Category: South America 2018

At times, I couldn’t bring myself to look out of the bus window. As the landscape of central Peru raced by, I felt my chest swelling and my conscience burning. From the shadow-trapping creases on barren hillsides, to the matted woollen cloaks of roadside ewes, the feeling of disconnect only intensified as the bus kicked…… Continue reading The Hua South

If Peru went to a massage therapist, it would be deemed incurable of the knots and tension that riddle its rocky spine. Fortunately, Peru is not an aching body, and instead these features make for some of the most spectacular mountainous vistas imaginable. With the wet season rapidly encroaching on the high sierra, and the…… Continue reading The Pastoruri ‘Highway’

Peru is a country of contrasts. Within the entangled riches of its rainforest heart, across the mountains that form its rocky spine, and along the coast that paints its edges golden and blue, Peru proffers a lifetime’s worth of questions to the inquisitive eye. Whilst the faults and folds of the country’s metamorphic foundations could…… Continue reading Good ‘az: the road from Caraz to Huaraz

The language barrier had nothing to do with the predicament that I had landed myself in. Halfway up a 100km climb, from sea level to 4300m, I found myself short of breath and with a pannier full of peaches. Although the kilos of ripened fruit weighed me down, the gesture was overwhelming energising. The coast…… Continue reading Peachy

My wave-chasing friends would be appalled. I had no idea that Peru was one of the world’s premier surf destinations. Given that I’m entrusted with the Geography education of senior students back home, I’m also perturbed by my ignorance. From its border with Ecuador in the north, to where it meets Chile in the south,…… Continue reading The Perfect Break

Within hours of arriving in Cuenca, I had discovered why we have regulations back home against keeping roosters in urban areas. Waking before the sun, the relentless proclamations of the neighbourhood’s feather fiend made it very tempting to add a serve of poultry to my breakfast. Luckily for him, I was in the midst of…… Continue reading Coasting from Cuenca

Staring at the cracked concrete ceiling, I listened to a key scratch around the outline of the lock for what seemed like minutes. Frustration and a lack of sleep was causing my heart rate to increase. Once unlocked, the swollen timber door required a gentle hip and shoulder to budge from its frame, screeching like…… Continue reading From Pines to Palms (return)

“In a real sense, self inquiry is a spiritually induced form of winter-time. It’s not about looking for a right answer so much as stripping away and letting you see what is not necessary, what you can do without, what you are without your leaves. In human beings, we do not call these leaves. We…… Continue reading Back on the Bike

Whatever I have previously described as a mountain, a hill, a rise or a climb…forget it. Retrospectively, Colombia has been a flat road until the last few days. I have already written about the three mountain ranges that run north to south in Colombia; cordilleras Oriental, Central and Occidental. Rising from the fluvial valleys that…… Continue reading Where Cordilleras Converge

For almost two weeks, I had been heading south. Of course, this was a good thing given that I’m aiming to make it to Argentina in December. But, as the age-old adage goes, ‘sometimes you need to go backwards, in order to go forwards’. After arriving in San Agustin, deep in the south of Colombia’s…… Continue reading The road to Popayán