Climbing Volcan Aconagua - Antigua Guatemala

Although it was only a couple of weeks ago, it already seems like ages since my summer holidays - traveling around the south east of Mexico, a quick hop to Caye Caulker in Belize, and then Guatemala.

One of the highlights of Guatemala was climbing Volcan Aconagua (3976m). I've climbed a fair few volcanoes and mountains over 4000m before, and been lucky enough not to struggle with the altitude, so didn't expect anything different this time, but clearly I've got a lot older since I last climbed that high!!

The walk started easily enough, up through some corn fields, but it was a steep, scrabbly path that just kept on going up and it was hard! We started hiking at 2,500m, climbed until 3,700m where we camped for the night, with just a last little bit to climb in the middle of the night for sunrise.

Despite the hard walk, lack of oxygen, and freezing cold, it was an incredible sunrise, combined with the feeling of ebing on top of the world, and with Volcan Fuego smoking excitingly next to us (it had last erupted 2 months before our hike!!).

Here are some photos.....

Starting the hike

Our accommodation for the night

Just a few volcanoes around!

Almost at the top for sunrise

Such a stunning view!

We made it!

Volcanoes, the moon and volcano shadow! So cool!

The cloud quickly rolled in!

Volcan Fuego silently smoking away...

The nicest part of the walk as it was flat!!

A view over the valley

Backpacking Adventures

I am very excitingly off on some backpacking adventures tomorrow, for a few weeks, and so am now doing all sorts of things I can think of to put off packing.

This is not as bad as it sounds - I have actually almost packed, I just need to wash a few last bits, and add in a few extra things I've just thought of to take.

I am however, trying to be very good, and not just keep adding things I think of!!

I got my trusty Lowe Alpine 55l rucksack back in 2002 and have taken it all over the world with me on various adventures, and it's been great. The only problem (apart from it now being very old and worn) is that it is surprisingly roomy, and so if I have space, I tend to fill it!

So as I now go on more weekend/long weekend trips (Can't wait for retirement!!) rather than month/year long trips, I have replaced my trusty old favourite with a new Lowe Alpine 45l carry on. It's lightweight, has the right amount of padding and pockets, and is surprisingly roomy, whilst still fitting into hand luggage size guidelines. 

I have so far taken it as hand luggage on a Ryanair and British Airways flight and there has been no question it's within the size allowed. 

Now as I really am one of those people who will pack stuff if there is space in my bag, and then get annoyed later, I decided that I can do 3 weeks backpacking in Central America with hand luggage only. It's going to be hot, so I can fit a lot of sundresses, bikinis and shorts in my hand luggage space. 

Slightly bulkier but definite essentials also include my snorkel & mask, hammock, mosquito net, and a big box of English Breakfast tea. 

Off to pack now.....photos to follow in a few weeks!!

Travel Adventures

So I'm currently planning a holiday in the summer and there are just too many exciting places to go to. While I was getting distracted from looking at flights, I did a quick check list of all the countries I've been to already. Not a bad start...

So my least visited areas are the Caribbean, Middle East or Asia....a good place to start looking for ideas!

Cake & Other Good Breakfasts

This morning I woke up and had an urge to bake fairy cakes for breakfast. So I did. There is nothing better than freshly bakes cakes out of the oven, and when they've got blackberries, red currants, strawberries and black currants in them then that seems healthy enough to make them suitable breakfast food.

The fact that I added pink butter cream icing and jelly beans may have detracted slightly from this way of thinking, but they were delicious and as I said, anything straight out of the oven can't be ignored!

As I was baking them, alone in the kitchen as it was early on a Sunday morning, I was thinking about breakfasts and who decided what we should eat for them. It's all the norm to eat toast or fruit or cereal but why. Who said we should only eat those things?

(Early morning pizza in Mwanza, Tanzania after catching the overnight ferry across Lake Victoria)

I'm a big fan of eating cold leftovers for breakfast and some dishes taste so much better when cold the next day, as if all the flavours have had a chance to soak in to eachother properly. When travelling as well, I always seem to find that Pizza finds its way onto my plate for breakfast and why not? Sometimes all you crave at the point of waking up is pizza, and if you happen to find a pizza restaurant open and serving pizza at that time in the morning then why not?

(Another early morning pizza in Lusaka, Zambia after being on a train for 56 hours....)

Especially when we were travelling through Africa and would often only have one or two meals a day, we weren't going to waste a meal on only eating a banana and toast, especially when bread was always so disappointing. I wish more places served pizza for breakfast here....maybe it will catch on one day.

Croatia has a lot of steps & so does Montenegro!

Croatia has a lot of steps!! I'm sure that I had read this but I didn't really pay much attention, but we walked up a ridiculous amount of stairs in Croatia...and in Montenegro too!!

So as usual, I had too much holiday to be used before the end of the year, and just about managed to squeeze in booking a week off between finishing shooting Spring 2013 and starting shooting Summer. Me and my boyfriend had been talking about Croatia all summer so thought why not, and booked some flights. Much to the horror of my colleagues, we only took hand luggage (it was going to be sunny and you can fit a lot of dresses in one hand luggage bag) and also didn't book anywhere to stay! They thought we were mad!

The benefits of going to Croatia in October is that there are far less tourists (meaning old people wandering off their cruise ships) but it is still warm and sunny, and plenty warm enough to swim in the sea and go snorkelling. The downsides are that everything switches to 'Winter' from the 1st October and so lots of shops and restaurants close down, and the ferries switch to their Winter schedules which involves not running/running much less.

I definitely think it was worth it, as the slight annoyance of things being closed was way better than being overrun by annoying old tourists!! We spent a day and a bit wandering up and down all over Dubrovnik, and swimming in a little cove with some locals, then headed to the Island of Korcula which was equally stunning, and had the added bonus of also growing lots of grapes! We passed a very happy few days in Korcula drinking local wine, swimming in small coves, and eating pastries! Heaven!

From here we headed back to Dubrovnik, and then onto Montenegro, which had an equally ridiculous number of steps! We spent the night in Kotor,  a beautiful walled city completely surrounded by mountains, and walked up an old fort pretty much to the top of the mountain which had incredible views.

Sadly on our return to Dubrovnik, the sea was incredibly churned up and so although we headed back to our little cove to swim, we were scared of death and so didn't get in the water. Still, an amazing holiday!

When We Camped in a Lake....

So as usual for the August Bank Holiday weekend, we headed off to Greenbelt, one of my favourite times of year!! Now going on the horrific weather we've had this Summer (??) I wasn't expecting too much, and had my new wellies and rain coat packed. However, I did not expect it to be quite as horrific as it was!

On Saturday we had so much rain in a few hours in the afternoon that when we got back to our tent, which we'd happily pitched on an area that seemed on much higher ground than the areas around us, we found that instead of nice tufty grass, our tents were now....in a lake!!

One of the most distressing things was that all of our nice clean washing up which we'd done that morning had now all started to float away in the muddy, grimy looking water (the doctors staying with us told me we'd probably get Cholera!).

We survived the weekend, the waters went down slightly, but we did get VERY soggy and many less hardcore festivallers went home early as it just all got too much!

What A Strange Country - Oh Wait, It's Malaysia!

Malaysia! Such a beautiful, underrated holiday destination, but also a rather strange place! We crammed a lot into our 3 weeks, and hopped all over the country, visiting the capital, an island, the jungle, another island, with Sharon's house on the mainland, some tea plantations in the mountains, another island, a historical city, then a short stop in Singapore, before the overnight train back to KL.

On Pulau Tioman we saw loads of fish, quite a lots of monkeys, and I got sprayed by a cat whilst at dinner one night!

We had the most amazing Satay one night, as well as some scrumptious Singapore noodles and far too many cocktails.

After a short stay in the jungle where we encountered far too many leeches than is necessary (only about 5 but that's 5 more than I' comfortable with) we headed to Penang for a stay with Sharon! She was an amazing tour guide and took us to all the best places and made us eat all the local delicacies. Including Cendol. Do not eat cendol - it's weird! Who puts noodles and beans into their pudding??

Onto another island, and we headed to Pulau Pangkor which was very calm and quiet compared to Tioman, but we did manage to persuade one of the local barmen to bring us mojitos on the beach at sunset every day. And there was an inflatable obstacle course in the sea. And a temple with a Mickey Mouse and a mushroom. What more could you want?

From Pangkor we headed to Melaka (my Greek housemate says this means 'arsehole' in Greek so finds it pretty funny every time I mention this!) which was a beautiful old city. It was baking hot but we still managed to fit in lots of wandering and a visit to one of the local night clubs.

Then we headed South to Singapore (followed by a Frenchman who we were very rude to) and spent a classy day and a bit in a posh hotel with a rooftop pool, a cocktail at the Raffles Hotel and then a good explore.

We overnight trained it back to Kuala Lumpur and did a final bit of sightseeing and finished off our bargainous shopping, before partying in style at the Reggae Mansion - the best hostel in the world!

I loved Malaysia (so much more than Thailand!) and would definitely recommend it as a holiday destination!!

Adventure O'clock!

So...it's been over a year since I returned from my Big Travelling Adventure and so high time that I went somewhere else. Not that I haven't been on holiday since I returned, I've been to Wales, Gibraltar, Cornwall, amongst other places...but now I'm itching to go somewhere further away....to do some proper backpacking.

Sadly, (well not sadly becuase I love it, just sadly becuase it means not much time off) as I now have what my Dad would call a 'proper job' (some of my friends would argue this point as it still involves buttons and hat wearing) I only have a limited amount of holiday time.

My conversation with my boss went along the lines of:

'How much holiday can I book off in one go?' (me)

'Well most people just book a week, or 10 days, but 2 weeks I suppose' (boss)

'What happens if I accidentally book flights 3 weeks apart?' (me)

'Well....we'll see what happens' (boss)

Well then  as it turned out, on the dates we picked to start looking for flights, they were £200 cheaper than flights on any other days. I've no idea why. Hopefully we are actually travelling on an aeroplane, and not on a severely long distance bus! And yes, they happen to be 3 weeks apart.

So I'm off to Malaysia for some sunshine and adventuring! The decision went along the lines of me having a conversation with my friend Sharon, who is Malaysian, being offended that I'd been to Thailand and Singapore, but not Malaysia. Like I'd deliberately skipped going there (I didn't - Singapore = 2005, Thailand = 2006).

So when my friend Claire said she wanted to go somewhere hot where she could dive, it was an easy choice!

Now, with a week to go, I'm dealing with daily random questions from the lovely little Claire. Things like:

'Do we need malaria tablets?'

'Do we need leech socks?'

'Should I take travellers cheques?'

'What should I pack?'

'Do I need a visa?'

The answers to which are: I don't know, but I'm sure we can buy them there; hopefully not; nope, you can never find anywhere to change them at a good rate; not too much; no.

Hopefully that means we're now sorted and ready to go!!

In the meantime I'm going to admire my beautiful new fabric map from Etsy, and dream of where I'll be in a weeks time :o)

How Far Away Is The Storm?

As I've mentioned before, I love a good thunderstorm. It's such a nice feeling to be curled up inside, preferably wrapped in your duvet, listening to the rain pounding on the roof, and the thunder rolling around the sky.

I especially love the vibrations of the thunder rolling around and the sense of electricity in the air.

One of the most amazing thunderstorms i ever saw was when we were in Tingri, on the way to Mount Everest Base Camp, in Tibet. Tingri is at 4,300m altitude and so you feel like the storm is literally happening around you, and you really are on top of the world.

(This is a town, although the few houses either side of the one road literally are it!)

We spent hours crouched in the corner by the door of our room that night, with one person on 'rabid dog' watch - a handful of stones to throw at them if they came too near, whilst we took photo after photo, trying to capture the power of the storm. This is my best one, which I'm pretty pleased with.

I was always taught, when I was younger, that to find out how far away the storm was, you had to count the seconds in between the lightening flash, and the start of the thunder growl. This used to reassure me as we had some pretty terrifying storms right on top of us when we camped in France every summer, and I used to get so relieved when the counts would start to increase.

I had a look on the Internet recently, whilst we were in the middle of a pretty electric summer storm here in London, and it said that actually every 5 seconds = one mile. Seeing as that would mean that the storm was much closer than I thought it was, I think I'll stick with my counting!

Train Travel & Other Exciting Adventures ~ No.2

To continue on with my train adventures from my post before, on my Gap Year trip last year, I spent a lot of time travelling my train. The website http://www.seat61.com/ is incredibly helpful, as was my trusty Lonely Planet.

I always feel that train travel is safer than going by road, and also you can get up and wander around, and have a proper bed to sleep in. Even though it sometimes took longer to go by train, I always prefer it to road travel as I hate sitting still in a confined space for that long.

So we started off in Egypt with an overnight train from Cairo to Aswan, and then one back from Luxor to Cairo. The one on the way down had pretty comfy seats, and was full of backpackers, but on the way back up we were in a small compartment with 3 very upright seats and I appeared to be the only women on the train so we always had a crowd hanging around outside. Not a good nights sleep!

The next train we caught was in Tanzania. We were in Kampala, Uganda and wanted to get to Moshi, to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Everyone we spoke to suggested getting a 24 hour bus, which went back through Kenya, but #1. I didn't want to spend 24 hours on a bus, and #2. I didn't want to pay another $25 for a Kenyan visa when we'd just come from there.

So instead, I decided that we should sail across Lake Victoria, to Mwanza, then catch the train from Mwanza to Dodoma, and then the bus from there to Moshi. We went to the port in Kampala to try and see about getting a boat across to Mwanza, but were told that since the ferries had sunk in 2007, there was no passenger ferry, and the only way to get across was to hang around and wait for a cargo ship. Seeing as there was a couple who had been waiting for 4 days already, I decided to go for Plan B, which was to get a bus to just across the border, in Tanzania, and then catch a more reliable passenger ferry from there.

I had met some missionaries when rafting down the Nile in Uganda who said we couldn't possibly go to Mwanza, as it was a dirty town, full of drugs, sex and prostitutes. We then stayed with this English man on Banda Island in Lake Victoria, who said we simply must go to Mwanza, as it was full of drugs, sex and prostitutes.....

The bus to take us to the ferry port ran once a day, at 11am, and took 7 hours. Seeing as the ferry left at 9pm, I thought 3 hours was a very reasonable leeway. But I forgot, we were on African time. So at 4pm, after about 4 hours of me shouting at the bus driver, telling him we had ferry tickets and would be really angry if we missed it...the bus finally left. I'm sure the bus driver was trying his hardest to get us there on time, or maybe he just normally drove at the speed, but funnily enough, we didn't make it, and crossed the border into Tanzania at 8.30pm.

By this point, I think the bus driver felt pretty bad, and so arranged for a taxi, paid for by the bus company, to take us, and a Tanzanian guy and try and race to the ferry port before the boat left. Sadly, we didn't make it, but luckily the Tanzanian guy knew that the boat left Bukoba at 9pm, and then docked not far down the coast in Kemondo bay port, to load up with cargo, mainly bananas it seemed. We negotiated with the taxi driver to pay him a little bit extra, and then raced to the cargo port where thankfully the ferry was waiting.

Unfortunately, by this point, all of the cabins and first class seats had sold out, and so we had to travel in 2nd Class seating, where as everyone else had been on the boat for a couple of hours, and so was asleep, there were no seats left, so I spent the night in the luggage rack, watching rats and cockroaches run across the pipes worryingly close to my head.

The MV Bukoba, a previous ferry, sank in 1996, killing about 800 people, which showed the level of overcrowding, as the capacity was 430. As we were right in the belly of the boat it was so creaking and loud, and when I got woken up in the middle of the night, by the boat juddering to a halt, and went up on deck to go to the toilet and saw a little old lady standing on the railings wearing a white frilly nightie. Obviously I wasn't on the Titanic, but it was a proper deja vu moment, and I was absolutely convinced that the boat was going to sink, just probably not by hitting an iceberg!

We docked at 6am, and spent the day in the Swimming Pool at a local hotel, waiting until the 6pm train and the entire day passed without seeing any sex, or prostitutes, or being offered drugs. Maybe we went to the wrong Mwanza?

(note the shape of the pool?)

The train came spot on time, and we paid about TSH 5200 (£25)  for a 2 berth very comfy compartment, made up with freshly starched Linen. The only downside was the toilet, which was a worrying large hole in the ground that I was worried I might fall through and it was a little distracting watching the tracks whizz past whilst trying to squat!!

Although we left spot on time, we still managed to arrive late into Dodoma, which although this is technically the capital of Tanzania, it is tiny and only has a few paved roads. The next morning we got on a bus which we thought would take us to Moshi in about 5 hours...except the road was closed as it had turned into a swamp thanks to all the recent rain, and so we took a detour almost via Dar Es Salaam which took 10 hours instead!! But at least we made it to Moshi!!