Days not Homeless: 5 Years, 8 Days ...and loving every second of this alpine adventure!
Wayne and I took a side trip while in Bariloche to El Bolson which is a 2 hour bus ride to the south. We didn’t make any reservations because we planned on camping both nights to save some money. There are plenty of advertised camp sites near town so we walked and...
Yep, still over a month behind on the blog as we’ve since been to Buenos Aires and are now in Uruguay! It was great of David and Barbara to suggest we join them for the weekend driving route 234 and the Siete Lagos, primarily between Villa la Angostura and San Martin...
It seems like an eternity since the last post, although we’ve been busy rafting, hiking and visiting the beautiful Argentine lake district. Bariloche, situated on Lago Nahuel Huapi, is surrounded by mountains and lakes which made some great adventures for us. We...
We spent a total of 9 days in Ushuaia at Galeazzi Basily B&B, a great Argentine owned bed and breakfast located a few blocks up a hill from the main street. Alejandro and his wife, Francis, were very friendly hosts, who provided us with plenty of recommendations for...
As we didn’t get on down to Antarctica this season we had to make the most of the wildlife in the Ushuaia area. Friday it was penguins, Saturday were foxes and woodpeckers in Tierra del Fuego national park, and today we had sea lions, seals and various birds in the...
We thought that a 5 hour excursion with Pira Tour to see a bunch of penguins on an island in the Beagle Channel was overpriced at $100, but how wrong we were. To see the two species that inhabit Isla Martillo, the Gentoo and Magellanic dancing, preening, and hanging...
This was my first multi-day trek with camping and I was really apprehensive about the “camping” part of it. I’m not much of a camper, but I’m trying to learn to enjoy it more. Wayne promised me we wouldn’t have to prepare our own meals as we could get them from the...
Wayne and I have been anxiously waiting to get to Patagonia to enjoy the cooler weather. We packed our down jackets for South America and we really wanted to use them. It was going to be a nice reprieve from the heat and humidity of Brazil. We flew from Puerto Iguazu,...
Wednesday night, February 27th, we took the bus from Ipanema to the Rio International Airport with 3 hours until our flight. However, the bus made numerous stops causing us to arrive with little time to spare. We were fortunate that we had some assistance from the GOL...
We headed to Paraty on February 17th by rental car since we were with friends from Virginia, Jeff and Colleen for the week. Paraty has become a popular tourist area in recent years, renowned for the historic town and the coast and mountains in the region. It’s an...
Sugarloaf Mountain (Pão de Açúcar) We headed to Sugarloaf on the 511 bus from Ipanema around 8am. I had to be back for work at 11am and Jeff and Colleen were arriving from DC at 10:30 so it needed to be a quick trip! We were concerned that we may not have enough time...
Another “must do” on our list was to visit Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during Carnaval. The city and its suburbs are crawling with locals and foreigners. The buses are packed with people traveling from bloco to bloco (a bloco is a block party – some with just a few people...
If everything goes well on summit day then tagging the worlds loftiest mountain is a huge deal, no matter what you hear otherwise. It comes with immense satisfaction, an emotional rollercoaster ride, and the realization that with enough desire anything is possible....
"Huge congrats to this guy for completing the Seven Summits with his ascent of Everest on the 22nd! I first met Wayne on Aconcagua in 2003 and we climbed together on Everest in 2005 turning back below the south Summit with the Gibbon boys. 14 years on, he again put...
UPDATE 4: Sitting watching Free Solo in our heated dining tent, hands sweating once again, was a welcome distraction from the snow swirling outside. Everest basecamp weather is fickle at best, the mornings so far being bright and sunny, sometimes annoyingly hot,...
UPDATE 3: Banging out a mountain as significant as Everest requires a boat load of dedication, both mental and physical - the physical part is easy, the mental not so much. Moving on from one sniffing and coughing bout to the next is no fun but almost feels normal....
UPDATE 1:Fast forward fourteen years the city of Kathmandu hadn’t changed in the slightest; taxis, motos, hotel minibuses and rickshaws all vying for the same potholed real estate. Drivers with eyes in the back of their heads weaving in and out of pedestrians,...
Colorado would make an ideal training venue for the short seven weeks prior to departing for Mount Everest, the rockies reaching up above 14,000 feet whilst offering limitless opportunities for winter hiking, snowshoeing, cross country skiing and fatbiking. With...
Following months of intense negotiations with the better half a return to Mount Everest changed from a far off possibility into a 50/50 realistic opportunity, before finally blossoming into a firm commitment! Since that epic date the Dollars have been flowing -...
My choice was the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, Andrea’s some winter sun in the Canary Islands, the latter winning out. This was to be a Thanksgiving break for Andrea so how could I not be accommodating! The Canaries ended up as a win-win, and although my last visit was...
Having only been to Edinburgh and fleeting visits to Ben Nevis and the Cairngorms many years ago meant that we had limitless Scottish destinations. We were spoilt for choice so why not head to the summer tourist trap of Skye, easily accessible and looking awesome in...
Island hopping from Iceland to the Emerald Isle provided us with the chance to revisit the places we only skimmed over on a 3 night trip a few years prior, this time with the addition of two weeks house sitting for a couple of border collies. Following a night in...
A stopover in Iceland, the first time in the midst of winter, this time in the middle of the typically temperamental Icelandic Autumn, is an easy option for us. We were on the way to Ireland and with our footloose lifestyle had plenty of time to discover more of...
This has to be one of our top multi-day hikes. For sheer beauty the Maroon Bells 4 pass loop has it all. Not too long; coming in at 29 miles, a little hilly; the total ascent around 7,500ft, and right on the doorstep of Aspen and Snowmass. If it wasn't for a good...
Exactly 133 days after arriving on the African continent we were sadly saying our farewells. Cape Town had been our arrival city and was now our departure point back to Europe and the US. We both agreed that we could have spent another few weeks here! Other than the...
Malawi was looking like another of those countries where we may have been leaving the moment we arrived, with daily reported power cuts, poor Internet and a US Government website declaring that a letter of approval was required for Americans - we needed good Internet,...
Quite possibly the best bit of travel advice we've been given was to add South Luangwa to our list of African destinations. Coupled with the Cape Epic mountain bike race this was the only thing planned in advance and definitely the costliest of anything we did whilst...
Our arrival into Kigali's small but modern airport late in the evening made us slightly apprehensive, mostly due to us having no idea as to the safety nor location of our accommodation. That was good enough reason to take the Ivuka Art Gallery transportation. Twenty...
Lake Bunyonyi and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park provided us an exciting insight into Uganda, a country that even in the six days we visited offered so much. We had planned to move beyond the extreme southwest corner but for two reasons had to reconsider - firstly...
During our time in Bwindi National Park in Southwest Uganda my wife Andrea and I made the decision to visit two community orphanages/ primary schools in an attempt to gain an insight into the conditions the local children have to endure; we were not prepared for what...
All we knew about Rwanda prior to our arrival was that at some point not too long ago they had suffered through a genocide and that more recently their Mountain Gorilla permits had been raised from $750 per person to $1500; something to do with wanting to attract a...
Although premium lodges and high-end tourism are the norm in this landlocked country we did manage to survive on somewhat of a budget. We had already visited for a full hour whilst heading from Namibia to Zimbabwe, a brief encounter that included a dead zebra and...
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