Days not Homeless: 5 Years, 8 Days ...and loving every second of this alpine adventure!
Our final destination in the La Paz region was Chulumani. It was spent with drunks, downpours and delays and it certainly did not go the way we anticipated, but it ended up being much more fun than we ever imagined! We planned to head to Chulumani the weekend of...
From the moment we arrived in La Paz and being able to see Illimani from our apartment window, I wanted to hit the hills again – it's been six years since I summited Huascaran in Peru with some friends and I was hungry to get back into thin air. Illimani, at 6.438...
It's already our second weekend in La Paz and time for an adventure! The North Yungas Road, suitably titled “Worlds Most Dangerous Road” or WMDR for short, is a renowned downhill mountain bike ride and formerly the only road through the mountains from La Paz to...
One of the top activities to do while visiting Sucre, Bolivia is the trek to the Maragua crater with a visit to the dinosaur footprints. We decided to use Condor Trekkers, a non-profit organization that distributes its profits back to the community and relies heavily...
Thankfully it didn't eat the ones that toured the Candelaria mine in Cerro Rico recently! Cerro Rico, meaning ‘Rich Mountain’ in Spanish and looming above Potosi in Bolivia, is the primary reason most tourists visit the highest city in the world at 4.067 meters above...
Not sure why we came here, something to do with visiting a friend and it being half way between La Paz and our next stop, Sucre. Rumors abounded of the city being unsafe with very few tourist attractions so what better time to arrive than 11.30pm and your...
The town of Rurrenabaque, known as the gateway for all Bolivian Amazon adventures was a last minute decision, preferred over heading to Chiles San Pedro de Atacama for a week. Andrea was still on vacation from work for another six days and we knew our destination, the...
Hopefully you’re still reading this blog and we haven't bored you yet! We have seen so much on this tour and are so lucky to have spent it with a great group of like-minded travellers. The number one thing Andrea wanted to do in South America was the Salt Flats and...
We thought we had found the number one adventure in South America, the 5 day “W” Circuit hike in Chile, but we’re thinking the Salt Flats, beginning in Tupiza, Bolivia and ending in Uyuni is by far the best. Sitting in a 4WD for 8-10 hours a day and sleeping on slabs...
I’ve learned at least one thing on this trip – I prefer to be in smaller towns than in big cities. Before leaving for South America, I was begging Wayne to let us have at least 4 weeks in Buenos Aires. The thought of being in a big city with so much to do was very...
If it hadn’t been for the suicide drivers and the bamboo scaffolding I would have been mistaken for thinking I was back in England. From the moment we arrived at 3am on Sunday morning to our departure 5 days later we never got a glimpse of blue sky, nor did we get to...
South America borders are not the cheapest places for Americans due to Visas and reciprocity fees and without prior planning they are also not the easiest to cross. We've already been hit with $160 for a Brazilian Visa, $160 reciprocity fee for Argentina, and more...
After our extended stint in Bonito we once again headed to the Pantanal, only this time in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. I missed out on driving the Transpantaneira road in the north and didn’t want the same to happen with the Estrada Parque in the southern...
Now that I've signed up for La Ruta, the 3 day mountain bike race from the Pacific to the Caribbean in Costa Rica, I have to start learning how to ride a bike again and gain some level of fitness! Most of the tourism places in Bonito rent mountain bikes and after...
It’s hard to travel because you always feel like you’re on vacation and with that mentality you tend to eat and drink more than normal and are lax about working out. Well, this has finally caught up to both of us – Wayne is losing weight and I’m finding it! We are...
When you think of animals and wildlife in South America, specifically Brazil, you automatically think of the Amazon. We thought so too until we looked deeper into Brazilian attractions and found an area called the Pantanal. We would have really missed out if we had...
Andrea and I slept as best we could at the Montevideo airport on Thursday night, a first for both of us. Our flight to Porto Alegre, Brazil was scheduled for a 7am departure, arriving at 8:45am. We both fell asleep as soon as we took off and when we woke up we...
Up until this point we were a bit disappointed with Uruguary. Colonia was awesome, but Punta del Este and Montevideo had both been disappointing for us. This is when it all started to change! We rented a '”toy” car from Montevideo and started our drive to La Paloma...
Welcome to the mate capital of the world! People are drinking this stuff like crazy – they carry their mate cups with a thermos full of hot water all day long. Mate is a very social drink with “rules” for sharing. I tried it once and I’m sure I broke all the rules of...
Ever since I saw Madonna as Eva Peron in Evita in 1996, I knew I wanted to go to Buenos Aires. I had all these visions and expectations of a little Paris in Argentina! We arrived in Buenos Aires by plane since the long distance bus union was on strike and stranded us...
We knew that to escape the rainy Alps we would have to head south, the reasoning behind Nimes coming during our recent EuroVelo 17 cycle ride. On that occasion it was Avignon and Arles that got the attention, our route missing Nimes by a day - we felt that we had...
Would this be the start of bigger things or maybe just put us off long distance cycle touring? Fortunately for me this wasn't the first time spending back to back days in the saddle, whilst Andrea on the other hand was going to find out what is was all about! The...
To date we had yet to visit any of the Italian Lakes, the reason being... well we had no excuses! We were living barely on the French side of the Mt Blanc tunnel and Como was a short 3 hours by car - as I said, no excuses, we were just waiting for the right time....
The thought of being let loose on our own with fancy tech bindings and mohair skins, barely two weeks of skiing under our belts, was slightly intimidating to say the least! Shutdown had come far too early in the middle of March 2020, seemingly far too quickly followed...
Yes, we had views to die for, great winter conditions, amazing summer hiking, a bigger apartment, our own car; all suddenly becoming a bit less significant now that we had discovered the infamous French bureaucracy.... and taxes! We had arrived in France eight and a...
Seeing the ultra runners with their minimalist vests and lightweight trekking poles on Corsica's GR20 earlier this year set the seed. Whilst we hauled 20kg backpacks over the rugged terrain these guys passed us with ease, skipping through multiple stages en route to...
France had just removed its 100km travel limitation, Italy was about to open borders with its neighbors; still we were left with few options for a much needed vacation. We had been hiking like crazy in the Chamonix valley and needed something worthy of our fitness...
Every time we drove or cycled out of town, passing Les Houches en route to Servoz or Passy, we would see this huge chunk of rock dominating the view off to our right. Turns out this is known as the Fiz massif. A little investigation also told us that there's a decent...
Every once in a while we get the feeling that this is the place, the place where we'd like to discover more, experience new adventures, and spend a longer period of time. This time it was the picturesque Chamonix Valley. Whilst we had visited a few times before, once...
Less than fours hours after taking off from Auckland International airport we were touching down on the tiny island nation of Niue, a mere blip in the South Pacific. With access only by air from New Zealand or sailing boat, the Rock as it's locally called, is far less...
Reading 'Love with a Chance of Drowning' could well have set the seed for a different kind of adventure, one based in the high seas instead of high in the mountains. Would sailing the Pacific be in our veins, could we spend three plus weeks on the open ocean without...
The thought was.. Well we've been to the Italian Riviera recently so why not spend a few days in between Morocco and Chamonix mixing with film stars and race car drivers in the French Riviera. Also known as the Côte d'Azur this Mediterranean coastline is famous for...
Would the Sahara be any different from Wadi Rum in Jordan's Arabian Desert or the Namib Desert town of Sossusvlei in Namibia? With Andrea's five day Christmas break we had enough days to find out, the only issue being whether we head to Erg Chebbi on the main tourist...
Still recovering from a frostbitten toe and finger the probability of us actually making it to the top of North Africa was looking slim, made worse by the fact that from Marrakesh the Atlas Mountains looked totally white. This wasn't the sign I was looking for in the...
Prior to arriving in Morocco a month sounded like plenty of time, a time that was unfortunately already cut in half. Being alone for the first two weeks I only got to spend time in the populated Marrakesh and Fes areas so when Andrea arrived it was time to spread our...
Whilst Marrakesh is known for its massive influx of tourists the city of Fes would turn out to be far lower key, a good thing as spending the past four nights in the blue city of Chefchaouen was all about narrow streets full of Asians and their selfie sticks! No need...
Even being stuck in Chacos sandals with only 9 1/2 toes wasn't enough of a deterrent in tagging three more pathetically easy highpoints! Although heading out of south Florida towards Kentucky was the right direction they all still required significant detours; a waste...
Home to 2000 year old trees, Middle Eastern food, Muslims, Christians and Hezbollah Lebanon would turn out to wow us in many ways. Unlike a few years ago when we were in Jordan looking at relatively expensive flights to Lebanon this occasion looked more likely. Rome...
Being in Rome and Vatican City for my first, Andrea's second time, was one of our best travel experiences in Europe. Immensely rich in history the city provided us endless sightseeing opportunities, walking tours, people watching, and some of Europes best tasting...
Not sure that I'd even heard of Portofino on the Italian Riviera until it was mentioned in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the classic 1988 comedy starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin. Still, it was a place that someday I'd visit. Andrea and I had just hiked in...
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