All the way south

Day one The first big challenge of the Inca Trail trek was packing my duffel bag that the porters would carry. I had brought a way too much crap. We had received the duffel bags at the briefing the night before, and I thought I had packed it fairly lightly, but having to squeeze the provided sleeping bag in at the start of the trail was a big challenge. I normally travel light, but this time I had definitely over-packed. The poor porters. The packing challenge took place after a comfortable three-hour pre-dawn bus journey, where I managed to get some extra sleep in. Once everyone's duffels were sealed, and we got our rented hiking sticks, at last it was time to get going. After bouncing, full of beans, across the footbridge that marks the beginning of the trail, the first gentle little uphill section was...a little too breathless for comfort. We were above 3000m, and the lack of oxygen made you feel like you hadn't walked in about a year. This would take some getting use...

It was with a heavy heart that I ordered the Uber to begin my journey out of Medellín. It had been a great week, and there was still more for me to do here, but time waits for no man - I had an Inca Trail deadline of December 10th looming, with more of Colombia, Ecuador and the Galapagos to cram in before then. Medellín didn't let me leave so easily though. The 11am bus I aimed to take to my next destination, Salento in the coffee region, was full, so I spent a bonus two hours blogging at the southern bus station waiting for the 1pm. The longer than expected bus journey took 7.5 hours (it's not a good idea to be in a rush in Colombia), but the other travellers made it interesting - including a couple of Aussie blokes (one of whom gave off all the signs of a debilitating coke habit) and a solo French traveller, Xavier, from Nantes. After yet another nighttime arrival in a new place, us bunch of random travellers made our way through some deserted and incredibly peaceful villag...

The morning after the night before, I woke up in my clothes, stiff, sore, and hungover. I decided within 30 seconds of waking up that today was going to be a rest day. I was staying in a nice guesthouse with my own private ensuite room, my own double bed, a personal hammock and decent wifi. In my current state, this was heaven. After booking an extra night, and a delicious guesthouse breakfast, and sleeping some more, the afternoon was spent in the Museu del Oro, the first (but if you know me you'll know it's definitely not the last) museum of this trip, which was pretty good, with some great information on the local indigenous groups of the area. Long story short: they were fucked over when the Spanish arrived, but they've managed to maintain their culture and some traditions in smaller isolated communities, as well as being integrated into Columbian culture as a whole. Tayrona national park contains jungle rainforest that runs right up to some well nice isolated beaches...

My first night's sleep in Columbia was better than expected. Jetlag took a night off, and I slept like a log, probably due to being extremely tired - the second night is always when jetlag kicks in proper for me. Where better then to battle the jetlag than on a gruelling four-day jungle trek to an ancient mountaintop city? La Ciudad Perdida ("The Lost City" in English) is an indigenous city built by the Tayrona. The Tayrona are the local equivalent of the Aztecs of Mexico or the Incas of Peru - they are the original inhabitants of this part of the continent, whose civilisation was slowly wiped out after the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors back in the 1600's. They were murdered and enslaved in the masses, their gold was taken to be melted down and sent back to the Spanish crown, and their way of life was destroyed. La Ciudad Perdida was one of their major cities, one that was lost to jungle growth for 400 years, until some scavengers hunting for lost indigenous ...

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 moved from Sydney to the Netherlands a couple of years ago. In my six years of living in Sydney, I fell into the trap of not doing the "tourist" things - I lived there, I wasn't a bloody tourist. In the end, I moved back to Europe in a bit of a rush, and missed out on most of the Australian highlights. Luckily, I've been back in Sydney for the last couple of months with work, so I decided it was now or never to make up for this. Uluru A common debate amongst folks living in Sydney is whether it's worth going to visit Uluru (Ayer's Rock) or not. "It's just a big rock." "It's too hard to get to." "It's too expensive." I was undecided myself, until I read Bill Bryson's account of his visit in the brilliant Down Under : ".... And then you see it, and you are instantly transfixed. (...) It's not that Uluru is bigger than you had supposed or more perfectly formed or in any way different from the impressi...