Wildlife
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Indian Safari: On The Trail Of Tigers
Well here’s something different, India without humidity. All of our memories of this country are of clothes drenched within half an hour and sultry cloying heat which saps the strength, but it’s not like that now, in December, where even in Delhi despite its ever present pollution there is an uncharacteristic freshness to the air. And as we are shortly to discover, it’s properly cold at 6:30 in the morning. With Alwar now off the agenda and trains to our next destination at unfriendly times of day, we explore the cost of travel by road and find that, remarkably, an “inter-city Uber” will take us the 350 kilometres for only…
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Sucre: In The Footsteps Of Dinosaurs
No doubt about it, the centre of the city of Sucre is beautiful. Picture a city brimming with grandiose white buildings, each looking as if they’ve had a recent paint job from top to bottom, where armies of street cleaners are busy sweeping the sidewalks, where a battalion of gardeners are tending to every ornate corner of each smart plaza. Sucre is a city with all the grandeur of a Spanish gem, all the majesty of Vienna, but on a much smaller scale than either. Add a calm, relaxed atmosphere and one of the lowest crime rates of all South American cities and you have a very pleasing and welcoming…
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The Salar de Uyuni: Part 2
We’ve survived the bitter cold night. The Danish boys Johannes and Valdemar have also slept well, Max is feeling a little unwell. Carlos bursts through the door in his usual animated style, enthusiastically running through today’s programme. Edwin is out in the cold, filling the fuel tank from the spare can and letting air from the Landcruiser’s tyres. Over the course of the three days Edwin will drive over 1,100 kilometres, precious little of it on anything resembling a road. There’s dirt roads in the sand, there’s rough rocky tracks, there’s sections where two tyre tracks are the only clue as to the way – and there’s times where he…
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The Salar de Uyuni: Part 1
We are lucky enough to have seen many wonderful places around the world on our travels, yet this journey through Peru and Bolivia had already become one of our best ever trips even before we headed towards Uyuni. From Uyuni we set out on a 3-day journey which took us to some of the most incredible places and unbelievable natural sights we have ever seen, so much so that Michaela commented that it felt like we were moving from one National Geographic cover to another. A truly amazing journey with so many pinch-yourself moments…. When we first heard about the remote town of Uyuni and its incredible salt flats, we…
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Condors In The Colca Canyon
A trip out to the Colca Canyon is on most travellers’ must-do lists while staying in Arequipa, but Michaela plays a blinder by finding a 2-day tour which is linear rather than circular and ends in the place which is, handily, our next destination anyway. So we leave Arequipa in the morning sunshine with the canyon and its resident condors in our minds, hoping we get lucky enough to see one or two. We head now back up into high altitudes, in fact at no time in the next nineteen days will we be below 3,400 metres above sea level. We’ve dubbed this part of the trip “the cold section”…
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Sex And Empanadas: Farewell To The Sacred Valley
Mystique surrounds our village of Ollantaytambo. We wake each morning to the sound of rushing water and the sight of the Inca terraces looking down from the towering mountain, the early morning sun creeps over the summits and, although we can’t see it, we know that just a short distance away the sundial obelisk erected by the Incas centuries ago is still announcing the dawn of another day just as it did back then. Ollantaytambo stirs. Guides for those on the Inca Trail pack up their tents on the green next to the ancient Punku Punku gateway ready for the next leg; cafe owners clean the dust from windows; souvenir…
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The Five Day Jungle Experience: Heat, Humidity & Eating Live Termites
It’s unmissable as soon as we step off the aeroplane. Even out here on the concrete apron of the small airport, the humid air is thick with the dank smell of the rainforest, the scent of damp earth on every inward breath. In just a little over 24 hours we’ve travelled from the desert where it never rains to the jungle where it nearly always does. Paul and his driver collect us at the airport and off we go, at first along a stretch of the highway and then for more than an hour down a bumpy dirt road to the banks of the Tambopata River. Paul – pronounced “Powl”…
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Journey To One Of The World’s Greatest Mysteries: Lima-Paracas-Nasca
The word “luxury” is often applied to buses in the same way as the word “boutique” is applied to hotels: at best meaningless and at worst downright untrue. Not so with the bus company Cruz del Sur whose genuinely luxurious seats and smooth ride bring us in real comfort from Lima to the small coastal town of Paracas, over three hours south and only for a modest fare. Paracas is a quirky little town, a weekend getaway for city dwellers and a stopping point for tour operators, meaning that for a small place it has a disproportionate number of seafront restaurants which are either rammed full or begging for business…
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Puerto Princesa And Another Of The World’s Seven Wonders
Tempted fate now, haven’t I? I really should have known better than to instigate a conversation about the fact that the Philippines has been kind to our tummies with not a hint of an upset in over six weeks. Michaela wakes up in Puerto Princesa with all of the warning signs; by breakfast she can only manage half of her omelette and by lunchtime her body has gone into that “I am going to force you to lay down and sleep while I work on curing this problem” mode which we all know from travel. But she’s blessed with what we in football circles call bouncebackability and by Monday we’re…
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Alona Gain, Naturally
Well, it’s fair to say that after our gratifyingly varied journey through the Philippines we’ve definitely arrived in the holiday market tourist bit. Down at the bottom of the island of Bohol lies the small island of Panglao, and down at the bottom of Panglao lies the village of Alona, where it’s impossible to walk any distance without enjoying exchanges with tour operators, tat jewellery sellers, hair braiders, boat owners and boys selling fresh mango. Nobody’s pushy but everybody wants business and there seems to be plenty to go around. It looks like Alona is booming too. Construction sites are a major feature, whether a new chunky hotel, spaces between…
