I've fallen in love again, this time with Ecuador's little town of Baños but she's not a cheap mistress to keep. It's one of those epically cool places where you might as well hand over your wallet when you get off the bus. It's touristy as all hell which means it's never short on activities, [...]
At 2850m Quito can be described as pretty fucking high up which means you can blame the altitude for everything. Drunk after two drinks? Altitude. Can't walk up a flight of stairs without dying? Altitude. You're looking a bit porky these days, Claire. Yeah, can't help it, it's the altitude. But if 2850m still isn't [...]
So I've left the land of coffee and entered a country where they drink their coffee instant which is a bit of a push for someone who only started drinking coffee because obtaining a decent cup of tea was a mission to rival the search for the Holy Grail. Thanks for the coffee addiction, Colombia. [...]
Sooo… Medellín. Didn't think much of it to be honest but then again I didn't stay here for long enough to give it a proper chance. It used to be the cocaine trafficking capital of the world. It ain't that interesting anymore although you can do a Pablo Escobar tour where they take you around [...]
I've come to the conclusion that there's an extra Insanity Section in the Highway Code that all Colombian bus drivers have to pass before they're granted a license to transport people from place to place. Exercises include overtaking at high speed on blind corners, not slowing down for hazards until the last possible second and [...]
There are three obvious types of people in Cartagena; Gringos, cops and dealers. There are others of course, going about their daily lives, but as you walk through Getsemani it seems that everyone wants to sell you cocaine or weed. Um, apart from the cops of course, they just want to stop and search you [...]
My main reason for visiting Mérida was to see the Catatumbo Lightning near Lago De Maracaibo but as it turns out the town as a whole is a pretty pleasant place to be and I liked it from the minute I stepped off the bus and wasn't descended on by men shouting repetitive place names [...]
Roraima 101. It's one of a range of tepuis that stretch through Parque Nacional Canaima in Venezuela, a tepui being a flat topped mountain that holds particular spiritual significance for the indigenous people known collectively as the Pemon people which, as Marco told us, isn't entirely accurate. There are three tribes that inhabit the Gran [...]
Fucking puri-puri. It doesn't matter how much you cover yourself with clothing or coat yourself with a layer of DEET or that hippy baby oil plus Vitamin B12 crap, as soon as you drop your trousers to pee they hone in on your pasty white arse reflecting in the moon light as the welts on [...]
I'm not too sure how I found out about the Roraima Trek in Venezuela's Gran Sabana, part of the breath-taking Parque Nacional Canaima. It's in the Lonely Planet so it could have been that or maybe it was because I met a few people whilst I was holed up in Manaus feeling very sorry for [...]
Travel & Shit 