a short journey at 4-5 hours. I had been on short bus rides during my time in Medellin and so it was all quite familiar for me to find the bus just stopping anywhere to pick people up and also sellers jumping on at every stop, selling everything from crisps to CDs (i quite like this culture!). The journey was very picturesque through the hills and countryside of Ecuador so spent the whole journey watching the world go by as well as attempting the odd short conversations with my ecuadorian bus buddies!! There was no toilet stop, or toilet on board for that matter. I was very glad for my strong bladder and that I hadn't had much to drink before I got onboard.

When i arrived in Baños there was no sign of any drama from the recent eruption. The previous week other towns closer to the volcano had been evacuated, but Baños had been ok. I found the people of Baños were all very relaxed and going about their normal business so I wasn't worried. I was desperate to see the volcano and ideally a nice spurt of glowing lava too, but unfortunately the weather was not great and cloud cover was very low. However, as soon as i had checked into the hostal the volcano said hello. The windows in my room rattled and there was a noise similar to loud clap of thunder. This continued every 10 minutes or so during my stay. Occasionally this would be combined with the ground shaking a little!

Baños is a base for lots of outdoor activities from rafting to bungee jumping off bridges. I wasn't feeling in the mood for an adrenaline fueled day and therefore opted for a more leisurely adventure on a mountain bike and went on the 'Ruta de Las Cascadas' (Route of the waterfalls). This is a 20km ride downhill through the country which is sprinkled with waterfalls. At the penultimate waterfall i bumped into a group of mature ladies who straight away asked me for a photo. I went to grab the camera thinking they wanted me to take a picture of them.... only to find the old girls were putting their arms round me and I was going to be the subject of this photo!! After a bit of chat i then found out they were colombians who live in Medellin and who were touring Ecuador. I had spent plenty of time in class talking about everything to do with Medellin so I took advantage of this opportunity to have some banter with the old girls in Spanish.

On the last night, after dark, I jumped on a Chiva Bus tour to a viewpoint with the hope of seeing the volcano and some lava. The chiva bus came complete with flashing disco lights and party tunes! After a long ride in the rickety disco bus, up a winding dirt track, we eventually reached the viewpoint only to find we couldn't see anything. It was pitch black, we were a long way from the town and immersed in cloud. Oh well it was worth a try. The driver was not interested in leaving straight away so we had to sit in the dark for a while listening to the rumbles coming from the volcano. While we were waiting a 14(ish) year old boy who was part of the bus crew then started stroking a blonde american girl on the bus which was hilarious (to all of us apart from her!).

The only time I saw the volcano was on the bus leaving Baños the next morning. I managed to take a shaky photo through the bus window of the smoke rising from it (see below). Not quite the dream photo I had in mind but nevermind.

Quito

2010-06-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

Ever since reading my mate shifty's blog and his experience I was not excited about visiting Quito. More recently I'd heard several stories of other peoples bad experiences in Quito. Still I had to experience it for myself !!

The flight to Quito and taxi ride to my hostel in the old town were drama free. I was staying at the Secret Garden hostel which is one of the main hostels on the lonely planet tour. The first night was a little strange getting used to being a backpacker again. In Medellin I had become accustomed to having my own room and being a novelty englishman... and now i was sharing a hostel with a large number of brits and staying in an 8-bed dorm surrounded by randoms. After the first night i soon got back into the swing of backpacking life - locking everything away, getting woken up at random times of the night, as well as trying to find the best shower in the hostel which had the slightest hint of warm water (and then not telling anyone else!).

The first day i shunned the city and headed out with a lady from my dorm to Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World). The lady I went with was a sprightly 60+ year old ozzie woman who told me her son was really worried about her backpacking around south america on her own. "No shit!" I thought to myself, while contemplating the thought of my own Mum doing the same! Good for her though. She was a fun woman and kept me amused all day. She constantly assumed everyone spoke english and didn't even attempting the basics like a simple "Gracias"! The cherry on the top was the bows (with her palms together) that she would give to the locals while saying in english "nice to meet you". Welcome to the south american gringo trail!!

Mitad del Mundo is on the equator just over an hour bus ride north from Quito. There is a big park where you can go and view lots of exhibits about the science experiments to find that ecuator line as well as general ecuadorian history. There is a huge red line etched in the earth to mark the equator. What made me chuckle is that there is absolutely nothing to tell you that the french actually calculated this equator line incorrectly and its actually 250m up the road! There is a much smaller (and better !!) museum on the actual equator (as calculated by GPS) up the road down a random dirt track road. There we had a tour and did experiments on the equator such as balancing an egg on a nail head (much easier to do on the equator apparently but i still failed but i reckon the egg was dodgy!), emptying a bowl of water into a bucket and seeing the water drain anti-clockwise north of the equator, clockwise south of the equator, and just drains straight on the equator.

During my other days in Quito I wandered both the old town and the new town. The old town has a huge basilica where i climbed the towers and at the top there is a great view of the city. However the route up there is a scary mix of stairs, wooden rope bridges and ladders which probably would have broken every safety regulation in the UK!! The new town really wasn't exciting for me. There is an area in the new town named 'gringolandia' by the locals which is a few streets of overpriced restaurants, bars and hostels drowned with gringos.. other than that some well known hotels etc.

Quito is one of the main hubs for trips to the Galapagos islands. I put some effort into visiting tour agencies to see if I could get a fantastic last minute deal but even at last minute prices it was going to be very very expensive. Although it would have been amazing, I just couldn't justify spending a fortune on what would be a 1 week trip and so I decided to pass.

I had 4 nights in Quito but was in no mood to explore the nightlife. I'd had a lot of fun nights out during my last month in Medellin and therefore it was great just to have some downtime to read / catchup on emails etc. Also i just didn't feel comfortable in Quito. Every day I headed out with nothing other than about $10 and left everything else locked away in the hostel including my camera. Maybe I was being paranoid and overly cautious but i just didn't want a bad experience in the first few days of being on the road again. I therefore have no pictures of Quito at all.. the one on this post i stole from a website!

Everyone in the hostel had a story of someone who had got mugged or robbed. I got chatting to a guy in my dorm to find that he had got robbed the day before!! After 2 hours of arriving in Quito he had dropped his bag in the hostel and headed out with his day rucksack. Only 2 blocks from the hostel in the middle of the day some dude squirted something like mustard over his bag. Another group came upto him to help him take his rucksack off and clean it... only to then run off with it!! There were so many similar stories like this which seems to be a classic trick.

So after a few days in Quito i was happy to be ready to move on. I had heard good things from several people about Baños, a small town 4 hours south of Quito which I wanted to visit. Baños is near the base of the active Tungurahua Volcano. However, during my time in Quito I heard through the grapevine and on the bbc news reports that the volcano had decided to erupt the same week. It erupted on Friday and I was due to leave Quito on Sunday. Should i go.. should i go? After much deliberation and debating it with fellow backpackers i decided to go for it and jumped on the bus to Baños. The road had been closed earlier on in the week so I checked with the man who sold me the bus ticket to ensure the road was open... and it was. A good start.

Medellín (Part 2), Bogota and Manizales

2010-06-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

A local colombian recently told me that 'Colombia is dangerous.... dangerous because you won't want to leave'. He was not wrong! Having planned to stay in Medellin for 4 weeks, maybe 6 weeks at a push... its amusing that I have only recently left after 4 months! I have been so absorbed in living life that this post is long overdue. I'm now in Ecuador at the moment so the story is a retrospective and a lot to catch up on. (sorry!!)

I spent 4 weeks studying spanish at EAFIT university in group lessons (4 hours per day in class and then lots of homework) which covered levels 1 and 2. It was good learning the basics as a group and I liked the fact we were following a well-defined syllabus. However I found it slow going in the group environment even with 4 hours of class every day. My main problem was that I wasn't spending very much time speaking in class and felt that i could spend the time more productively. Level 3 was gearing up to be an even bigger class and after a lot of indecision I finally decided to drop out of university and change my learning to have 1-on-1 lessons in a private school called ABC Spanish (thought i'd give them a plug as they were so good!). This worked really well for me. I found I was speaking during the whole class and all the vocabulary was geared towards me (rather than using text book examples). I was learning much more with less hours compared to the university course. I still have my student card so was regularly back there to use the facilities for free which worked out well! EAFIT was still a great experience and i loved being back on a university campus again! Through the university I met a great group of friends, both extranjeros (foreigners) as well as colombians who I spent a lot of time with and had a lot of fun. Lots of barbecues, karaoke, day trips, football matches, picnics, beer pong competitions, finca visits as well as big nights out! Its been awesome.

I have now had 3 months of spanish class and pretty much covered everything. That by no means I am any good – I only use and have memorised a fraction of what I have been taught so i now need to put a lot of effort into revision and practice! I use a lot of present tense... some future and a bit of past. The subjunctive tense I find very hard at the moment to build into my conversation. It was very easy to speak spanish in class, but then outside class very easy to spend the rest of the day speaking english with my friends. Progress has therefore been slower than I would have liked but I am going to keep at it!!

I stayed with my colombian family (see last post) for 2 months in total. They really looked after me and did everything for me so I was very spoilt. It was a great experience which has definitely helped me to pick up some everyday phrases and vocabulary as well as sampling home-cooked colombian cuisine! There were many moments where it was very hard to communicate. We would get stuck on some phrases and then spend half an hour jointly flicking through a spanish-english dictionary to work out what each other were saying. It was a hard decision and very sad to leave but after a while I was craving my independence. For the last month I moved into my own apartment which gave me the opportunity to buy food / cook for myself, have people over for drinks.. oh and watch tv which was a good spanish learning experience.

The other big news since the last update is that I have a girlfriend! Her name is Daniela and we met at the university salsa dancing class where she became my friend and conversation partner before becoming my girlfriend!! She is studying business at the university, speaks good english and is a lot of fun. She has introduced me to a lot of her family and friends while I have been staying in Medellin who have all been very kind and welcoming. Her immediate family do not speak english so I have had several interesting family meals with them where I try my best spanglish on them in an effort to make a good impression... usually ending in me misinterpreting questions and replying completely off-topic!

Dani and I had a mini break to Bogota during Semana Santa (Holy / Easter week). Things generally grind to a halt in Colombia during this week as most people have several days holiday. Bogota was fun and during the few days we were there we really packed it in seeing all the major touristy sights. I didn't fall in love with Bogota – its just too damn big and the climate is not as good as Medellin.

Since the trip to Bogota, my mate Jeremy and I spent a long weekend in Manizales which is about a 4 hour drive from Medellin. The drive is very picturesque through the colombian hills and countryside. Manizales is a city surrounded by lush countryside and a big national park. We had a day trip to 'Los Nevados'(the national park) where we climbed upto a height of 5,125 metres (starting a few hundred metres below that). It was the highest I have been and the altitude made walking even 20m extremely hard without stopping for a breather (maybe also because i'm not fit at the moment !!). At the top there was snow which wasn't something I had expected on experiencing in Colombia !! On the way home we had a much needed soak in the local volcanic spas. Manizales is also in the zona cafeteria ('coffee region') where much of Colombia's coffee is produced, so we also made a trip to a coffee farm outside of the city to see how coffee is grown and farmed, before tasting a freshly roasted cuppa.

Manizales nights ended up being very boozy. The first night we settled into a 'giraffe' basically 4 litre towers of beer that sit on your table from which you can pour your own beers from. The hostel we were staying in was brand new and so on Saturday night was the first night the bar was open. Jeremy and I settled in there where we met a new amigo – 'Ron de Caldas' (the local rum) and found out that jointly drinking the majority of 2 x 750ml bottles of the stuff ended up resulting in a messy night !! A group of colombians strayed into the bar and into gringo territory - so we pounced on the opportunity to have some new conversation partners (god knows what we said !!). On the last night we went to what seemed like the only bar open that Sunday night thinking we would have a quiet night. Next thing we know we are working our way through another giraffe. A random bunch of young colombians had shown interest in us - weird looking foreigners. Then soon after they are helping themselves to our giraffe, snorting cocaine in front of us and offering us group sex!!! Not a normal sunday night. (no we didn't indulge and no this is by far not the norm in Colombia!!)

Other news is that the President of Colombia (Uribe) visited the university. Dani managed to blag me and Jeremy a seat in the auditorium to see the big man himself in the flesh. It was really hard to understand anything of his speech but was an interesting experience all the same to see the man himself. Afterwards there was free wine and nibbles so as students we made the most of that!! I love being a student again!

I have had some issues recently with my colombian visa. I was forced by the university to get a student visa which ended up only being granted for 6 weeks - the same validity as my original tourist visa. I didn't know at the time but when the student visa was granted, it implicitly cancelled my tourist visa. This caused a lot of confusion when I went to the government office to extend my visa. The first time I successfully managed to extend my tourist visa for a month (even though at that time it wasn't valid?!?!) but then the next month it became evident I had a problem. The conversation initially started off very bad 'you need to leave the country immediately' was what I interpreted from their spanish. After a bit of Tibbitts charm and some legendary Tibbitts spanglish I had a new stamp in my passport for another months stay, but told that would be my last and I will definitely need to leave the country before that expires. This really messed with my plans which had been to spend a few more weeks in Medellin and then a further month exploring the caribbean coast, but not impossible to work around.

I finally left Medellin after 4 months on a flight to Quito (Ecuador), with a quick pitstop in Bogota. I left a few days before the elections on the 30th May. I had a few days left on my visa when i left but I thought it would be a good time to escape the country for a few weeks during the election period. President Uribe has been in power for 2 terms and is constitutionally not allowed to stand for a third. Therefore after a long period of stability the country faces a change of government which could be potentially unsettling.

It was really sad and hard for me to leave Medellin after staying there for so long, but made easier by the fact i would be returning in a few weeks. I still want to see the north coast of Colombia so after 3 weeks in Ecuador I am going to be returning to Medellin and then onto the north coast. Hopefully I will get a new visa stamp in the process!

Medellín, Colombia

2010-02-27T15:26:00.000-08:00

So here I am living in Medellín, Colombia!! I have been here for a month now and feel very comfortable and settled (probably not what you want to hear mum)!! Two decades ago Medellín was considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world, but nowadays the reputation it still retains is definitely undeserved. For a major city it feels relatively safe helped by an obvious security presence everywhere- most buildings have a a security guard / electronic gate and there are lots of police everywhere in the main parts of the city.

The scariest moment i've had was when I was crossing the road during the day and a stocky policeman with a big gun started shouting at me and running over to where I had frozen! I immediately thought I was in deep trouble as I didn't have my passport on me which was in transit to Bogota without me to get my student visa. Instead of searching or shooting me (!) he simply handed me a bit of paper which had a series of words in English like 'cook by power', 'cook by weight' etc on it with the odd one already translated into Spanish. He'd obviously just spotted my English milky white skin and was using me to help him translate what i assume were the controls on his microwave! The people here are definitely the friendliest I have met in any foreign city. They are genuinely happy that you have come to stay in their city and keen to make sure you have a great time and see the sights.

Medellín is known as 'The City of Eternal Spring' – its like a British summers day all year round (well on a good year!!). It does rain every other day but usually just dumps it down for about 20 mins and then normal service is resumed!! The city is surrounded by hills so makes a great backdrop. The metro system is modern and efficient and has branches that allow you to get a cable car into the hills for great views over the city.

The first week was a slow start. The hostel I had based myself in was pretty empty for most of the week. It was owned by this woman called Natalie who was a bit of a control freak and did my head in after a while... telling me off for the smallest of things. It was like being 12 again!! However it was a good clean hostel in the best of locations so an ideal base for me to get my bearings. The area i've been staying in is the 'El Poblado' barrio (neighbourhood). It is viewed as one of best areas in the town and is where the majority of nice bars, restaurants and hotels are. It made me chuckle when I wandered around the area the first evening to find a hooters round the corner from the hostel!!

I spent the days exploring on my own and not doing very much in the evening even though this was party central for most travellers (well there was hardly anyone in the hostel to get to know). I met up with Ana (who I had met on the plane) during the week which was great to see a friendly face and break the solitude of the first few days. Ana is a marketing manager at a major bank here which has a really modern and swanky office in Medellín. She gave me a tour of the building (felt strange to be back in an office!!) before taking me out for dinner... I love the Colombian hospitality !!

I bumbled through my first week with next-to-no Spanish but at the same time checking out Spanish school options (not many of them here). I had some funny moments trying to communicate with locals. The most entertaining has to be when i was looking in a bookshop and an assistant came over. She spoke no English and I only had a few words of Spanish - yet we were very intrigued by each other and 'talked' for 20mins while bursting into laughter for most of it.

I eventually signed up to a Spanish course run at the language school of the local university (called EAFIT). I loved the feel of the large modern campus and the well-structured course....even if it was an expensive learning option by South American standards. I opted for an 'intensive' course which compressed a level into 2 weeks (usually it is a month per level), so I have 4 hours of class each morning followed by homework / self study and an assessment at the end of each level. I paid up for the first level with the intention of achieving level 3 before I leave (6 weeks of lessons).

After the first weeks stay in Medellín I moved next door into a new hostel called Casa Kiwi, which was where I began making new friends again. This is a hostel recommended to me by my friend Ash as one of the best hostels he had stayed in during his recent South American tour. He wasn't wrong - everything was new and something for everyone!!... hammocks, leather sofas, free wi-fi, bar, pool table, cinema room, steaming hot showers, free live music nights !!

Most backpackers only seem to visit the city for 3 days or so. Other than soaking up the nightlife and culture there isn't a huge amount of touristy things to do. There's therefore a regular turnover of different nationalities which made it great to meet lots of people while staying in one place! The hostel is a bit of a party place which didn't mix too well with me getting a good nights sleep and having to leave for uni at 7am each morning...... but it was a welcome contrast from my first quiet week and enjoyed a few boozy nights out.

One early morning I was just about to leave the hostel when I got tapped on the shoulder while talking to a fellow resident. I turned round to see Tim, a chap I had worked with on the same IBM project for the last year!! Small small world! He had also managed to wangle a career break and had pretty much done South America. Was great spending a few nights on the beers with him (including a beer in the local hooters for a laugh – check out the cheesy pic!!), hearing his stories of places I would be going to.

So how is my Spanish learning going? Well i'm enjoying the challenge immensely although I am finding it difficult with four hours of class each day and then an afternoon of homework / self-study. I only have a limited opportunity to try and cement one lesson into my brain before the next class is upon us. I know it is not going to be impossible to crack this challenge so i'm just going to continue putting a lot of effort in.

I passed level 1 after the first 2 weeks with a grade of 99% (a little generous if you ask me !!) which covered the basics fundamentals. I am now halfway through level 2 learning yet more vocabulary including many irregular verbs. Most of the challenge is remembering nouns and verbs as well as how to conjugate them depending who the subject is (I play, he plays, they play etc). Conversationally i'm rubbish which is frustrating as this is this is the area I see as the most important but I know its just about practice, practice, practice.

To immerse myself in Spanish more I moved out of the hostel into a homestay with a Colombian family. I've had some fun sampling the nightlife but now it was time to knuckle down. Its so nice to have my own bedroom again and a chance to unpack my bag. I'm being looked after by a mum, daughter and there are regular visitors for me to practice with including another daughter and 4 year old son who live next door. Only Paola (the daughter) can speak any level of English but we try to get by on as much Spanish as possible. We are often reaching for the Spanish-to-English dictionary which is never far away!! I am being treated like their son and get my breakfast / dinner cooked for me, clothes washed and packed away and they are being so patient when i attempt some sentences and help correct me!! I think I will find it really tough to leave....

Uni life is fun and great to be on a big campus with lots of facilities. I've made some good friends and through our 'conversation partners' have ended up with a good network of native-spanish speaking friends to practise with!! A group of us are doing salsa dancing lessons each Thursday for two hours which is a good laugh.

I'm enjoying just being in one place for a decent stint which is giving me the opportunity to build some good friendships. I think I will miss this when I am back on the road and spending only a few days here and there.

A few seconds of fame on Colombian national news!!

2010-02-18T15:11:00.000-08:00

The Spanish language programme at the university gained a prestigious accreditation from Spain. This became big news and so we had a film crew visit our class... only to find out that during the same evening we made an appearance on the television!!

Colombia

2010-02-02T12:06:00.000-08:00

Colombia seems to still hold such a bad reputation with most people. Many people back home and in Costa Rica had questioned why i would want to go there... yet as soon as you get reading about the country in travel guides and speaking to people who have been there, a different story emerges. For people who have been there (typically having traveled around this part of the world) it seems frequently considered as a major highlight if not THE highlight of South America. Yes there are obviously still drugs and violence but the cities are safe these days and its a world away from its past. The people are supposed to be the most welcoming and friendly of all South American countries. For these reasons this country was always going to be way up on my list of countries to invest a significant proportion of my time in. I like the idea it wasn't on everyone's itineraries and therefore tourism is a still in its infancy. I just hope it can live up to the positive things that i've read and heard about it!

I decided i was going to settle into Medellin first, the second biggest city, and use this as my initial base for learning Spanish (thanks for the advice Ash !)

My flight from San Jose to Bogota was uneventful but by the time I landed in the capital, getting my connection to Medellin was a real challenge as there was only a short space of time between flights. I was flying with Avianca, the Columbian airline who I hadn't heard of before and therefore straight away decided they'd be dodgy! In fact they were the complete opposite and i was very impressed. The Avianca people did everything they could to chaperone me hurriedly through immigration and across Bogota's huge airport. With a final sprint I made it to the plane with seconds to spare.

The plane was brand-spanking new which the pilot announced before take off... so it had things like usb sockets and an awesome entertainment system. It was a shame it was only a half hour flight so didn't get chance to play with the toys!!

I'd babbled some shit Spanish at one of the guys who had battled to get to the connecting flight with me. Luckily he spoke English and I quickly found out he was spending most of his year in Bournemouth at an English school. I'd spent 5 years living in Bournemouth and went to university there so we became instant friends and I had my first offer of being shown around over a few cervezas! I then sat next to this hot chica on the plane who again was able to converse in some English (phew). She was so nice and friendly and gave me an intro to Medellin on the way and kept saying I'd made the right choice in terms of places to base myself. She works for Bancolumbia – the main Colombian bank and gave me her business card offering to meet up and show me around. Both my new traveling friends went out of their way to help translate things and make sure I got my bag and taxi transfer ok before leaving the airport. What a start!! It was midnight by the time I got to the hostel so hadn't seen anything of the city but was feeling very relaxed and happy. I've got a great feeling about this place.....

Leaving Costa Rica

2010-01-31T12:05:00.000-08:00

After 2.5 weeks in Costa Rica it was time to leave and head to the airport for my flight to Colombia. Costa Rica had been a perfect 'holiday' before the South American adventure begins. Everywhere I had been was well geared up for tourists and there were tours everywhere to indulge in (you could spend a fortune!!). In a way its good to see the country embracing the tourism industy and getting away from its past of clearing forest to make way for grazing areas for cattle. The majority of menus and signs were in both Spanish and English so I had been able to pick up some words but at the same time still being able to know what I was ordering!!

I've invested quite a few hours now in trying to teach myself spanish phrases... mainly using mp3s i'd downloaded onto my ipod. I am picking up the odd word now but I just don't have the confidence or practise in speaking it and readily fall into English at the earliest of opportunities! I'm excited by the challenge of learning a new language and inspired by my traveling pals that i'm meeting who are able to have friendly chat with locals and get insider recommendations on the area. I definitely need some formal lessons which I can't wait to get started on.

I've now really adjusted into this traveling life and feeling really happy, confident and enjoying it immensely. Work seems a distant nightmare! I am definitely in the groove and I can't wait for the next chapter of my trip in South America !!

Peru Floods

2010-01-30T12:03:00.000-08:00

Just read some news from Peru that loads of tourists have had to be helicopter-evacuated from machu pichu. Floods there have washed away roads and rail links and its going to take them a long while to recover – sounds awful !! Glad its going to be a few months before i'm in that part of the world so hopefully it will have recovered by then but wondering what impact that will have on the tour i need to have booked in advance. Full story HERE

Monteverde - Costa Rica

2010-01-30T12:01:00.000-08:00

Next stop was Santa Elena / Monteverde which has the pull of the famous Cloud Forest reserves and wildlife. Most people take the exciting sounding 'jeep-boat-jeep' option from La Fortuna which is supposedly the quickest route. The Costa Rican marketing people have added some spin here – its really minibus-boat-minibus which is much less exciting!!

Roads again were pretty diabolical and the journey was very rough but the boat ride provided a nice interlude. The views back to the volcano were awesome and had some fun playing with a new polariser i'd bought for my camera (a lens filter that removes the reflection on water and makes fluffy clouds against a blue sky so much more impressive) - check out the pic in the previous post!

When i arrived in Santa Elena I met up some friends i'd made in La Fortuna as well as making some new friends. I am starting to meet people everywhere I go now and feel confident chatting away with randoms everywhere which is fantastic and exactly the experience i wanted. I had been getting a bit fed up lately of living in London with the unfriendly nature of people and the habit that people have of not even acknowledging others (like on the tube). I went on an adventure to Ben Nevis / Scotland in the Autumn and i'd loved how friendly and chatty the Scots had been - i had really noticed the difference. This trip too was also proving to be a refreshing contrast to my life in London.

There are some must dos in Costa Rica and top of the list must be to do a canopy tour. It seems to be offered in most places but Monteverde I think is considered the best for it. I did the 'extremo' option – gently bullied into it by a new friend (thanks Ulla!!) The extremo canopy tour is basically 14 cables set in the treetops . The zip lines are crazily long and the tour also includes a tarzan swing, rappel and a final superman for some extra spice! For the tarzan swing you have to step off a high platform, freefall for a split second before the swing kicks in. I was pretty scared about this having watched a few others in the group do it first. Everyone had let out a very worrying scream!! Just the feeling of stepping off without the feel of anything supporting you. In the end two guys had to push me off the edge before i let out a huge scream - all just for the entertainment of the crowd of course !!! I don't think i'll ever be doing a bungy jump. The superman is the last zip line which is a 1km long cable across a huge valley. For the final superman you get strapped to the cable horizontally underneath and then 'fly' across a huge valley. Its the longest of all the zip lines at 1km long. It was such a breathtaking experience - i'm glad i did it.

After the adrenaline fueled action it was time to check out the nature of the cloud forests. Instead of wandering around the reserve during the day looking at plants and stuff (apparently you don't get to see much wildlife during the day), i opted for an organised night tour with a guide in search of the wildlife. The tour was great and with the help of the guide and torches we managed to see a sloth, possum, leaf cutting ants, other bugs and frogs, sleeping birds as well as a big ol' tarantula !!

La Fortuna - Costa Rica

2010-01-28T12:00:00.000-08:00

After nearly 2 weeks on the pacific coast I left Tamarindo and the beach life behind... taking a shuttle bus heading to La Fortuna in the middle of Costa Rica. This place is a base for seeing the active Arenal volcano. One of the swiss girls i'd been dorm buddies with in Tamarindo had the same plan while her mates wanted to stay by the coast and party. Was great having a new traveling pal and spending a couple of days with her seeing the sights and jointly making new friends at the next hostel.

A few of us from the hostel did a trek around the volcano which wasn't exactly the challenging trek at the base of the volcano which i had envisaged! Instead we walked around a forest area stopping every 2 minutes to look for a bird or for the mad tour guide dude to start imitating the animal calls!! The 'trek' ended at a lookout point at dusk where we waited for glimpses of lava. Unknowingly we'd already been to the same place the night before when a crazy hungarian dude at the hostel offered to take a few of us up there in his hire car... to what he advertised as a 'special place' (yes i was a little worried as we set off in his hire car in the dark). The hungarian dude spent most of the time talking about his sat nav and how he liked sleeping with it....

Anyway back to the volcano. Its considered lucky to see the lava - the volcano is often covered in cloud so most visitors don't get to see it during their stay. However we'd been lucky enough to be blessed with a clear evening and managed to see some glimpses of lava - essentially the odd rock that is spat out and tumbles down the volcano, splitting and glowing red. This was not quite the experience I was expecting as the guidebooks have spectacular pictures of huge flowing rivers of red lava. I need to learn not to be sold by these guidebook pictures in future !!

After dusk we went to the Balti hot springs – a place built around 20 odd pools heated by the volcano with swim-up bars. The places i'd spent time in on the pacific coast only had cold water showers so it was so nice to enjoying the contrast of what were essentially huge great heated jacuzzis!! We spent the evening in and out of pools at different temperatures before feasting on an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Tamarindo - Costa Rica

2010-01-26T12:00:00.000-08:00

After a weeks chilling I was ready to move onto somewhere a little less sleepy. Linn who i'd met on the plane hadn't shutup about Tamarindo (where she would be basing herself) and the amazing nightlife so it had become branded in my mind as a place I must visit – so I booked my ticket and travelled north along the pacific coast. Leaving Santa Teresa I was feeling a lot more comfortable with this solo traveling malarkey after a week of quality rest!! I was now ready to embrace this traveling experience so forced myself away from a private room and into the dorm. Turning up at my new abode in Tamarindo I found I had massively lucked in – i'd been put in a dorm with me and 4 very hot swiss girls! They were lovely too and was quite amusing to have gone from my own private space to now sharing a room which was full of hairbrushes, hairdriers, drying bikinis and make-up!! I only had 3 nights in Tamarindo which was enough for me – I found it way more touristy and developed than sleepy Santa Teresa and didn't like the feel of the place too much. Still it was a good place for me to get chatting to randoms and making some new traveling friends over a few cervezas !

Santa Teresa - Costa Rica

2010-01-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

The public bus took about 5 hours to get to Santa Teresa with an hour ferry journey across to the peninsular – not bad at all for the $10 ticket !! The roads are terrible and most people seem to get around in 4x4s or ATVs (quad bikes). The last leg of the bus journey was a real experience and introduction to typical Costa Rican roads - we traveled at a top speed of about 10mph constantly dodging potholes on dirt tracks....for about an hour!

Santa Teresa was very laid back. The whole town is just a long stretch of sporadic buildings along a dirt track set back from the beach by a layer of forest / buildings. This is surfer heaven – the pacific waves are huge and most people either seem to be surfer dudes or couples on vacation. This place is close to paradise – empty beaches, warm water with 30 plus degrees and constant sunshine. Its baking by 8am!!

This is the first place I encountered mozzies since leaving London. For the first couple of days they were feeding on me until I got in the routine of getting DEET-ing up before the sun went down. It was all going well until the last night when I was so hot... and having my own private space... I slept naked. Must have been several families of the buggers who spent that night feasting on my ass (obviously juicy)... I will not make that mistake again and probably not etiquette in a dorm anyway....

So I don't have any wild stories from my first week..... it was all about unwinding and reflecting on my whirlwind departure and without distractions giving me space to contemplate my year ahead. I have plenty of time to party hard!! I was quite anti-social the week I was there... I had a private room in this cool place close to the beach so spent my days doing early morning or evening runs along the beach, reading books.... and generally relaxing on the beach or in a hammock. The arrangement of the hostel with my own room in a separate block made me feel a little separated from the others who were all staying in the main building in dorms. They were generally either couples on vacation or surfer dudes and it was all about the surf for them which I found hard to relate to and didn't really click with them. I'd tried surfing before when I was in Swansea and although I had great fun giving it a go I never really got the buzz. However it was amazing to watch from the beach though – the standard was incredible in huge surf.

There was wildlife everywhere in Santa Teresa. The second day I opened my door in the morning to find monkeys swinging around in the tree outside my room (with huge looking balls as you can see in the pic!!) which was awesome.

San Jose - Costa Rica

2010-01-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

San Jose didn't hold much for me so was only treating it as an initial base to figure out what to do next. Its the main transport hub for the rest of Costa Rica but for a traveller it didn't hold much excitement itself. Having checked out the options and sought advice at the hostel, i'd decided to travel on a public bus to the nicoya peninsular on the pacific coast. I'd heard good things about a chilled coastal town called Santa Teresa (thanks for the tip stevie) which sounded just the ticket for a week's unwinding. According to the guidebooks the coca-cola central bus station in San Jose is a haven for thefts / muggings so again being a newbie solo traveller I was pretty apprehensive about walking around there with my obvious milky white tourist skin !! The hostel had told me I could book bus tickets in advance there to santa teresa so into danger it was !! I ended up going there 3 times in all during the day... each time trying to find the damn place to buy a bus ticket without success (later to find that everyone bought them on the bus for this route). San Jose wasn't as scary as I had feared... just made sure I didn't flash my fancy camera around and walked around looking confident as best I could. I soon felt comfortable even though I couldn't speak a word of spanish and there was nothing practically nothing in english. So apart from sleep, check emails and plan my next move... I did nothing in San Jose.

One of the first things I had to adjust to is not putting toilet paper in the toilet. The draining systems here just can't cope with it so you put it in a bin next to the toilet. Its something i'm just not programmed to-do so constantly forgetting and then having to go fishing pre-flush......

After the second night I managed to catch the public bus at 6am headed to Santa Teresa. It was then I first started seeing fellow milky skinned travellers – mainly americans / canadians with their surf boards heading to the coast for vacation.

Leaving London

2010-01-16T11:55:00.000-08:00

I made it to Heathrow with plenty of time. I'd been sadly excited to go to Terminal 5 at Heathrow for the first time and flying with BA.... but I don't know why. T5 was very impressive but full of boutique shops and fancy eateries which wasn't for me this time. I had a list of last minute purchases to make so ran around doing that. It felt so good to eventually get on the plane – very tired but excited. I'd checked in online exactly when the 24 hour advance check-in opened and with the help of seatguru.com had one of the best seats with extra leg room. I was sat next to a Norwegian girl called Linn who straight away started chatting and was really friendly – a great ice breaker and my first traveling pal!! She was heading to Costa Rica via Miami too and had been there before so we spent much of the flight chatting about her experience and where to go / what to do. The entire journey from London to Miami to Costa Rica should have been about 15 hours but ended up being 24 hours !! Both flights were delayed and we sat on the tarmac at Miami waiting for the maintenance men to mend a fluorescent light cover for 2 hours !! It had to be the one right above my seat so had to constantly keep getting out my seat while they bumbled around. Sleep finally caught up with me and just couldn't keep my eyes open. Next thing I know we are landing in San Jose during the early hours. With Linn's help i'd sorted an official airport taxi transfer before we got through the double doors so saved me from running the gauntlet of dodgy taxi men. So after saying goodbye to Lin I had a drama free transfer to my hostel which i'd been worried about. Hostel wasn't that great but i'd only booked it at the last minute for an initial 2 night stopover to prepare for my next move. I'd been awake for majority of 30 hours so it was so nice to finally have a bed !!

The Preparation

2010-01-16T11:53:00.000-08:00

Christmas, Noels & Caroline's Irish Wedding in Derry and then New Year gave me plenty of opportunity to procrastinate on fleshing out a plan and preparing for my big adventure. On the 3rd Jan i finally made some decisions and booked my flights.... leaving on 14 Jan.

First stop would be Costa Rica for 2.5 weeks to unwind and settle into the backpacking life - thinking sun, chilling, beach, chilling, lying in a hammock (you get the idea). From Costa Rica i'd booked a flight to Medellin in Colombia on 1st Feb (with a connecting flight in Bogota, the capital). I plan to go to spanish school there for 4 weeks to get a base and then explore rest of Colombia before heading onto Equador, Peru, The Amazon, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and finally Brazil. I will be flying back home from Rio at the end of the year but hoping to be there for Christmas and New Year. The plan is very flexible depending on how much I like / don't like places. Definitely will be a lot of 'winging it' !!

With flights booked and a few lazy days enjoying watching everyone go back to work it really started to sink in that i did not have to go back to work for another year. I really gave myself little time to prepare for a year away from home as well as cram in a million of goodbyes! (ok well not quite a million). The snow and icy roads meant all plans on riding my motorbike to a safe home went right out of the window. This became my biggest challenge but luckily thanks to my kind bro we were able to sort something with a day to go !!

I spent my last night with the bucks goons in a lovely Spanish restaurant in Clapham which was a great final farewell. I'd had many boozy farewell nights leading up to that so was absolutely shattered. I'd been pretty relaxed about the whole trip until that night when i started to worry about the initial airport transfer in San Jose during the early hours on my own. I'd read some bad stories on the internet and in guidebooks and with the exhaustion it had started to weigh on my mind.

I joked with my friends about having not quite finalised my packing... well the truth was that night i still had yet to pack with my flight due to depart at 9am the next morning!! I slept from midnight to 2am and then spent the next 4 hours through the night trying not to wake my housemates up while with a sleepy head figuring out what I might need / not need until 2011!! I just about made it and left the flat for heathrow airport at 6am. Gary our new lodger was up early and gave me a big man hug! It was raining, dark, cold and slushy in Balham... hard to contemplate by my next sleep i'd be in a very hot and sunny Costa Rican climate !!

How It Began....

2010-01-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

So here I am about to embark on a year away and an escape from the hamster wheel of working life!! I'd seen an excellent career advisor early last year who had given me a new perspective and helped me to understand why I wasn't happy. She sowed a few seeds that flourished during the year – the main one being take some time out. I'd had a pretty shitty and stressful 2009 working very long and crazy hours including many weekends. I felt i hadn't been living life and having fun for a while. It was definitely time for a break.... a year should just about do it i reckon!! With a week left at work in December, my leave of absence was finally signed off having passed through 6 levels of approvers!!