After the surf, desert (and rubbish) of the North Peru coast Errol and I headed up into the mountains, this was to be the best few days of the trip so far for me.  I was prepared better than I had been in Ecuador and had been taking my altitude …

This trip has been marked by the incredible variety of places we have seen and the dramatic changes in climate that occurred as we changed altitude over even half a day by 3000m or more.  In Columbia and Ecuador we went through many small villages and travelled a lot of …

The contrast in climate of South America over small distances continues to both surprise and delight me, as I write this I am listening to Pacific Ocean waves crash down on a beautiful beach in Northern Peru.  The temperature is about 22oC there is a light breeze, no insects and …

After the Jungle we headed to our last city in Ecuador Cuenca or Quenka as the locals pronounce it.  We had a plan to meet some internet friends Pat and Neil Hay there and catch up with tips and tales from the few years they have already spent in South …

One of the themes of our time in Ecuador has been the incredible variation of the country and climate, in earlier posts I covered some of the variety from volcanos to the coffee regions and the changes in temperature that can occur in just one days drive. Our next adventure, …

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 …