We thought we’d take a bit of time out to bugger off on a bit of a trip. We’ll be back when the money runs out which to be fair might be sooner rather than later given the fact the older I get the more I like nice things.
Where Are We Now?
Stage 1: We walked from Eastbourne to Land’s End to Prestatyn in The Bottom Half.
Stage 2: A cheeky little two week holiday to The Seychelles. Y’know, just to rest ‘n’ shit.
Stage 3: We were going to try and touch each one of the seven continents but we’re definitely going to run out of money on the North American (which is actually Central America) leg. Guess we’ll have to resume the adventure when we’ve won lotto or something.
We’d already booked our flights out of Bolivia but we gave ourselves plenty of time to see and do the things we really wanted to before we needed to make our way to Santa Cruz. That meant we had a…
There isn’t a huge amount to do in PotosĂ but it’s definitely worth wrapping your eyeholes around for a couple of nights. Even just one night if you fancied. The main draw here is the tour of the mines, you…
Since I became a postie I’m much better at getting up at hours even the sparrows would raise an eyebrow at. The trick is to actually go to bed at a reasonable hour rather than cruising through on three hours…
Shitting hell, it was a lot colder today than it had been. Actually the whole trip had been warmer than the last time I did this tour. Last time I remember wearing all of my clothes to bed and burying…
It took a while to get to sleep last night. I’m obviously blaming the altitude because I blame it for fucking everything. I’m not out of breath tying my shoelaces because I’m too fat for my trousers. It’s the altitude.…
It wasn’t a terrifyingly early start this morning, we had to be at the tour office at 7.30am which isn’t too hideous. I’d even stopped drooling. Unfortunately the first thing they did was tell us that one of the other…
We’re in Bolivia! Woo! The border crossing was relatively straightforward albeit loooong. Two bastard hours we stood in a queue for as one single human being processed everyone crossing into Bolivia that day. Also we’ve no idea how long we’re…
On account of the fact we didn’t really know how we wanted to tackle Salta we’d only booked two nights in the flat so we were brutally forced to move to a hostel for another two nights when we decided…
Us: Yeah we’re not really big city kinda people, y’know?Also us: Omg we just LOVE Mendoza though! *heart eyes*Yeah so Mendoza has been fantastic. Of course we’ve been focused on the centre but it’s got so many green spaces breaking…
It is 1500 kilometres, give or take, from Esquel to Mendoza so you can imagine that we had exactly zero desire to rush that. As much as I love driving, any more than six hours behind the wheel can bugger…
This is a blog I started in order to write shit down when I travelled so I’d remember it regardless of how many brain calls I systematically replaced with house white wine over the following years. It’s very sweary and largely self-indulgent but that’s pretty much why blogs were invented.
(Mostly) Argentina 2022 – 2023
Argentina really has it all. Mountains, beaches, subjectively the best waterfall in the world, all manner of exciting wildlife, salt flats and impossibly coloured hills. We threw ourselves head first into rapids, soaked in hot pools, and watched a glacier calve. It stretches from the eyeball-meltingly hot subtropical north where you can’t fucking move between midday and 5pm because you’ll sweat to death, down to the chilly south, the end of the world, where even in the middle of summer you’ll need your coat and a blast of the heating in the morning so you don’t take a window out with a nipple.
Antarctica 2023
Bugger me, that cost a lot of money. Fortunately there’s enough cool shit in Antarctica to distract you from your bank account which is probably weeping in a corner somewhere. Anyway, if you’re not here to see a fuck tonne of ice and penguins you’re probably in the wrong corner of the Internet.
Egypt 2022
The land of the pharaohs and so much more. We came for the ancient history and were served all of that with a side of “You want a camel? Good price!” Star gazing in the White Desert, fish bothering in the Red Sea, hot air balloon rides, sunset felucca cruises, temples, tombs, and the dessicated corpses of kings and queens. From the chaos of Cairo to the relative (with the emphasis on relative) calm of Luxor’s West Bank, Egypt has been absolutely fucking amazing.
Greece 2022
Well Greece blew me away. I sort of knew what to expect on account of researching the fuck out of it but I don’t think I realised how varied it was and how much it actually had to offer. I was worried we’d get historied out too quickly, that if anyone suggested we go look at another ancient ruin I’d have to resist the urge to throw bricks at them. But the ruins were interspersed with beaches and mountains, relaxing by the seafront with a beer or a freddo, stunning little villages, and some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve ever had the pleasure of putting in my eyeholes.
The Seychelles 2022
After we decided to fuck our LEJOG attempt off due to injury and mental health, we found ourselves with spare time and money. Our running joke when things go to shit is “should have gone to Lanzarote” but we decided to think bigger, somewhere to make us feel better about having to abandon a long hike, and ended up spunking large quantities of cash on an actual holiday for a change, rather than a whirlwind tourist adventure resulting in more fatigue than we’d started with. The Seychelles, guys. Holy fuck. It’s exactly like you’d imagine it to be. It’s everything you’d expect from an island paradise (with the price tag to match). We were there in July, apparently the “wrong” time of year, the locals considered it cold, but with a steady temperature of 24°C we just about coped.
The Bottom Half 2022
This started as an attempt to walk from Eastbourne to Land’s End to John O Groats in a National Trail crushing extravaganza but our legs and feet made it abundantly clear that they didn’t consent to any of this and injury forced us to abandon the hike in Prestatyn. Still, 1114 miles and three National Trails back to back is pretty good going and if we ever stop walking like we’ve shat ourselves then maybe we’ll come back and finish it off.
Bite Sized Adventures In The United Kingdom
A collection of bite sized adventures that occur during that “annual leave” thing people tend to do in order to furnish their Instagram page with photos that don’t involve black and white selfies with the cat. Mostly involves being damp in a tent.
Malta 2019
Apparently you can’t just go off gallivanting around the world for several months on a whim. Something to do with jobs and responsibilities and blah blah blah. You can, however, fuck off to a tiny island nation for a week and try and fit as much in as you would on a months long trip before probably collapsing with exhaustion.
South East Asia 2017
This was the first big trip I took with the mrs and yes, we’re still together. You never know how these things will pan out do you? Okay, so we get on just fine at home sat on the sofa binge watching Star Trek whilst shovelling Doritos into our chops, but would this translate well into living in each other’s pockets for weeks at a time in Tropical heat? You learn a lot about yourself and your limits when you travel, and we learned that we function well as a team. We also learned that there will literally be no mystery left in your relationship when you’ve spent the night in very close quarters whilst one or both of you projectile your stomach contents from one end or the other.
India & Nepal 2014 – 2015
The most incredible trip in two of the most amazing countries. You can’t really prepare for India, you just have to sort of show up and try to get used to it. The noise, the chaos, the poverty. This is all offset by some of the best food you’ll ever apply liberally to your facehole, and the genuine warmth of the people. Not the ones that work in tourism though, they want all of your money and will lie to your face to get it. As for Nepal, it feels calm in comparison, and the Nepali people are so friendly, and those views! Those mountain views will take your breath away. Assuming the altitude hasn’t already done that for you.
South America 2010
I rocked up to Buenos Aires looking every inch the tourist to begin my adventure around South America, my worldly belongings strapped to my torso and the “look at me, I’m totally lost and vulnerable” look plastered across my face, able to conjugate exactly one verb in Spanish and ask someone when their birthday is. I might as well have had “Please Rob Me” tattooed on my forehead. I’ve no idea how I even made it to my hostel in one piece. What commenced was an epic eight month adventure packed with waterfalls, fried street food and leg-numbing hikes. I loved every sweaty second of it.