All the way south

Not too dissimilar to my last big trek in Colombia, I woke up in bed the morning after the post-trek celebrations with my head spinning and a serious thirst for water. I had once again wisely decided to treat myself to a fancy private room to recover. Besides the effect of the hangover, I was feeling a little down for other reasons - I just had a great four days on the Inca Trail, where I had good company and made some new friends, but now they were all gone. They were all on a short holiday break, and were heading back home this day or the next. I was on my own again. After finding somewhere to refuel with food, I wandered through Christmas-themed Cuzco in a melancholic hungover state, hitting up Starbucks on the main square for some caffeine and wifi to help decide where I would go next. It was the Christmas songs in Starbucks that got me. The cycle of making new friends and then saying goodbye and having to start all over again had become tiresome. I knew I wasn't enjoying sol...

Just over a week into Colombia and I'm sitting in a jungle hostel with no wifi and my legs barely work. It's been a hectic week, and it's time for some downtime (and to catch up on things like this blog). I departed Auckland packed like a sardine into the middle seat of the middle aisle of one of LATAM airlines' 787s. The Kiwi assistant at the check-in counter insisted that I needed to have an exit ticket out of Columbia before I could board the flight. Explaining that I was planning to depart the country via a land border, and with no time to book a flight I could cancel (I was checking in pretty last minute), she spent a few worrisome minutes discussing my options with her colleagues. In the end we came to a compromise - she would take my credit card details in case Columbian immigration decided to book a flight for me. I had gone through a whole load of hassle to get my American Express "just in case" card (it's bloody difficult to get a credit card i...

Like Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef, in my six years living in Sydney I failed to make it to New Zealand, not even for a weekend ("I'll go next year, next year"). Seeing as it was on the way to South America, this was another "now or never" moment. So I squeezed three days in to the start of my three months. Three days in New Zealand, as it turns out, is a very tight squeeze. I flew into Queenstown. I had heard nice things about the area, but I was not prepared for the epic jaw-to-the-floor scenery encountered on approach and after landing. I had heard it was nice, but not this nice. This thought played around in my head over the next couple of days on the south island - some places are over hyped, and don't meet expectations when visited. But New Zealand, or at least the parts I saw in the south island, are under  hyped. Either I haven't been paying attention, or their tourist board needs to get their arse in gear - the South Island is mind-blowing...

I meant to write this post earlier, but saying goodbye to Sydney occupied me more than anticipated (I've had enough farewell drinks to last me a good while). But so be it -  I'm writing it on a flight from Santiago to Bogota, having just flown from Auckland after a cracking few days in New Zealand (the subject of the next blog post). So where am I actually going? As you probably know by now, I'm going to two of the three continents on Earth I've yet to visit: South America and Antarctica (Africa will have to wait for now). Why South America? Well, my rough plan circa 2009 was to leave Ireland, explore some of Asia, live in Australia for a year or two to save some money, then go explore South America. That "year or two" down under turned into six, plus a couple extra in the Netherlands thrown in for good measure. So as I see it, it's about bloody time. Why Antarctica? This is a funny one - in recent weeks, when I tell people about this part of my pl...