The amazing variety of Ecuador We already were thinking very highly of Ecuador after encountering the lovely roads in the spectacular scenery of the northern province, the warm German welcome in Finca Sommerwind and the authentic Saturday market in Octavio but we continued to be impressed by the capital city …

After a nice night camped up on the lakeside and a visit to a crazy church perched over a canyon (complete with Holy hydro) we made our way to Eucador our first border crossing of South America. sunset view from our last camp in Colombia A crazy church built to …

Tonight is my last evening in Colombia if all goes according to plan tomorrow and we cross into Ecuador so in 24 days I have managed to get Nelson released from his container ,and driven him across a good portion of this lovely country, survived one pretty big crash, and …

We decided to take the backroads to the little town of Salento from the city of Medellin, what we did not realise is just how much of a difference there would be between the main roads, pretty much smooth tarmac, and the backroads, mostly gravel and sometimes tricky as you …

One of the things I try to do on these trips is to mix in with the local people as much as possible. One of the key principals of that is to travel in a pretty low budget way staying at local wild camps or locally owned campsites and trying …

After camping beside the river overnight we awoke to a sodden campground and a river which had been turned brown by the strong overnight rain (and quite frightening lighting strikes which woke both of us up in the middle of the night). Our normal breakfast of cold porridge and coffee …

We had a lovely time in Bogota but we have some miles to cover so we set off for the mountains and the jungles of Colombia on our two day trip to Medellin. First thing in the morning we braved the intense morning traffic of Bogota to head north to …

When I travel I am often surprised about how wrong my perceptions of a place are based on movies or news reports over many years. Bogota was one such place as my overriding memory of it was as the setting for the movie “Clear and Present Danger” were Harrison Ford …

The community of land rover owners is amazingly strong across the world and in Bogota the heartbeat is strong. As word of my accident spread across my overlanding connections on the internet the local Land Rover club stepped up with offers of support and advice. Within a few hours as …

The amazing helpfulness of strangers on the road, adversity is sometimes the greatest icebreaker. One the way from the dinosaurs footprints to the lovely colonial town of Villa de Leyva I found some great small roads in the mountains with breathtaking views and the occasional driving challenge including a fallen …