They say that opposites attract but we would never have expected to find these two contrasting landscapes in one place. It really was an incredible sight to see tall palm trees shooting straight up into the sky, rising like giants above a canopy of cloud forest and we couldn’t take our eyes off it for one minute. The 60 meter Quindio Wax Palm is the tallest in the world and we felt dwarfed as we craned our necks to see the tops. But we weren’t at the beach or even on the hot savanna plains where you may expect to find palm trees. We were surrounded by a mountainous region of cloud forest with eery swirling mist making the Valle de Cocora feel like a very alluring place.
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Finding refuge on Volcano Cotopaxi
11 Feb
National Park Cotopaxi is a paradise for people who love nature and have a spirit for adventure. The 33,393 hectare park is Ecuador´s largest protected area and offers a mixture of woods, lake-land and high Andean Altiplano which is home to an abundance of animals and plant life. The highlight of the park is the perfectly conical and snow-covered volcano Cotopaxi which is Ecuador’s second highest peak at 5,897 metres. Cotopaxi is the world´s fifth highest active volcano and whilst its last major eruption took place in 1904, scientists and seismologists now monitor activity very closely, just waiting for the next big one. The scenery rendered us speechless…for once! Cotopaxi had turned her headlights on and we were caught staring into the full beam feeling like we had the whole park to ourselves. Continue reading
Colonial Cuenca & Cajas National Park
10 Jan
Whilst travelling we’ve come to appreciate the saying ‘Variety is the spice of life’. We want to experience as many different things as possible whilst being away but we’ve found it’s also necessary to mix up the order we do things so there is a greater contrast between places or activities and a positive feeling when you arrive somewhere new. If you simply spend two months at the beach, the sea, sun and sand can start to lose its appeal but by spending a week at the beach, followed by some time in the mountains and a few days in the city, you then start craving the beach again, making it all the more special when you return there. So, after an incredible ten days in the Galapagos surrounded by beautiful nature and exotic wildlife, we were looking forward to city life and charming colonial Cuenca was to be the spot.
The Incredible Galapagos Islands
4 Jan
Imagine waking up in a parallel universe where animals rule the planet fearlessly and humans are consigned to the sidelines – gawping speechlessly with open mouths, only capable of pointing and clicking a camera over and over again. Where animals work in harmony allocating selected beaches for frolicking lava lizards, watery depths for giant manta rays and green highlands for wise, ancient tortoises, whilst humans push and shove over the same small patch of scrub land. Where hungry sparrows dine out on the same plates of food bought by humans, and sealions sprawl on promenade benches enjoying the sunshine. Imagine no further – this is the Galapagos – and these islands are like few other places to be found on Earth.
Trekking doesn’t get better than this – The Cordillera Blanca
27 Nov
You could be forgiven for thinking that whilst visiting Peru’s most mountainous area of the Cordillera Blanca and the second highest mountain range in the world after the Himalayas, you’d feel somewhat small in stature, dwarfed in the knowledge you are surrounded by more than 20 enormous summits over 6,000 metres. Instead, upon arrival in South America’s number one hotspot for trekking and adventure sports, we felt our chests fill with fresh air, our backs straighten and our legs tingle as we got ready to come face-to-face with these giants.
Inner tubes, bamboo and string – river travel the Bolivian way!
4 Oct
Five days – drifting 250 kilometres down river – from Guanay to Rurrenabaque – on a home-made raft – with no engine…I must have got that all wrong. Was there a way such a trip could really be possible? The voice on the other end of the phone took a deep breath and repeated what they’d already explained. The ‘No noise’ jungle rafting experience through Bolivia’s chunk of Amazonas was created for people looking for unparalleled adventure. Six people, a guide and a cook, along with rucksacks, food supplies and camping equipment, would pile on top of a raft no bigger than 5 metres long and 2.5 metres wide and float to their destination using only the natural flow and currents of the river. There would be jungle walks to spot exotic animals and indigenous tribes were never far from the river banks. Home each evening would be under canvas in a rustic camp and to wash ourselves there would always be a crystal clear river or a gushing waterfall nearby. Rendered speechless as my head span with all of this information – all I could muster were the immortal words – “Sign us up!”
Samaipata – celebrating the Inca New Year
30 Aug
We looked at the time – it was 12.20am. We looked down at our jeans and shoes – they were caked in mud. We looked all around us – 500 people were drinking, dancing and singing as they prepared to welcome in the Inca New Year with the party to end all parties.
Salar de Uyuni
9 Aug
The ‘Salar de Uyuni’ or ‘Salt Flats’ tour is one of the most fabled and talked about experiences on the Gringo Trail and we’d been looking forward to it for as long as we could remember. Whisperings of the blindingly beautiful landscapes we’d see had stirred our imaginations and tales about the remote and sparsely populated areas we’d need to cross, flared our excitement. We were about to encounter the biggest salt flat in the world which blankets 12,000 square kilometres, in addition to coloured lakes, bubbling geysers, snow-covered volcanos, thermal pools, a host of Altiplano animals and anything else that the trip, undertaken in a four-wheel drive, might throw at us.
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Torres del Paine – the ‘W’ trek
Visitors from all walks of life converge on the small hamlet of Puerto Natales to visit Chile’s and perhaps the Continent’s number one national park – Torres del Paine. Located in the Southern Patagonian ice fields at the end of the Andes, the park offers diverse wildlife and incredible mountain scenery, glaciers, lakes, rivers and […]
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