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 [...]
I'd been trying to ignore the fact that Venezuela and Colombia weren't talking to each other as I travelled though the former on the way to the latter. The two countries have never been particularly fond of each other and shit went down a couple of days after I got into Venezuela causing Chavez to [...]
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 [...]
After I bid Freddy goodbye and jumped off the bus in Barquisimeto, I had it in my naïve little head that I'd be able to get a bus straight away to Mérida, one of Venezuela's most popular tourist destinations, slap bang in the middle of the high season. My delusions were soon brought crashing down [...]
Size does matter, sorry guys but it's the truth. Why else would anyone pay the slightly ridiculous amounts of money to fly into Parque Nacional Canaima to check out Salto Ángel if it wasn't the highest motherfucking single drop waterfall in the whole damn world at 979 metres? Hmm? Why indeed. Once you've parted with [...]
My dad and my sister, both military reserve types, like to say that pain is weakness leaving the body. I say that pain is an excuse to sit down and drink beer which is exactly what we did at the end of day five after the epic walk down the tepui. Fuck me backwards it [...]
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 [...]
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