Susie & Dan's Travels

Argentina, Chile and The End

2009-04-07T19:29:00.020+01:00

Arriving in Argentina’s port town of Ushuaia on such a high after our voyage around Antarctica, there was only one way our spirits could go unfortunately. Thankfully a couple of days of planning our journey ahead and a trek around the coastal forests of Tierra del Fuego National Park sorted that out and we were filled with excitement about travelling in our fifth and final continent, South America.

Argentina is the world’s eighth largest country, only slightly smaller than India. Stretching from the sub-tropics in the north to the subantarctic islands of Tierra del Fuego in the south, Argentina has an enormously diverse array of environment and terrain.

Sixteen hours on a bus across the border and we were in the Chilean town of Puerto Natales, gateway to the Torres del Paine National Park. After a day to prepare for our trek, we made the journey in by bus and were blessed with a clear view of the infamous Torres del Paine spectacle synonymous with Patagonia; the three sheer granite pillars that are the ‘Torres’ or towers, and the neighbouring black tipped peaks that are ‘Los Cuernos’ or the horns. Our decision to walk the five day ‘W’ rather than the ten day full circuit turned out to be a great one as the god of weather was unfortunately against us on this trek. We were hit with nonstop torrential rain, wind gusts that would come out of nowhere to blow us over on a couple of occasions and flooded rivers which made for some imaginative and wet crossings. Trekking in totally sodden clothes and boots filled with water (Gore-tex, my arse) with no view of the mountains whatsoever certainly brought the question ‘why’ to mind. However walking alongside the huge blue coloured Glacier Grey on our second day was a beautiful sight.

Crossing back into Argentina en route to the village of El Chalten, we stopped at the magnificent Glacier Perito Moreno with its very active terminal face. Situated at the entrance to the northern sector of Los Glaciares National Park, our stay in El Chalten should have given us the chance to walk to the base of Mount Fitz Roy, however again the weather and low cloud was against us. Being on the edge of the world’s largest ice mass outside the Polar regions however, we took the opportunity to go ice climbing at the foot of the mighty Cerro Torre mountain, a chance to hone in on our technique ahead of our future careers in mountaineering. As well as several trips to the local microbrewery, we managed to fit in an afternoon’s horse riding with the chance to gallop along a beautiful mountain valley floor, the only problem being Dan’s so called ‘tranquilo’ horse bucking every time the whip came out giving him the fright of his life.

We travelled for two days up Argentina’s western Andean lined border along barren Route 40 to reach Bariloche at the heart of the spectacular Lake District area. Situated on the shores of Lake Nahuel Huapi, Bariloche’s soaring peaks backdrop turn it into a ski resort in the winter and along with that has come some beautiful alpine architecture. Taking the chairlift up Cerro Campinario revealed perhaps the most beautiful scenic view we have ever seen; 360° of mirrored lakes, mountains and forests, apparently listed in National Geographic’s top ten. After cycling around some of those lakes on the Circuito Chico with a stop at a fine artesian microbrewery on the way, it was time to sample some of Argentina’s finest beef, in fact the best we’ve ever tasted. Next we drove up to San Martin de los Andes via the much hyped but slightly disappointing Ruta de los Siete Lagos for a relaxing boat trip around Lanin National Park.

Our first experience on one of Arentina’s overnight sleeper coaches complete with reclining leather lazy boys and red wine service took us to Mendoza, Argentina’s home of wine. A lively cosmopolitan city with a pavement café culture, it wasn’t long before we were having our first taste of the local nectar at an evening with a local winemaker showing off the fruits of his work. With labour being so cheap here, nearly every grape in the country is hand picked, a claim that only top end wines in other countries can make. The following day with slightly jaded heads, we hit the outskirts of the city on a couple of clapped out old bikes to visit a handful of Maipu’s finest vineyards.

Another overnight bus and we arrived in Cordoba, Argentina’s second largest city with an architectural and cultural heritage courtesy of the Jesuits who set up shop here when they arrived in 1609. French legend Manu Chao happened to be headlining at a music festival in nearby San Roque that evening, not only a good leg shaking opportunity but also an introduction to the Choripan, Argentina’s answer to the hot dog.

Our starting point for visiting Argentina’s rugged north west corner was Salta, a city which manages to retain the feel of a small town with a beautiful plaza at its centre. The Museo de Arqueologica de Alta Montana made for a fascinating visit with its focus on the child sacrifices of the Inca culture. In 1999, three mummified children were discovered at the peak of Llullaillaco, a 6739m volcano in the sacred Andes, perfectly preserved thanks to the low pressure, oxygen levels and temperature. One of the three, a fifteen year old girl was on display with her intricately plaited hair and clothes also preserved. Controversial it may be, however it was Inca culture to offer the lives of highborn children to please or appease their gods from time to time, sending them to sleep with large volumes of a fermented maize alcoholic drink.

We headed north with our own set of wheels and it wasn’t long before giant cactuses started to appear by the roadside as we drove through the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a canyon of spectacularly carved rock formations with the most deep red colour. We spent the night at the dusty little indigenous town of Tilcara, its streets lined with typical adobe houses. A monumental thunderstorm hit that evening as we were walking around the surroundings and it was a perfect opportunity to visit a Pena, a bar where locals meet to listen to traditional folklore music. Heading out early the next morning to capture the colours of the canyon at their most vivid, we were again blown away by the scenery. After a brief stop at Humahuaca with its cobblestoned streets, we turned onto the ripio road in a bid to reach the remote settlement of Iruya across the mountains. Unfortunately after only 10km of fairly rough going, we came across a riverbed which thanks to the previous night’s storm had a torrent of water flowing down it. Despite hoping there was a way through, a local confirmed our suspicions and we decided to head for the little village of Purmamarca situated under the Cerro de los Siete Colores, a jagged formation with an amazing spectrum of colours sweeping across its sedimentary strata. From here we drove up the long and winding road through the spectacularly bleak highland puna over a 4,150m pass to a plateau partly occupied by the remote salt flat, Salinas Grandes.

Routing back through Salta to avoid an impassable section of road, we drove southwest and entered Valles Calchaquies for three days of some of the most striking scenery we’ve seen on our whole trip. Our first stop was enchanting little Cachi, a village of cobbled streets, whitewashed adobe houses and a tranquil central plaza. Cachi was so beautiful and peaceful that it was almost as if it had been designed as a showcase for tourists but the reality is that it is just the way the Calchaqui people live there.

Driving to Colomé vineyard, famed for being the highest in the world, the corrugated road turned to the worst we’ve seen since the Kalahari. The unbelievably remote location had us crossing a damp riverbed and before we knew it our VW chasis was making very good friends with the mud. After several failed attempts to separate them, out from the desert came a lone passer by whom within seconds was lying in the mud helping to dig and lift us out. Whilst this was an incredible act of kindness (as well as luck), it was actually a fairly typical portrayal of friendliness from the Argentineans as we experienced it.

Heading further south down the ripio road through the Parque Nacional Los Cardones, the otherworldly scenery was nothing short of breathtaking with its wild lunar landscape, giant cactus filled plains, snowy mountain backdrops and starkly coloured sandstone canyons with unearthly rock formations, all brought to life as the sun went down. The town of Cafayate, Argentina’s second home of wine, made for a great overnight stop and with it an introduction to the tantalising torrontes grape, unique to Argentina. We drove through the spectacular Quebrada de Cafayate back to Salta from where we picked up a bus across the top of Argentina to Iguazu in its northeastern most corner. Visiting the falls from both the Brazilian and Argentinean side, the sight was most definitely memorable, however Victoria still remains our firm favourite.

Yet another long bus ride south and we were in Buenos Aires where we had the pleasure of spending five days with old school friend Adam Cowan who had flown out to see us for a long weekend of restaurants, wine, Pacha and the Boca Juniors. A true playboy mission if we’ve ever heard of one, even managing to squeeze in a day trip to Colonia in Uruguay with a sunset dance festival atop the four hour return ferry.

Our final destination was Peninsula Valdes back down in Patagonia but on the east coast this time, almost completing an entire circuit of Argentina. Famed for its visit by the Southern Right Whales in the second half of the year, Valdes is pretty quiet for the rest of it. However from mid-February to April the resident orcas spend their days around Punta Norte, the remote northern tip, hunting for sea lion pups by intentionally stranding themselves on the beach. Ever since seeing the footage on the original BBC Trials of Life series in 1990, this was something we’ve always wanted to see but never really thought we would have the opportunity to do so. We were incredibly lucky to be staying at Punta Norte with the local Orca Research Project which meant twelve hour days on the private pebble beach under the baking sun, waiting for the unpredictable orcas and the ensuing spectacle to unfold. The resident population is only eighteen strong of which only eight of them have acquired the incredibly complex ability to strand. These eight are the only orcas in the world to demonstrate such behaviour. Our patience over several days was rewarded with some mind-blowing sightings of orcas patrolling the beaches just a few metres from the shore and hunting and stranding as little as 10m in front of us in what must surely be one of the most extraordinary wildlife shows on earth.

Press play below to see some of our amateur video footage.

Returning back to Buenos Aires on such a high, the current account smashed and just over a year on the road, we decided that it was time to return home. After a quick call to British Airways, we were on a flight within hours and are now residing safely back on home soil.

Our year of travel has certainly been a life changing experience with memories that will stay with us forever. The world is an unimaginably beautiful place in parts which can all too easily be forgotten from the confines of city living. We feel incredibly privileged to have seen and experienced the things we did from the rawness of Africa’s landscape and its people, to the magnificence of the Bhutanese Himalayas and its mountain villages, to the indescribable uniqueness and fragility of South Georgia and the Antarctic at the end of the world. The wildlife encounters we had around the planet were a real centrepiece for us and have served to further strengthen our passion for nature’s beauty and innocence and our desire to help protect. We met some amazingly inspirational people along the way from all walks of life, but sadly also learned about the atrocities, past and current, caused by others, leaving us with a sense of sadness about society. Tourism has visibly colonised large parts of the world as we saw it, yet at the same time we were lucky to witness pockets of untouched diversity. A recurring theme seem to be that the happiest people we met were often those with the simplest of lives as we would define them from the western world.

Trying to sum up our experience over the last year is an incredibly difficult task, however three things that we can say we’ve really learnt are a true appreciation for what we have in our lives in the UK compared to the majority of people in the world, the desire to always make the most of our time and the importance of family and good friends.

Click on the album cover below to see some more of our pictures.

Argentina and Chile

Lots of love,
Susie and Dan xx

Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica

2009-02-05T19:53:00.035Z

Imagine a place as big as the United States and Europe combined.
Sunnier than California, yet colder than the freezing compartment of your refrigerator.
Drier than Arabia and higher than mountainous Switzerland.
Emptier than the Sahara.
Only one place in the world fits this description.
It is Antarctica.
The Strange but beautiful continent at the bottom of the Earth.

- Joseph M. Dukert, 'This is Antarctica'

Flying half way around the world from Auckland to Santiago, we crossed the international date line and conveniently added an extra day to our travels. We had one day to explore Chile's capital city, namely its beautiful colonial era architecture, the view of the city from the top of Cerro San Cristobal and the culinary and artistic enclaves of Bellavista and Barrio Brasil with a Pisco Sour to round it all off.

We then flew straight down to Ushuaia, the southern most city in the world at the tip of South America, incredibly excited about our Antarctic voyage ahead and relieved to have made it without delay since missing our boat would have been an expensive option. After a day of sightseeing, it was time to board our ship, a Russian-crewed research vessel named the Akademik Ioffe.

Heading out through the Beagle Channel we sailed northeast for a day towards the archipelago of the Falklands which previously unbeknown to us there are 778 of. Our first landing was on the island of West Point which our zodiacs approached with an entourage of beautiful black and white Commerson's dolphins. West Point has a resident population of thousands of Black-browed albatross and Rockhopper penguins as well as one human family proudly flying the Union Jack on their front lawn. As with all the wildlife encounters we had, what was so special was that none of the animals have any land based predators and therefore had absolutely no fear of or concern for us. Being just a few feet away from so many courting albatross with their grey fluffy chicks sitting high on their throne-like nests made out of mud was completely unique. It was also fascinating to see them living in such close harmony alongside the Mafia looking Rockhoppers with their long yellow eyebrows. Walking across the island's windswept hills, it felt great to be back on British soil.

After landing on Saunders Island and spending an afternoon with its Gentoo, Rockhopper and burrowing Magellanic penguins, Black-browed albatross and Antarctic shags on the hills surrounding the white sand beaches, we sailed to the capital Stanley. Stanley, the one and only town in the Falklands had the feel of a village on the South Coast of Britain perhaps twenty years ago, albeit surrounded by marked landmines from the 1982 conflict (oops, can't mention that here in Argentina). After fish and chips in one of Stanley's eight pubs, we set sail on the Scotia Sea for bleak and remote South Georgia two days away, another overseas territory of the UK.

Despite being on roughly the same latitude as the Falklands, South Georgia sits on the cold side of the Antarctic Convergence where the Antarctic chilled Southern Ocean meets but doesn't mix with the relatively warm waters of the sub-Antarctic. This gives it a completely different climate with the rugged mountainous island being permanently covered by ice and snow. A force ten storm as we approached the northwest corner with waves crashing over the bow meant we had to miss our first planned landing and continue around the sheltered east coast.

Our first stop was the magnificent Salisbury Plain with its glacier-covered mountain backdrop, home to one of the largest King Penguin rookeries in the world estimated at well over 100,000 pairs. The inquisitive and incredibly photogenic Kings with their Jeeves-like appearance were fascinating to watch as the males courted the females and the oversized brown woolly young squawked for more food in the form of parent regurgitation. Other adults were busy undergoing their annual catastrophic moult whereby they change their entire plumage in one go with the new feathers pushing out the old. Thousands of newly born Atlantic Fur seals paraded the shoreline which made for a hilarious walk across it as the cute little beings chased after us in an effort to impress their peers.

The next morning we awoke at Prion Island which we were incredibly fortunate to have been given permission to land on, the only place in the world to see nesting Wandering Albatross. At up to 3.5m, the majestic Wanderer has the largest wingspan of any bird.

The next landing was at Fortuna Bay, home to a mere several thousand King penguins, bombarding Antarctic Terns protecting their nests and herds of reindeer which were introduced to the island by Norwegian whalers in the early 20th century as a source of food. It was here that we felt our first hurricane strength gravity driven katabactic wind coming off the slopes of the polar plateau which literally hit us like a brick wall from nowhere. Walking from Fortuna Bay over a mountain pass to Stromness in the bright 5am sunlight, we retraced the end of Ernest Shackleton's ordeal of his failed attempt to cross the Antarctic continent and subsequent eighteen month bid to reach the outside world in one of the greatest feats of survival in history. At Stromness are the rusty old remains of a whaling station and a beach littered with old whale bones which along with those at Grytviken were interesting to learn about, despite their gruesome past. In the first half of the 20th century, the worldwide whale population was totally decimated to the extent of an estimated 95% having been captured and slaughtered. With only a few thousand remaining by the sixties, it became uneconomical to continue whaling and it virtually ceased. Sadly the population today has barely recovered at all. By example, humpbacks are thought to have been reduced from up to 1.5 million to 20,000 today. Amazing to think that the consummation of whale meat continues in some parts of the world, mostly Japan, with the International Whaling Commission having next to no power to stop it.

Grytviken is home to South Georgia's permanent human population of two and also the final resting place of Shackleton. Accompanied by some enormous Elephant seals and Fur seals we undertook our first kayak trip at Grytviken and subsequently Gold Harbour with its incredible hanging glacier backdrop. With the water temperature at around -1°C and capsizing being a fairly risky event, we had to don dry suits with multiple layers underneath.

As we moved further South along the coast of South Georgia, we passed our first icebergs which had drifted up from the Antarctic continent, some taken hostage by penguins. Our last excursion on South Georgia was sailing up the incredibly picturesque and narrow Drygalski Fjord with its totally still brash ice filled blue waters and multiple glaciers draped over the surrounding high mountains descending right down to the sea.

Rounding Cape Disappointment and leaving South Georgia behind, we turned southwest towards Antarctica for a three day sail against the clockwise flow of the Southern Ocean which thankfully and unusually was relatively calm. Our days at sea were spent on the bridge or the observation deck looking for the white splash of a whale blow or a fluke as it dived deep. We were also frequently accompanied by seals and penguins, and constantly by a whole host of seabirds from albatross to petrels and skuas. When not, the crew provided us with numerous interesting presentations on the wildlife and fragile environment around us.

The South Shetland Islands were our first port of call passing Point Wild on Elephant Island where the majority of Shackleton's men had to over winter for 105 days under an upturned boat with the resident Chinstrap penguin colony as they waited for him to return with help from South Georgia. The inhospitable outpost of Half Moon island with its Chinstrap penguins and towering ice cliff backdrop provided us with a great opportunity to kayak as did the volcanic caldera of Deception island with its dramatic red and brown walls high above us as we maneuvered through Neptune's Bellows, the narrow opening that allows access to the active volcano. A quick swim in the ice cold water of the crater was called for, made bearable only with the aid of some geothermally heated water dug up from underneath the beach to recover.

Finally it was down to the Antarctic peninsula, the white continent good and proper. Antarctica covers almost one-tenth of the earth's surface and supports the greatest mass of ice in the world with 99.6% of the continent being covered in a very thick cloak of it. Having travelled overnight across the Bransfield Strait towards the peninsula, we awoke to the marvel of the frozen world in a snowstorm; the outer edges of the enormous ice sheet, the ice cliffs as it pours off the continent and the free flowing intricately textured blue icebergs in a myriad of shapes from small to outright scary. Traversing the Gerlache Strait, Wilhelmina bay was our first stop and the scene really was beyond words. Kayaking around the amphitheatre like bay with its totally still water was just entrancing as we paddled through the crackling brash ice, past the most spectacular icebergs with the silence only being broken every now again by the calving of a glacier into the sea, the loud rumbling of an avalanche or an iceberg breaking up and turning in the water. The experience became even better when we heard the loud snort of two minke whales surfacing near to us as we were getting out. They breached right in front of our zodiac and then later took an interest in our ship for about twenty minutes giving us the most spectacular viewing. One was close enough for us to see her eyes as she looked over the strangers in her domain before diving in the crystal clear water in which we could see her every move as she swam underneath and twisted to see us from below.

The afternoon took us to Cuverville island which we kayaked around, again with sheer ice cliffs all around and this time several thousand resident gentoo penguins who would porpoise towards us, poke their heads up and have a good look as if to say 'what the hell are you', and then swim off. The break in the silence as the penguins leaped out of the glass like water around us and reentered brought a real feeling of being at one with the environment in our kayaks. Coming across a reptilian looking leopard seal dozing on an iceberg brought home just how big they are, particularly for Susie who drifted within a few metres of it and sent support guide Sergey into a panic. A huge iceberg collapsing not too far from us created a tidal like wave in the bay and highlighted our vulnerability to the hostile surroundings. A scenic evening barbecue on the deck with some gatecrashing humpback whales circling the ship brought one of our best days ever to a close.

The scenery just got even more spectacular as we sailed down to Paradise Harbour, dodging icebergs along the way. Neko Harbour was our first landing there which again made for a spectacular kayak, and subsequently Almirante Brown where we kayaked with a leopard seal, cruised on a zodiac past numerous weddell seals resting on an ice floe and set foot on the Antarctic mainland.

With a breathtaking pink and orange sunset to finish it all off, it was a two day sail across the notorious Drake passage back to South America, AKA the roughest stretch of sea in the world. Having been briefed by our crew to expect the worst, we were let off relatively lightly. Whilst we said it would have been great to experience the wrath of the high seas, we were both quite secretly relieved. We rolled around Cape Horn in light winds with little swell to speak of and sailed back down the Beagle Channel to the port of Ushuaia where it all began nineteen days and 3,109 nautical miles earlier.

Visiting the wildlife of the Falklands and the wildlife and scenery of South Georgia was just amazing and most likely a once in a lifetime for us. The Antarctic was even more so, truly like nowhere else in the world and a place that we feel unbelievably privileged to have visited, particularly having been able to kayak there as well.

From here our travels through South America begin, starting with Argentina.

Click on the album cover below to see some more of our pictures (quite a few this time).

Falklands, South Georgia and Antarctica

Lots of love,
Susie and Dan xx

New Zealand

2009-01-15T20:43:00.001Z

The collapse of the Great British Pound means that the GFC has finally caught up with the global travellers amongst us, otherwise shielded from its destructive warpath (so we hear). As a result, we were reduced to purchasing Frank the tent at the first opportune moment in New Zealand in a bid to slow the rapid depletion of our cash. Given the outdoor lifestyle synonymous with New Zealand, camping our way around it turned out to be no bad thing.

The first stop on our tour around the South Island was the picture perfect peninsula town of Kaikoura with its snow-capped mountain backdrop, known for its abundance of marine life thanks to the 800m deep continental shelf lying just off its shoreline. Our first encounter was a sunrise swim with a pod of 300 or so wild dusky dolphins out at sea. Similar in experience to visiting the mountain gorillas in Rwanda, there was a real sense of interaction with the dolphins who clearly saw us as their morning's entertainment as we sang down our snorkels, rather than the other way around. A truly magnificent experience. Next was a helicopter flight over the ocean where as well as seeing the large dolphin pod from above, we were lucky enough to see one of the resident sperm whales on its brief stop at the surface before it breached the water and dived down to the depths for a long feed. Our final marine encounter was at the table with a huge array of freshly caught seafood on offer, particularly crayfish.

The sauvignon blanc filled vineyards of Marlborough provided us with an introduction to New Zealand wine as we drove north en route to the Marlborough Sounds where we attempted to complete the Queen Charlotte Track, one of New Zealand's great walks. The lush forest along the coastal ridges overlooking the sound made for a great tramp with some spectacular views, however the third and final day eluded us owing to a complete collapse in the weather. A long drive down the west coast with an overnight stop in Nelson brought us to the dramatic Franz Josef and Fox glaciers. At around 13km in length each, they are known for their incredible rate of descent at anything up to 5m per day, the fact that they uniquely descend into colourful forest and also the ocean being just a few kms away. As well as walking to the terminal face of both glaciers, we went helihiking on Fox which meant being dropped off halfway up the glacier by chopper and spending a few hours walking on the ice with the aid of some crampons, tackling its beautifully carved deep blue crevasses and caves.

Driving further south, we reached sedate Wanaka on the shores of a lake by the same name, again with a sublime snow-capped mountain backdrop. We spent a day in the Mount Aspiring national park nearby with a superb walk to the Rob Roy glacier through a wonderful mixture of remote wilderness, high mountains, beautiful river valleys and thousands of sheep. Amusingly, the fluffy four legged population in New Zealand outnumbers the two legged variety by ten to one. Wanaka also has one of the most comfortable cinemas we've been to, set up like a living room with large sofas to sprawl out on and freshly baked giant cookies and homemade ice cream served at half time, a chance for us to catch up with several of Hollywood's finest.

Next it was down to Queenstown where we had arranged to meet up with old school friend Dev who was in New Zealand for a week and would travel with us for a few days. Trying to cram as much as possible into our few days together, we managed to white water raft and jet boat on the Shotover River which for our enjoyment was at the highest water level for several years after some prolonged rains, wine tasting and fine dining at the nearby pinot noir filled Central Otago vineyards, a visit to some glowworm filled caves in the Fiordland area, and a day's kayaking on the incredibly remote and serene Doubtful Sound. Technically a fiord rather than a sound, Doubtful is one of the largest in New Zealand with rugged sheer peaks towering above the dark waters and dense forests precariously clinging to the near vertical moss-covered slopes. We were lucky to come across a group of enormous bottle nose dolphins at around 3-4m in length, and also the rare fiordland crested penguin. After a final night back in Queenstown, it was farewell to Dev after a great few days travelling together and consequently a couple of days to recover. The mountain backdrop of Queenstown was comically the first of many places around New Zealand to claim to be Mordor from Lord of the Rings. Returning to Fiordland, we made the obligatory trip to Milford Sound for a boat trip around it which true to its reputation was spectacular, particularly with so much rain having fallen the night before yielding hundreds of waterfalls down its cliff faces.

Driving around the southern scenic route at the end of the South Island, we entered the enchanting Catlins National Park, an area of rugged bays, native forests and lush farmland. Camping on the coast and looking out across the roaring Southern Ocean from Slope Point, the southern tip of New Zealand closer to the South Pole than the Equator, we were filled with excitement about our forthcoming trip to Antarctica. Furthermore, it put the fear of God into Dan about the potential for a bout of savage seasickness on some of the roughest seas on the planet. We also had the chance to see some rare hectors dolphins and yellow-eyed penguins whilst walking along the cliffs.

We turned north towards the university town of Dunedin and made the trip out to the end of the Otago Peninsula to visit a colony of Royal Albatross, the only mainland colony of any albatross species in the world. They may look like oversized seagulls but after learning about their year long trips out at sea in which time they circumnavigate the world several times, their monogamous tendencies, their 3m wingspans, their life expectancy upwards of 50 years and the fact that they can fly at up to 120km/h, we found a new level of respect for them.

A long drive up the east coast and a ferry crossing to the North Island on Christmas eve took us to Wellington where we celebrated Christmas in a suitably flash restaurant. We're afraid to say that despite all your complaints about the weather back home at the moment, the festive season in the middle of the summer just didn't feel quite right. After a visit to the Te Papa museum to see the colossal squid exhibition which houses the only intact one in the world, we headed to Tongariro National Park to walk the Tongariro alpine crossing, reputedly one of the best one-day walks in the world and again apparently home to Mordor. It was easy to see how this time though, as we traversed some spectacular lunar like volcanic terrain, active craters filled with deep red coloured rocks, steaming vents and some dazzling emerald lakes.

Placid Lake Taupo was our penultimate destination and gave Dan a chance to renew his skydiving licence after many years of not jumping which needless to say put a smile on his face. We also visited Huka Falls and one of the nearby geothermal hot spring areas known as Craters of the Moon with its steaming vents and bubbling mud pools.

After trundling nearly 4,000km in our dwarf sized Toyota Starlet, we reached Auckland. Old school friend Satyen and his girlfriend Lisa made the most unbelievable hosts, showing us the best around the city, putting on a New Year's Eve gathering to remember and taking us to Waiheke island for a tour of some of the best vineyards in New Zealand. In fact the company, food and wine at beautiful Stonyridge vineyard one lunchtime (thank you Steven) were so good that we decided to extend our stay by a week to spend some more time together. Our send off was a two night stay in a bach (pronounced batch, AKA a beachhouse) New Zealand style in the Northland with nothing but a private beach, a barbeque and a lot of beer and wine.

New Zealand really is a stunning country, particularly the South Island. The scenery as we drove around was consistently jaw-dropping, utterly photogenic and the people so welcoming. To our surprise, we found Auckland to be one of the most liveable cities that we've come across with its green volcanic surroundings, beaches, wineries and most importantly the outdoors on its doorstep.

From here we fly to Chile and head straight down to the southern tip of South America to board our boat to Antarctica.

To see some more of our pictures, click on the album cover below.

New Zealand

Congratulations Annie and Tom on the birth of baby George!

With love,
Susie and Dan xx

Australia

2008-12-09T07:07:00.025Z

Australia was our first western country since leaving home which brought with it a slightly different mindset, one less focussed on the culture and history (of which we all know there is none) and one more on the beauty, experiences and lifestyle it has to offer. Australia was also the place that we had arranged to meet Dan's parent to celebrate his 30th birthday which we had been excited about for a long time. What we didn't know though was that our parents had plotted a surprise visit by Susie's Mum and Dad as well.

After a brief stay in Brisbane, we headed up the Sunshine Coast on the comically named Bruce Highway, making straight for Australia Zoo to pay homage to the late Steve Irwin. Crikey. As well as seeing an impressive array of crocs, koalas and other indigenous wildlife, Susie managed to sweep up an award for best animal impersonation in the 5,000 seater crocoseum. A couple of nights in Noosa gave us time to explore the eucalyptus and tea tree filled coastal national park as well as engage in Australia's flat white culture, a cross between a cappuccino and a latte for those not in the know. At Rainbow Beach further up the coast, we did a days kayaking on the ocean in search of dolphins with an impressive multi-coloured sand dune back drop, as well as visit an unusual tanin-coloured lake. Next we flew to the idyllic coral cay eco-island 80 km offshore called Lady Elliot for four days of some of the best diving we've done. Alongside seeing all the giant turtles, sharks, rays, wrecks, coral reef and beautifully coloured fish, it gave us the chance to obtain our advanced diving qualification.

We had one more night back in Brisbane where we went to an aptly named world music gig called 'From Tibet 2 Timbuktu', and then we flew to the Whitsunday Islands where we were greeted to our amazement by not just Dan's parents but Susie's as well. After a frantic first couple of hours of overexcitement and us all trying to catch up with each other, an incredibly relaxing five days ensued in a beautiful resort on Hamilton Island. Our days were spent doing morning family yoga (yes even our dads joined in), endless hours of eating and drinking, sailing hobie cats and a flight over the Great Barrier Reef on Dan's birthday.

After a decadent start to our time together, our private plunge pools were swapped for the open ocean as we sailed around the Whitsundays on a 41 foot catamaran called Stargazer for five days. Some strong winds made for some great sailing in the sun through turquoise waters past pure white sand beaches and deserted islands with barely another vessel in sight. Each evening we anchored in a bay even more beautiful than the last with the opportunity for some great snorkeling on the reef and nights sleeping on the trampoline under the millions of southern hemisphere stars.

Finally we all flew to Sydney and after cruising Bondi, the harbour, the restaurants, the gardens, a night at the opera house and Watsons Bay, it was an emotional farewell. We had the pleasure of staying with friends Dave and Dawn in Sydney and had a lovely time with them including a trip to the Blue Mountains for a days canyoning. Perhaps just slightly out of our depth given our non-existent experience, we had one of the most adventurous days we've ever had abseiling down waterfalls, squeezing through rocks and jumping off cliffs into near-freezing water, all in a stunning setting with the feel that time had stood still for millions of years. The only downer, the attack of the leeches.

Australia clearly has a lot to offer from what relatively little we saw and the draw to migrate is very apparent. Australia for us though will always be remembered by the most memorable time we shared with our parents after eight months apart.

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas from New Zealand!

Click on the album cover below to see some more of our pictures.

Australia

Love Susie and Dan xx

Bhutan

2008-11-04T07:47:00.005Z

After visiting Bhutan two years ago, the Land of the Thunder Dragon, a return trip to the last remaining Himalayan Kingdom has always been high on our list of priorities. The deeply Buddhist land, roughly the same size as Switzerland and wedged between China and India, is a truly unique place which until the 60s had no currency, telephones, schools, hospitals or postal service. In 1959, sparked by China taking control of Tibet, the King soon realised that centuries of self-imposed isolation was no longer appropriate in the modern world and a programme of modernisation was necessary to ensure its survival and sovereignty. The development process still to this day deems Gross National Happiness as more important than Gross National Product and every new policy is measured against it. With foreign visitors only very recently having been allowed into the country, Bhutan has a policy of high-value low-impact tourism and sets a minimum daily fee high enough to keep out the backpackers synonymous with its neighbours. Nicknamed as Nepal for the jet set, Bhutan was always going to be right up our street.

Having acquired the taste for trekking in Bhutan on a relatively short four day hike on our previous trip, the focus of our return visit was the twenty four day Snowman Trek across the Greater Himalaya in the north of the country. Known as the most difficult trek in the world, less than half of the people who have undertaken the expedition have finished it as a result of either exhaustion, the altitude or heavy snowfall on the high passes. With October being the only window in which there is a chance to complete it, the challenge was on.

Getting to Bhutan was an experience in itself with the flight from Kathmandu passing eight of the ten highest mountains in the world including Everest before dropping into a valley to weave through the hills and land at what Airbus has called the most challenging international airport in the world. On arriving we were instantly reminded of the storybook-like pristine country with its striking architecture of yellow and red roofed temples and Dzongs (fort monasteries) and houses reminiscent of Swiss chalets, men dressed in gho (traditional dress bearing closest resemblance in the west to a dressing gown) with knee length socks, and vertical prayer flags adorning every hill and open space.

In the hope that we would still be acclimatised to the altitude having just finished our Tibetan cycling adventure, we began our trek straight away from Drukgyel Dzong just outside the town of Paro. With eleven pack horses in tow carrying everything we needed for the entire journey ahead, one guide, two cooks and two horsemen, we were immediately immersed in the virgin forest that covers 72% of the country. For twenty four days we traversed the high Himalayan peaks that form the northern border with Tibet; many over 7,000m, most unclimbed and some not even named. Moving from valley to valley we crossed eleven mountain passes, each revealing a breathtaking vista and many over 5,000m high. One of the most challenging aspects of the trek was the complete lack of any real path. We were constantly clambering over rocks of all shapes and sizes and using stones and bits of wood to balance on as we crossed deep muddy patches and streams. As we moved deeper into the mountains, the scenery became more and more dramatic with enormous glaciers draped over the steep slopes and crystal clear or turquoise blue lakes at their feet like you cannot imagine. The silence was constantly deafening.

The several small villages that we passed in the remote Lunana region were each fully self sufficient with a government funded school and basic health unit although not a single shop. Once a year around October when the year-round snow clad barrier to the rest of the country is deemed most penetrable, residents make the five day walk over the high mountain passes with their pack animals to the nearest road to acquire the necessary supplies for the year ahead. In spite of this extreme remoteness, the adults and children seemed some of the happiest we've come across to date.

Whilst we were blessed with blue skies for most of the time, several late afternoons and early mornings saw the weather rapidly change to heavy snowfall and complete white-out. The threat of an extended period of snowfall always loomed over us with a day and a night apparently being enough to render all of the passes uncrossable. Our only way out would then be to somehow make contact with the Indian military for a helicopter evacuation. Luckily a few inches at a time was all that was thrown at us.

Mountain bush camping for twenty three nights was a new experience, particularly when it was over 5,000m and it became a real challenge to see just how many clothes we could wear at one time. Whilst Dan braved the glacial rivers on occasions in an attempt to wash, the freezing cold water was too much for Susie who resorted to her pack of trusty wet wipes.

The Bhutanese mountains are home to the enigmatic snow leopard and we heard from our horsemen and several of the nomadic yak herders we passed that they had seen one in the area recently. Despite our daily binocular search and our luck with coming across herds of blue sheep, their favourite local dish, the snow leopard not surprisingly escaped us. The whistling from over sized marmots however as they scuttled across the hills provided much amusement.

The last week of our trek required us to switch our supply carriers from horses to yaks at one of the mountain villages in order to cope with the increasing altitude and perpetual snow and ice that some of the route is under. Best described as long-haired bulls with enormous right-angled horns and a vicious rear kick, they seemed to generally do as they please which meant some long and cold waits at the end of the day for them to arrive at camp. The village also gave us a chance to pick up some fresh yak meat from one of the herders which made for a few delicious meals.

After twenty four days in the mountains, we had completed the Snowman Trek and were rewarded with an enormous and much appreciated chocolate cake by our waiting driver. Although the duration, distance of over 350km and total vertical climb of over 10,000m did make for a tough time in places, we feel incredibly privileged to have had the mountains to ourselves each day and to have witnessed the most beautiful and untouched mountain scenery we have ever seen and which so few others have. After finishing in the centre of Bhutan, we made our way back west with stops at the small towns of Bumthang, Trongsa and Punakha to visit their beautiful Dzongs and temples.

Having been closed to the outside world for so long, Bhutan really is unlike anywhere else we've been in that it shows no effects of globalisation and is far from being colonised by tourism. The people seem incredibly content with their way of life, plain to see even just by the complete lack of anyone begging.

After three more days back in Kathmandu, we've just spent five days in Hong Kong staying with friends Annie and Tom which was an incredibly nice way back into civilisation; wining and dining, lazing on a junk boat around the island, wakeboarding and catching up with some old friends. Thank you the Bennetts! We now have a month on the east coast of Australia ahead of us.

Click on the album cover below to see some more of our pictures.

Bhutan

Lots of love,
Susie and Dan xx

Tibet

2008-09-25T14:08:00.031+01:00

'Go to Tibet and see many places, as much as you can; then tell the world.' Dalai Lama

After months of eager anticipation, the time was upon us for our epic cycle tour across the aptly named 'roof of the world'. With the journey from Lhasa to Kathmandu being so long, so high and so much of it off-road, there was some serious doubt in the camp as to how realistic it was for us to undertake such an expedition. Well with the help of a great crew, a lot of carbs and some anti chafing cream, we're pleased to say we managed the entire 1,011km including reaching Everest Base Camp without getting into the support van even once.

Sadly the exhilaration of the trip was set against the backdrop of a country visibly ravaged by modern day China with Tibetan people lacking basic human rights in the form of religious and political freedoms. The Chinese government enforces a strict communist regime in the province denying passports to most Tibetans for fear of them not returning, and Chinese armed police and army are positioned at every street corner, rooftop and public space to intimidate the people. The reinvention of Tibetan Buddhism seems to be a particular focus with crippling restrictions having been placed on monasteries both in terms of their daily routine and the number of monks allowed to practice. The reality of life in the major monasteries today, particularly after the protests earlier this year when the last of the 'real' monks were carted away in trucks and not seen since, is that the few remaining are those willing to adhere to Chinese regulations and act as 'spies' in return for a salary. Any acknowledgement of the Dalai Lama is highly illegal with people being sent to prison for up to seven years for merely mentioning his name in a political context. People feared our guide book which simply had a copy of his signature and we were constantly asked by nomads for any photos we had of him, possession again resulting in years behind bars. The government has taken over the selection of important reincarnated lamas, most notably the Panchen Lama (second to the Dalai Lama) in 1995 when it abducted the six year old reincarnate chosen by the Dalai Lama moments before the inauguration and replaced him with a boy of their choice. The real Panchen Lama and his family remain 'missing' to this day. History books provided to schools and guides convey a Chinese version of the past fifty years which not surprisingly is vastly different to that in foreign printed books. The government openly rewards people financially for acting as political informants which unfortunately is an opportunity too great for some and has led to mistrust between Tibetan people for fear of being arrested. With Chinese people being given huge incentives and attractive salaries to relocate to Tibet, the towns we visited looked and felt unmistakably Chinese with one having to search quite hard to discover real Tibet beneath the surface. Lucky for us, most of our trip visited more remote parts of the country and so we were able to see a bit more of what the culture would have been like fifty years ago before the invasion of the Chinese. Modern day colonisation it may be but did that not go out of fashion in the middle of the twentieth century? Tibet's vast metal and mineral deposits may have something to do with it.

We arrived in Lhasa on the Qinghai-Tibet train line from Xi'an in China, the world's highest railway climbing up on to the Tibetan plateau. As highly controversial as it is in Tibet due to the number of Chinese people it dumps there each day, it still has some pretty impressive statistics. The 2,824km 36 hour journey reaches its peak at the 5,072m Tangu-La pass, the majority of the track lies above 4,000m and so has to be kept frozen all year round to avoid it buckling in the summer and the world's highest tunnel had to be built. Each passenger has to fill out a health declaration card before boarding and oxygen masks are offered. The cost to construct, a mere US$4.1 billion.

We spent four days in the capital Lhasa in an attempt to acclimatise to the 3,595m altitude. The first thing to hit us after arriving was the sight of the iconic and stately Potala Palace, a white and ochre coloured fortress that soars over the city. Previously home to the Dalai Lama before being forced into exile, the building now lies dormant and has effectively been turned into a museum. The Jokhang Temple at the heart of the old Tibetan Quarter is the most religious building in Tibet. Thick with the smell of yak butter candles and incense, rural pilgrims shuffle past its chapels and shrines murmuring mantras and swinging their prayer wheels. Outside in Barkhor Square with the smell of juniper and barley wafting from the ceremonial burners, devoted pilgrims prostrate for hours on end amidst the tides of others completing the kora (pilgrim circuit) around the temple. Despite the overbearing and almost laughable presence of the Chinese police, the remarkable faith of the people seemed to shrine through at Jokhang and will hopefully survive the test of time.

Our time in Lhasa coincided with the annual Yoghurt Festival, yoghurt by name although absolutely nothing to do with yoghurt as we know it. Under the shadow of the mountains in the outskirts of the city, we watched the horseracing event amongst a crowd of hundreds all jostling for a sight of the archers and acrobats galloping past. The afternoon spectacle was a ritual dance performed by masked monks and lamas to the sound of chanting, clashing cymbals and drums.

Our third day in Lhasa was also our first on our bikes. A gentle cycle to Sera Monastery some 5km away was our introduction, mostly to get used to having our shoes clipped to the pedals. Whilst the monastery's former population of around 5,000 monks has now been reduced to a small handful and with the heavy restrictions in place, we were incredibly lucky to be able to witness the practice of monks debating. With each point made, a monk would step one foot forward whilst clapping at the same time, becoming more and more animated as the debate gathered momentum. Day two of our biking acclimatisation and we headed for the hills. Aiming to reach the holy Drak Yerpa caves 40km away, we had a real confidence boost at the top of our first Himalayan mountain pass which we managed without too much difficulty. When the last 10km turned seriously steep though, we decided enough was enough and hitched a lift with a tractor. It was after all a warm up day.

The Potala Palace was the starting point of our sixteen day journey to Kathmandu. Dodging the crazed traffic of Lhasa was our first obstacle but it wasn't long before we were on the open road. Our route followed the Friendship Highway west towards the Friendship Bridge which marks the border between Tibet and Nepal, with a detour to reach Everest Base Camp. Our timetable had us cycling between 65km and 100km each day depending on the gradient and terrain. Along the way we had numerous mountain passes to cross, five of which were over 5,000m, each time the road dropping back down towards 4,000m. The climb up each of the passes was arduous and often gruelling but the colourful sight of thousands of prayer flags fluttering away at the top of each pass was always a huge welcome. The altitude noticeably played its part in making life tough, leaving us short changed of oxygen after each breath and forcing us to breath deeper than we thought possible. The worst offender however was the howling wind that only ever seemed to blow directly towards us slowing us right down, sometimes to a complete stop. Even going downhill on occasions would be made to feel like a steep climb. The biggest hazards on route were either nomads' dogs who felt the need to chase us with all their teeth showing to protect their yaks, little children who would run to touch us without realising the potential consequence, or in Susie's case a stationary motorbike that she managed to collide with at speed for an impressive front flip over her handlebars. Cars would regularly wind their windows down next to us and start taking pictures and cheer which was always amusing, and without fail pretty much every vehicle would hoot. In spite of all this, the dramatic scenery of deep turquoise lakes, caramel coloured snow capped mountains and lunar landscape of some of the passes inspired us to keep going.

As we turned off for the 108km detour to Everest Base Camp, the tarmac road turned to dirt road which was a bit of a shock to us, making for much slower progress and included crossing the highest pass at 5,170m. Reaching Rongphu Monastery, the highest in the world at the foot of Mount Everest was a moment that made it all worthwhile. With us both having a real love for the mountains, our first sighting of the world's tallest from the ground was one to remember. The skies were unusually clear for our time at Everest and the view of the majestic peak was just mesmerising. We made the final climb to official Base Camp at 5,150m which after 731km felt as if we had just climbed to the summit. After the tradition of hanging a string of prayer flags, it was back on a 72km dirt road to rejoin the Friendship Highway.

The bliss of rejoining the tarmac road was only short lived however and very soon the road turned to hardened sand and rocks, made worse by all the recent flooding and landslides and remained so all the way to the border. Cycling off the Tibetan plateau marked the end of the road and a dramatic change in the scenery as we descended into a deep gorge of evergreen forests and waterfalls submerged in the clouds on a 3km vertical descent to the border. The unfortunately oppressive border regulations meant that our crew could go no further and we had to cross without our bikes to catch a lift on the other side to Kathmandu.

Cycling across Tibet was without a doubt the most physically challenging experience of our lives but without a doubt one of the best. After a day in the Nepalese capital, we were on a plane to the lakeside town of Pokhara in Western Nepal for several days of relaxation which so far has included a microlight flight past the mountains of Machapuchare and the Annapurnas, and paragliding from the surrounding hills.

A couple more days to go and then it's off to Bhutan for the remote 24-day Snowman Trek.

Costi and Nicola - best of luck with the wedding, we'll be thinking of you on the day!

Click on the album cover below to see some more of our pictures.

Tibet

Lots of love,
Susie and Dan xx

Japan and China

2008-09-04T14:52:00.022+01:00

Early on in the days of planning our world trip, we decided that Japan was a country that would definitely feature. Whilst perhaps being a place that not too many 'backpackers' are drawn to, we have long been fascinated by Japanese culture, its futuristic cities and ancient temples, not to mention its highly sophisticated toilets, some of the finest cuisine on the planet and its economic miracle of recent times. With all the first world countries we have visited in our lives having being Western, Japan offers the opportunity to visit an alternative culture that effectively got it better than we did in Great Britain in the second half of the twentieth century. From a nation in ruins after the second world war, Japan grew to become the world's second largest economy by as early as the 70s, startling when you consider its almost total lack of any major natural resources. After the bubble era of the 80s when Japan had an incredible 60% of the world's real estate value on only 0.3% of its land mass, along came the extended recession and relatively high unemployment of the 90s. In spite of that Japan remains number two on the world rich list.

A couple of days before arriving in Japan, we learned that the period in which we would be visiting coincided with O-Bon (the Festival of the Dead holidays) when most of its 127 million inhabitants would be on the move. Whilst this meant that we would see many beautiful lanterns lit and floated on rivers and lakes all over the country, we were told it would be very difficult to travel or find accommodation. A government sponsored English speaking tourist desk at Tokyo airport came to the rescue and after a couple of hours, they had helped us to secure train tickets and ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) reservations at all the places we planned to visit. We only hope that the same kind of incredibly helpful service is offered to tourists arriving in London.

Tokyo was every bit the metropolis that we had imagined; contemporary culture, neon light filled streets, six-way pedestrian crossings, retro chic fashion, vending machines at every corner and manga cafes where an entire cross section of the population seem to spend hours browsing through huge libraries of the famous Japanese comics. Our first dinner took us to a sushi restaurant called Kyubei recommended by a friend of fine taste back home. Sat on a tatami mat behind the counter, a chef in front of us simply asked 'sushi or sashimi' and started preparing piece after piece of the finest raw fish we have ever tasted. Not knowing the etiquette of whether we needed to say when we had eaten enough or whether the chef would stop at the end of his recommended selection, we continued to enjoy the fruits of his work. After multiple dishes including the highlight live prawn which simply had its head and shell removed in front of us and presented whilst still showing some signs of life, we managed to communicate to our chef that we were full. After the customary thank yous, we were shown downstairs and given a scrap piece of paper with a hand written number on it and left an eye-watering US$560 poorer than when we walked in. Thank you Alan.

The next morning we were up at 4.30am in order to visit the Tsukiji fish market and in particular the 5am auctioning of the huge deep frozen tuna fish brought in from the seas a few hours prior. After auction, the tuna are whisked off to stalls nearby to be prepared ahead of the arrival of the day's traders at 7am. It was fascinating to see the frozen tuna, often worth thousands of US dollars, initially being cut up using a band saw as if they were blocks of wood, before being delicately sliced and ending up in the restaurants around Tokyo by mid-morning.

The season to climb Mount Fuji only lasts for eight weeks each year and we happened to be there in the middle of it. We decided that taking part in the annual pilgrimage to the top of Japan's most sacred and highest mountain was an opportunity we could not miss. Furthermore it was about time we had another summit under our belts. After a morning train from Tokyo, we began walking on the ancient Yoshidaguchi trail through the lush forests at the base of the mountain. After five hours on the quiet and relatively gentle slopes, we reached our mountain hut for a quick bento box dinner and a few hours of sleep before rising at midnight for the five hour push up the steep scree covered slopes for sunrise at the summit. As we set off, we could see the head torches of the thousands of others in the distance who had taken the bus half way up the mountain the night before and started walking from higher up. We soon caught them and began to understand why the Japanese are the masters of shut eye with so many of them taking standing power naps along the way. As we neared the top, we became part of a human traffic jam making very slow progress to the summit at 3776m with magnificent views over the clouds and lakes below. Despite trekking and hordes of people not usually going well together, the experience of climbing amidst so many Japanese people vying to get to the summit was one truly worth having.

After a long nights rest back in Tokyo, we took the train to the charming little town of Takayama in Japan's Northern Alps. Not just any train though. This was our first ride on the Shinkansen (bullet train). Not only was its speed incredibly impressive at around 200mph, the entire service was unbelievably efficient from the platform telling you exactly where to stand for the door closest to your reserved seat, to the train pulling in at the station, departing and arriving at precisely the scheduled minute. In fact every single train we took in Japan departed and arrived exactly on time. Takayama was like stepping back into old Japan with its traditional architecture, streets lined with old inns and sake breweries, hillside shrines and temples, and shops and restaurants offering all manner of foods to entice passers by inside, from grilled rice balls to the sweetest of wagashi (Japanese sweets). For those familiar with the Peak District, Susie described Takayama as Japan's version of Bakewell. Dinner gave us our first taste of authentic wagyu (Japanese beef) from the Hida valley. The simple formula of buying the beef directly from the butcher and cooking it ourselves on the charcoal grill at our table was magnificent. Whilst the intense richness of the marbled beef may not have done much for our cholesterol, the taste was divine. As much as we like to believe in the UK that wagyu comes from happy cows that spend their days drinking beer and receiving massages, it is apparently not true.

Another couple of hours on a local train followed by the Shinkansen took us to the culturally rich cities of Kyoto and Nara. Kyoto has 17 world heritage sites,1,600 Buddhist temples and 400 shrines of which we visited just a very small handful as well as several of its tea houses and serene zen gardens with raked pebble quarters, koi carp filled ponds and feng shui principles. As nightfall came, our attention turned to keeping an eye out for a glimpse of one of only an estimated hundred kimono clad Geishas on their way to or from appointments of which we were lucky to see two. Often misconstrued by the West as prostitutes, Geishas are in fact women of exquisite refinement versed in an array of visual and performing arts whose exclusive list of customers pay thousands of US dollars for an evening in their company. Nara was the first real capital of Japan and is home to countless ancient temples and shrines. The most worthy of note were Todai-ji which houses the largest wooden building in the world and an enormous bronze Buddha within, and also Kasuga Taisha set amidst the woods surrounded by hundreds of stone lanterns and herds of sacred deer.

We then travelled as far west as the Shinkansen would take us onto the island of Kyushu. After a night in the gateway port city of Fukuoka, we ventured to Aso-San at the island's centre, the largest active volcano caldera in the world with a circumference of 128km. At its heart lie the sleepy town and five volcanoes of Aso, one of which named Naka-dake has been very active in recent years. Often closed due the level of harmful gases bellowing out of Naka-dake, we were lucky to be able to take the cable car to the top for a walk around the rim of the smoke filled crater and its barren surroundings.

Our final destination before our departure from the city of Osaka was the onsen (hot spring) town of Beppu. Across Japan, there are over 3,000 natural onsen, more than Iceland and in fact more than anywhere else in the world. Relaxing in an onsen is a favoured pastime of the Japanese with most towns and also ryokans having tapped into one for people to have a communal bath at the end of the day. Beppu has a proportionately high concentration of onsen with millions of litres of hot water percolating from beneath the ground each day and visible plumes of steam being released from vents all around. A day of soaking was in order from giant mud baths to outdoor rock pools in the mist-shrouded hills nearby with cold water filled wooden plunge tubs on stand by.

The modern city of Osaka had the best nighttime atmosphere we experienced in Japan with bustling streets and narrow alleyways filled with countless restaurants and Japanese pubs, all lit up with multi-coloured flashing neon advertisements. It gave us a chance to sample some really traditional food at a specialised indoor market such as okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake using shredded cabbage as a base and cooked on a teppan grill) and tako-yaki (fried octopus balls). Osaka also has an impressive aquarium centred around the world's biggest tank which was home to two giant whale sharks, manta rays and numerous other smaller sharks.

Despite the obvious language barrier which sometimes drew complete blanks on both our faces and those we were trying to communicate with and also the extortionate expense of everything, travelling in Japan was relatively easy. This was in no small part down to the gracious hospitality of the Japanese people who would often go out of their way to help, particularly if they spoke even just a few words of English.

With Japan Airlines having kindly blocked out the entire economy cabin for us, we arrived in Beijing on the morning of the last day of the Olympics, instantly impressed by the airport terminal that had just been opened, the number of people on offer to help and the brand new airport express train. Whilst we unfortunately arrived too late to catch the men's marathon, it was clear that this was an Olympic city in action with enormous flags draped down tall buildings, every billboard having some association with the games, entire lanes devoted solely to Olympic traffic, the Olympic anthem being blasted out of every loudspeaker and Olympic volunteers everywhere. We made our way towards the Olympic village in the afternoon to try to get close to the action, but being the day of the closing ceremony it was impossible to get anywhere near. A glimpse of the Olympic flame and Birds Nest stadium in the distance was the best on offer. Our next plan was to watch the ceremony on one of the numerous big screens around the city centre, however disappointingly the authorities decided not to show it on any of them which was a great shame. Forced to watch it indoors, we did however get to see the firework display in Tiananmen Square at the end of the ceremony which needless to say was the most impressive we have ever seen.

Our picture of Beijing was no doubt slightly skewed by all the work done for the Olympics but what we saw was an incredibly impressive city of both modern and traditional architecture and was in fact generally quite clean. As well as visiting the enormous Forbidden City (home to 24 Chinese emperors in the last 600 years), strolling the hutongs (traditional alleyways) and sampling the city's finest Peking duck, we visited the out of town Factory 798 contemporary art district with its hundred or so galleries and studios all contained within gutted 1950s East German designed factories. An amazingly diverse collection of Chinese and international art was on offer, right at home in the giant industrial carcass. On our last day in Beijing we made the trip out to the Great Wall of China and walked along the lesser visited stretch from Jinshaling to Simatai, both in complete awe of its size and design over the mountains.

An overnight train to Xi'an was our only other stop in China for us to visit the Terracotta Army. Having seen the exhibition in London last year we were both very keen to see more and the journey proved well worth it. With around 2,000 warriors having been excavated so far and reassembled in their original underground pits, the museum believes it will take a further hundred years to unearth the remaining 6,000. Emperor Qin Shi Huang, who had 720,000 skilled craftsmen build the army over 2,000 years ago to be buried around his tomb and protect him in the afterlife, clearly managed to join the ranks of historic leaders with an eccentric vision and unquestionable power to execute.

Whilst our spell in China was very brief, we could not help but feel a slight animosity towards us as Westerners wherever we went, be it in restaurants, shops or even in talking with the general public. Perhaps it was just Chinese mannerisms or even just frustration with the language barrier. Perhaps it was evidence of their discontent with the criticisms of the West, or even an arrogant trait arising from their newly found place as a world superpower.

Next we travel to Lhasa in Tibet for the start of our epic cycle ride through the Himalayas. Wish us luck.

Sammy and Pete - congratulations on your engagement which we are so excited about!

Click on the album cover below to see some more of our pictures.

Japan and China

Lots of love,
Susie and Dan xx

South East Asia

2008-08-12T15:54:00.010+01:00

Hanoi in Northern Vietnam was our first port of call in South East Asia. Staying in the Old Quarter, we were instantly captivated by the exotic smells, sounds and vibrant chaos that one associates with the region. Thousands of mopeds swarmed the pulsating narrow streets making life as a lone pedestrian fairly challenging. The little space they left was occupied by women with wicker balancing baskets over their shoulders filled with fresh fruit from the market, and street vendors selling everything from freshly cooked Pho (noodle soup) to large river fish gasping for air in small bowls of water destined for someone's dinner plate.

After a few days to find our feet in the new continent, visit the sights and get overexcited about the local cuisine, we were on the overnight train to the town of Sapa in the mountainous north west, just 3km from the border with China. Expecting the worse from the journey, we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in a wood panelled four bed cabin complete with duvets, pillows and air conditioning of sorts, clearly the carriage designated for tourists. We embarked on a three day trek from Sapa down the mountain valley towards Ban Ho, seeing the various ethnic minority hill tribes in traditional dress along the way. Our nights were spent in villages with families from Dzay and Tao tribes, eating and playing cards with them whilst being offered shot after shot of their potent home brewed xeo (rice wine). Whilst the scenery of the Hoan Lien mountains certainly made the visit worthwhile, unfortunately it was tainted by some rather unfriendly local people who either aggressively tried to sell you something, or if they weren't selling would completely ignore you when you tried to communicate. With so many tourists walking the same route, it didn't surprise us that this had become the case. We couldn't help but think that maybe this was a place that would have been great to visit perhaps twenty years earlier. We hoped that this would not become a theme of our travels through South East Asia.

Next was a three day cycle in the mountains west of Sapa which we're pleased to say was a completely different experience, most likely by being just slightly off the tourist trail. We rode through numerous villages and each time were greeted by screams of welcome, not one person trying to sell anything to us or beg from us. The ride took us through some stunning mountain scenery with stereotypical steep and green cliffs in the clouds, towering over terraced rice fields below. The downhill stints were a real joy however the long uphill climbs a real challenge in the heat. With not a tourist restaurant in site, our guide took us to some rather shady local eateries three times a day for a taste of real Vietnamese cuisine with delicacies like pigs trotter spring rolls and stir fried mountain goats intestines presented to us. The only option for breakfast, Pho Ga of course (chicken noodle soup). The 200km cycle had a second purpose for us which was to give us a taste of long distance mountain biking ahead of our planned trip in Tibet. For those that don't know, we are planning on cycling through the Himalayas in September from Lhasa to Kathmandu, a mere 1,000km along the Friendship Highway. Cycling around Sapa was a real rude awakening that made us realise our Tibet adventure was going to be incredibly challenging, particularly given that neither of us are avidly keen cyclists and the closest thing we've done being a lunchtime spin class at the gym. Even more worrying was when we remembered that we were only at about 1,500m above sea level and the entire Friendship Highway is over 4,000m with six passes over 5,000m. We agreed that we were going to have to invest in some serious equipment if we are going to have any chance of making it, first and foremost some padded shorts.

After another night train back to Hanoi, we headed for Halong Bay for three days on a junk boat cruising around the Gulf of Tonkin where hundreds of limestone peaks protrude from the green waters and people live on floating fishing villages. Kayaking around the vegetation covered karsts gave us the chance to explore a few of the countless grottoes and stalactite filled caves within, some of which led to tranquil hidden lakes at their centre. Arriving back on the mainland, we had the surprise of our lives when we completely unexpectedly bumped into friends Annie and Tom who were on their way out to Halong Bay and we were not supposed to meet until the end of October in Hong Kong. We genuinely had to double take to believe that it was really them.

A few hours back in Hanoi before departing for Hoi An gave us just enough time to experience the traditional water puppet art form that we'd been told about by several people on our travels to date. As sceptical as we were, it turned out to be a very impressive and amusing show of puppets dancing on water to all sorts of traditional musical instruments with some indoor fireworks thrown into the mix as well. It may not sound great but you'll just have to trust us. Hoi An in Central Vietnam is a charming little fishing town with historic architecture and narrow streets filled with silk lanterns as well as some of the best food we had in Vietnam. Cheap tailor made clothing was on offer everywhere, however it was its serene nature that appealed to us most.

After a thirty hour train journey in a not so plush four berth cabin with six Vietnamese singing children, we were in Vietnam's largest and liveliest city, Ho Chi Minh. Formerly known as Saigon, its name was changed in 1975 in honour of leader Ho Chi Minh after his communist tanks from the north of the country stormed into Saigon and took over the south, thereby reuniting the country after years of civil war. Learning from the museum about the harsh reality of that war in which America partook was interesting, and was brought to life as we crawled through some of the Cu Chi underground tunnels in which people unbelievably spent years of their lives in the struggle. We also visited several of the picturesque pagodas in the city and attended a service at the Cao Dai Great Temple in Tay Ninh nearby, Cao Daism being a recently born religion in Vietnam containing elements of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism.

Then it was back on some bikes for another three day cycle around the Mekong Delta in the south, similar in length to the last one although mostly flat this time and even more humid. We rode along the myriad of canals and paddy fields which make up the delta, crossing numerous bridges, using ferries over the wider parts, and taking small boats to visit the floating markets. The overnight highlight was a small family guesthouse on stilts with thin bamboo floors on top of the Mekong River. We were told that the length of all the canals in the delta adds up to over 100,000km, unimaginable when you think that’s two and a half times around the planet.

Finishing near the border, we took a boat up the mighty Mekong River to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh is home to an amazing contrast of the grandeur of the Royal Palace to the reminders of the unthinkably brutal Khmer Rouge regime, and from the relative poverty of most to some of the coolest lounge bars and cafes we've seen. After sampling some of Phnom Penh's finest, we made our way to Siem Reap to visit the many temples of Angkor. Despite having seen so many pictures of the famous Angkor Wat, we were both still blown away by its size, intricately detailed carvings and architectural beauty. It is almost incomprehensible that it took one million people thirty seven years to complete in the twelfth century. We found the Bayon temple within the Angkor Thom compound similarly breathtaking with its fifty four towers compared to Angkor Wat's five, and similarly Ta Prohm of Tomb Raider fame with its gigantic tree roots wrapped around the temple after hundreds of years of neglect. We both really enjoyed Cambodia and would have liked to have spent some more time there, however we made the decision to keep moving to Laos.

Soon after arriving in Vientiane by plane, we realised that Laos’s capital city wasn't quite what we had expected. Albeit that it was a Sunday, there was literally nothing going on and not much to see. After just one afternoon, we were on a bus to Vang Vieng alongside the Nam Song river. With it having rained so much a few days prior, the river was flowing incredibly fast which made for a particularly exciting kayaking trip with us capsizing twice amidst the brown murky rapids and Susie's sunglasses falling to the riverbed, much to her dismay. Whilst being surrounded by beautiful limestone karsts, Vang Vieng was unfortunately completely overrun by backpackers with the place itself seeming to exist solely for them rather than the other way around which was a shame. Another place to have visited perhaps twenty years earlier.

Luang Prabang was our last stop in Laos and also our favourite. A calming town filled with temples, French era buildings and Buddhist monks walking the streets dressed in their bright orange robes. Waking at 5am one morning, we made our way out to the streets to participate in the giving of alms to the hundreds of monks in the form of sticky rice. Whilst being an authentic ritual for the local people and monks, it was sad to see so many tourists getting in the way of the monks and their procession for the sake of an ironic authentic picture.

Then it was onto familiar Bangkok for three days of replenishment in the form of fine dining, sunglasses and massage, and also a chance to pick up the cycling equipment we need - yet more kit in the overflowing backpack. We also did a half day cooking course at the Blue Elephant restaurant which was great fun, starting with a trip to the market and ending with a veritable feast cooked by yours truly.

A pleasant flight thanks to a double upgrade to first class took us to Singapore where we were looked after incredibly well by hosts Ilya and Angela. Their gift on our first night, a tour of the city's finest nightlife and a two day hangover. We found Singapore to be a more refined version of its South East Asian brothers, immaculately clean, much greener, and far less cars and scooters on the road. Unlike Bangkok though which has some cutting edge developments and architecture, Singapore seems to have a slight aura of the eighties to it, perhaps due to its money being older than that of its neighbours. Judging by all the construction we saw from the top of Singapore's version of the London eye, this could all be about to change. One experience we hadn't expected from Singapore was coming uncomfortably close to a Sumatran spitting cobra whilst walking Ilya's dog along the pavement.

Now we are in Bali undergoing a seven day cleansing detox in a beautiful yoga retreat near Seminyak. Six days in we're feeling hungry but starting to feel the benefits.

We've really enjoyed our time in South East Asia, seeing its beautiful terrain, eating the food and meeting the people, however a lot of it seemed to lack the spirit of adventure that we had in Africa which is driving us through our travels. With so many people visiting, it felt at times like we were on a conveyor belt with everyone else doing similar things. It's not that we feel we necessarily need to be away from other visitors to find that spirit, but many years of many tourists clearly seems to change a place and turn it into more of a destination catering for tourists rather than somewhere offering an authentic experience.

Next stop, Japan.

Will and Josie, Stuart and Helen - congratulations on your engagement!

Click on the album cover below to see some more of our pictures.

South East Asia

Love to you all,
Susie and Dan xx

Southern Africa

2008-06-25T07:56:00.028+01:00

With African air traffic not having heard of direct routes yet, our journey from Rwanda to Zambia took us through Uganda, Kenya and Malawi before finally flying into Lusaka. We were met at the airport with our own moving home for the following five weeks in the form of an all singing and dancing Land Rover Defender 110 station wagon equipped with roof tent, fridge, two wine glasses and a corkscrew, and just about every other piece of camping and driving equipment you could think of for the two of us to make it down to Cape Town. After a thorough handover, we were off with the delightful beats of Mali's finest music in our ears courtesy of the CDs we'd picked up in Bamako. First stop was Super Spar to pick up our supplies for the journey ahead. After the food of the previous ten weeks, the choice on offer was like a completely new experience and we were like kids in a sweet shop.

With the Land Rover full, we were on our way to Livingstone to see Victoria Falls, known locally as Mosi-O-Tunya or the Smoke that Thunders. With the region having experienced record and in some places devastating rains earlier this year, the falls certainly were thundering with an estimated nine hundred million litres of water falling every minute. The only downside of this was that the spray coming off the falls was so big that it was actually quite difficult to see them as we walked around. We signed up for the 111m bungee jump from Victoria Falls bridge on our first morning and both loved it so much that we followed it with a tandem bridge swing over the Zambezi which was even more exhilarating, gripping on to each other for dear life with the falls right behind us. As well as visiting every view point, getting completely soaked crossing knife edge bridge and walking down to the lower Zambezi river beneath the falls, we spent a day kayaking on the upper Zambezi river between the hippos and crocs, visited the falls by full moon to see the lunar rainbow, and took a microlight flight over the falls and above the rising spray which gave us a perspective of their incredible size. We also had the opportunity to meet up with great friends Phil and Clare on their honeymoon for a drink by the river, a real treat having been unable to make it to their wedding.

After three days at the falls we made the ferry crossing to Botswana and headed straight for the beautiful Chobe national park, famed for its huge numbers of elephants. Within the first hour alone, we must have seen over fifty of them. Being without a guide or someone who really knew what they were doing was a completely new safari experience for us, adding a sense of fear that one usually doesn't get. All of our elephant encounters meant that we lost track of time and ended up finishing the drive to the camping area within the park at night. Being such an active time of day for the game and with limited visibility, trying to find our way made for a particularly exciting drive with herds of buffalo, giraffe and elephant all crossing our path. By the end of the drive, we were fairly comfortable that the brakes of our Land Rover were in good shape.

Driving from Chobe to Savuti national park was our first off-road experience, a 100km soft sand narrow track going up and downhill. Whilst being a test of Dan's driving skills, it was not so of the Land Rover whose unbelievable off-road ability we were beginning to learn. We only had one night in Savuti, however we managed to randomly bump into Phil and Clare twice more on their honeymoon - sorry guys we weren't following you! After Savuti, we drove to Moremi national park within the Okavango Delta, the highlight of which was most definitely our leopard sighting with neither of us ever having seen one before. Having just been complaining about the lack of game that day, we were tearing around a sandy corner in a bid to reach a different part of the park, only to be greeted by a female leopard crawling towards us. After slamming on the brakes and the leopard realising that we were just a harmless car, she relaxed on the road in front for our viewing pleasure. With just one river crossing to complete in the flooded park, the Land Rover strolled right through, however we were a bit nervous when we saw the water level creeping up to just below the windows. Camping in the middle of all three parks was truly memorable, barbequing under the stars in the bush and going to sleep to the sounds of hippo and hyena, as well as being woken up in the night by passing elephants who had little respect for the trees.

The rarely visited Makgadikgadi salt pans of Top Gear fame were our next destination. Whilst we had to detour several hundred kilometres to get there, the experience of driving over them was something Dan had always wanted to do. At 16,000 km2, Makgadikgadi is the largest salt flat complex in the world. After a tough and uncomfortable day's driving across rugged scrub land and amidst extreme levels of Kalahari dust, we finally reached a section of the pans that was dry enough for us to drive across without risk of sinking. The sight of the endless and totally flat white pans all around us as we drove across was mesmerising and brought on an indescribable feeling of freedom.

After leaving Botswana, we routed through the Caprivi Strip in Northern Namibia and headed straight for Etosha national park. Our three days in the park brought us some great game viewing including a lone lioness strolling slowly under Susie's window and most fortunately several black rhino (the very endangered one) by a waterhole one night alongside several white rhino. Dominating the landscape of the park is an 8,000 km2 salt pan which was covered by a thin layer of water whilst we were there. Having got slightly over confident about the ability of the Land Rover, Dan decided that dropping two wheels into the water wouldn't be a problem whilst turning on the pan's edge, however we very quickly discovered the limits of the car when Susie's side started sinking into the mud beneath and there was no way of driving out of it. Having seen lion close by, we weren't too keen on walking for help, however it wasn't too long before two other 4x4s passed and together worked to pull us out. Entirely Dan's fault.

Next destination was the remote Kaokoveld area in the northwest corner of Namibia, often referred to as the last untouched wilderness in Southern Africa. We'd heard that the journey to and through the area was very tough and slow going with only badly corrugated sandy tracks at the best of times and boulder stricken steep mountain passes at the worst. In the one thousand kilometres that we covered, there was nothing that even closely resembled a road, the only directional aids being three differently coloured oil drums at strategic points along the way. The mountain and desert scenery was breathtaking and the feeling of remoteness was moving. In the five days we were in the area, the only people we saw were the nomadic Himba people whose existence in one of the driest deserts on the planet and seclusion from outside influences were astonishing. The women cover their skins and braid their hair in ochre and butter oil to protect them from the sun, giving them a striking red colour. In one village we visited bringing bags of food as a gift, we learnt through a local interpreter that only once had they ever been visited by white people before whilst some of the children never, making them incredibly shy. Three times we drove up to the Kunene river which moonlights as the border with Angola, each time offering the most jaw-dropping landscape. The first was the Epupa Falls which whilst not as large as Victoria were even more beautiful through the sheer number of them tumbling down the multiple rock faces from Angola in all different directions and the beautiful setting they are in. The second was the wide open valley of the Marienfluss with silvery green fields of grass swaying between the mountains. The third and most memorable was the end of Hartman's Valley, a mountainous area covered in deep red sand blown in from the Skeleton Coast and interspersed with sand dunes. The detachment from the outside world in this furthest away corner was at its greatest. It was at this time as we started to head south that Susie decided we could take a short cut across some dunes rather than follow our previous tracks. The thick sand was becoming softer and softer making us have to drive faster and faster just to keep on moving, culminating in us getting stuck on the crest of a dune. The chassis of the car was entirely beached in the sand and we had to dig for about an hour in the blistering heat before being able to drive back along our newly laid tracks to where we started. Entirely Susie's fault.

As we approached the Skeleton Coast via the rock paintings of Twyfelfontein and the two hundred and fifty million year old petrified forest, the temperature dropped dramatically with fierce winds coming off the southern Atlantic Ocean. As one of the most treachorous and barren shorelines in the world, scattered with old ship wrecks, it was a real joy to drive down. After a quick stop at the one hundred thousand strong and rather smelly cape cross seal colony, we reached Swakopmund, a town that looked and felt like it had been lifted straight from the German coast. With the spectacular backdrop of the sand dune desert behind Swakopmund and the Atlantic coastline, Susie had her first taste of jumping out of an aeroplane from 12,000 feet strapped to the front of an instructor. We followed it straight up with quadbiking up, down and around the desert sand dunes at sunset which we agreed was one of the best activities we had ever done.

After Swakopmund came the enormous and dramatically shaped red sand dunes of Sossusvlei reaching up to 300m and the dried out clay pan of Dead vlei with its striking white colour against the rich redness of the sand and the deep blue of the sky. Summiting the 200m high and S-shaped Dune 45 for sunrise was a struggle but well worth the effort. After visiting the beautiful Quiver tree forest and nearby cheetah orphanage, our final stop in Namibia was the impressive Fish River Canyon, the second largest on earth.

Crossing into South Africa marked our last country in Africa and so was tinged with an air of sadness however we had the joys of the Cape winelands and Cape Town itself ahead of us. The setting for the vineyards of Stellenbosch is beautiful and so it is not surprising that the grapes taste as good as they do. After visiting several of the great wine producers on our first day and sampling their finest, we retired to our campsite with several bottles in tow which were enjoyed with some fresh springbok fillets we'd picked up from a farm along the way. With the first sore head of the trip the next morning, it was straight back to the vineyards to sample some more.

With just over 8,000km on the clock, we reached Cape Town, the mother city of South Africa. Whilst it was a sad farewell with the Land Rover after the incredible journey we'd just completed, it wasn't long before we checked ourselves into a beautiful guesthouse in Bantry Bay. As well as the sights of Cape Point, the penguins of Boulders Bay, Table Mountain and Robben Island, we spent several lazy days in Cape Town soaking up the atmosphere, visiting friends, enjoying the seafood and just chilling out after three months on the move. The only exception to this was our last day when we went cage diving with the great white sharks that live in the waters of False Bay. Seeing these amazing predators breach the water as they attack the unsuspecting seals above was incredible and to see them just a few feet away underwater adrelinine-inducing.

We've now arrived in Vietnam for the start of an eight week journey through South East Asia which will no doubt bring with it some very different experiences to Africa. The food so far, amazing.

Click on the album cover below to see some more of our pictures.

Southern Africa

Love to you all.

Susie and Dan xx

Rwanda

2008-05-15T18:47:00.014+01:00

We always knew that Rwanda would be a highlight of our time in Africa and we can safely say that it has both met and exceeded every expectation we had. Known as the Land of a Thousand Hills, Rwanda is literally covered in them. Even though it doesn’t look it, Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in the world given its small size. Every square inch of land possible is used for farming which coupled with the rains leads to a very green and picturesque country with stunning scenery of endless terraced hills and tea plantations wherever you look. The population, on the outside at least, appears amazingly to have moved on from the horror of the 1994 genocide with the unbelievable ability to forgive at its centre. Whilst it is clear that the people do not want to forget what happened with memorials scattered all over the country and people still being tried in traditional village courts for the parts they played, they are determined to not let it get in their way or more importantly to ever let it happen again.

Arriving in the capital Kigali, it is clear to see that the country has benefited from a considerable amount of aid and foreign investment from the no doubt guilty-feeling international community that stood and watched the genocide take place. Apart from soaking up the atmosphere, the only real tourist attraction Kigali has to offer is the genocide memorial museum. Outside in the beautiful memorial gardens, strongly scented with the smell of jasmine, are the remains of more than two hundred and fifty thousand victims of the genocide buried together in mass graves. Inside is an incredibly informative account of why the genocide happened which, news to us, stems back to the 1950s before Rwanda's independence when it was a Belgium colony and the Belgians played on ethnic differences to divide and conquer the population. The government blames the Belgians for categorising the country along tribal lines which they say led to the years of tribal conflict, culminating in the brutal genocide. It was impossible not to end up in tears at the first hand accounts given by survivors who lost their families, and even more so at the details of some of the children who suffered. After also learning about the other 20th century genocides that the world has witnessed, we left feeling very low.

The Parc National des Volcans in the northwest is home to around three hundred and fifty of the seven hundred or so remaining mountain gorillas in the world which can only be found in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The stunning park is made up of the rainforest covered Virunga volcanoes which seem to disappear in the clouds most of the time, hence the title of Dian Fossey’s book, Gorillas in the Mist. The trek to find our assigned gorilla group took a couple of hours up the dense bamboo and jungle covered steep slopes of Mount Karisimbi with the help of several trackers and their machetes. It is difficult to describe the feeling when you first see the human like mountain gorillas but it had us almost in tears for the second time in Rwanda. We were lucky to be visiting the Susa group, the largest in the park with forty nine members including four silverbacks. The experience of spending the allowed one hour amongst a mountain gorilla family, just several feet from them in their territory is beyond words. The similarity to humans is so evident and the connection one feels from their gaze so great that the wildlife experience really is like no other. The youngsters fooling around playing tug of war and wrestling with each other, the females nursing their very young and the silverback male just kicking back and relaxing. Overwhelmed by it all and after a climb up one of the volcanoes (Mount Bisoke) the following day to see its impressive crater lake, we decided that one visit to the gorillas wasn’t enough. As luck would have it, there were some permits available on our third day in the Virunga and after a two hour clamber through the mud and vegetation of the rainforest, we were standing with Group 13. Whilst a much smaller group than the Susa group, the gorillas were much more active with the dominant silverback having a few issues with one of his females that day who seemed to have more control over the group than he would have liked. This led to the 200kg pure muscle male charging several times, once less than a metre passed a petrified Susie. We really cannot recommend the experience to you all enough. Before leaving the volcanoes, we visited a traditional village in the area complete with a resident healer, Intore dancers and drummers and banana beer brewery. Whilst totally laid on for tourists, it was an ingenious conservation idea with the village being run by ex-poachers from the forest so that they too could benefit from tourism - a cause we were more than happy to support.

Some amateur video footage we took of the gorillas:

After the high of the gorillas, we headed to the enormous inland sea that is Lake Kivu for some relaxation and stopped at the lakeside villages of Gisenyi, Kibuye and Cyangugu. Whilst we had heard good things about Kibuye, neither of us could believe how spectacular the scenery was with a coastline of steep terraced hills, numerous pine covered islands protruding from the blue watered lake and the volcano filled backdrop provided by the Democratic Republic of Congo. Susie relished the beach time and after eight busy weeks on the move, it gave us our first chance to properly relax for a couple of days.

Our final stop was the high altitude and primate rich Nyungwe rainforest in the southwest, one of the oldest in Africa. As well as trekking along its misty ridges and tumbling forests, we tracked a group of five hundred Angolan colobus monkeys, the largest arboreal primate troop in Africa. Sadly the chimpanzees escaped us by moving too deep into the forest.

Whilst not the easiest place to visit as an independent traveller, the effort was truly worth it as Rwanda really is a beautiful country, East African in feel yet somehow different to the others.

Click on the album cover below to see some more of our pictures from Rwanda.

Rwanda

Having touched north, west and east Africa, we are now heading south to Zambia where we are renting a land rover to drive ourselves down to Cape Town via Botswana and Namibia.

Ishi and Simone - sending you all our love on your wedding day, sorry we can't be there to share it with you!

We hope you are all well and thank you for all your news!

Lots of love,
Susie and Dan xx

Ethiopia

2008-05-05T14:14:00.010+01:00

Our time in Ethiopia started with a three day visit to our friends Gavin, Lizzie and baby Isabella at the British Embassy in Addis Ababa. It was so good to catch up with them and to be spoilt with the creature comforts of an English home. As a guest, it is easy to get lost in the tranquillity of the British Embassy which has the feel of an English country club including swimming pool, riding stables and short golf course, the only difference being the giant tortoises and odd leopard that roam the grounds. As well as being shown around the city, sipping on some of the finest macchiatos we've ever tasted for a mere eight pence, riding in the hills surrounding the city and Dan finally having a shave for the first time in five weeks, we had our first taste of Ethiopian food which we have come to love and also watched the remarkable local dance which can only be described as shoulder break dancing. Thank you the Cook Family!

Back on the road, our first stop was the Simien Mountains for seven days of trekking and an attempt to summit Ras Dashen, the fourth highest mountain in Africa at 4620m. The landscape of the Simien really is truly breathtaking and unlike any other we've seen before. Formed through millions of years of volcanic eruptions and erosion, it could be described as a green version of the grand canyon yet even more dramatic. Giant labelia trees, heather, aloe vera and wild thyme cover the countless plateaus, crags and gorges which are also home to the most interesting of Ethiopia's endemic wildlife, namely the gelada baboon, the walia ibex and the Ethiopian wolf. We came across several huge groups of the magnificent looking gelada or 'bleeding heart' baboons and it was a fascinating experience to sit amongst a hundred or so group members and watch their social behaviour. They apparently have the most complex array of communication of any nonhuman primate and the most sophisticated social system with the females deciding who's boss, the young males forming bachelor groups and the older males performing a grandfather like role to the young. We came across some of the beautiful but rare walia ibex, however the elusive Ethiopian wolf escaped us, not surprising with an only an estimated fifty or so in the entire national park. We were incredibly lucky though to see a huge lammergeyer bird attempt to shatter an animal bone which it very occasionally does by dropping it from a great height mid-flight onto a rock below in order to get to the marrow inside.

With a guide to lead the way and an old-aged scout at the rear (armed with an antique rifle although we were convinced more for effect rather than anything else) we walked over 160km through the mountains staying in the remote villages of Sanaqber, Geech, Chenek and Ambikwa. The going proved to be tough with steep and uneven ascents and descents, two passes over 4000m and a slightly demoralising drop to 3000m the night before the early morning attempt to summit Ras Dashen, having been at 4200m at lunchtime. We're pleased to say we both made it and the feeling as with any good summit was one of jubilation.

After the Simien we visited Gondar for a day, one of the former capitals of Ethiopia, before heading north around what is known as the historical circuit. The first stop was Lalibela, famed for its eleven rock hewn churches and referred to as one of the elite few eighth wonders of the world. Built by King Lalibela in the 12th and 13th century in an attempt to create a new Jerusalem on African soil, the churches were intricately carved by thousands of hands literally chiselling down into the solid rock and then from the outside in, some even freed entirely from the surrounding rock on all sides. The most impressive is the cross shaped and 15m deep Bet Giyorgis (St. George) which we were lucky enough to see early in the morning of Ethiopian St. George's day whilst a few hundred people were standing around it to join in the chanting of the service being held within.

The town of Aksum was our next port of call, purported to be the Queen of Sheba's capital in the 10th century BC, allegedly the home of the Ark of the Covenant and littered with ancient tombs of former kings with giant stelae (monoliths made out of single pieces of granite used as tombstones) the largest of which weighed in at over 600 tonnes however sadly collapsed as it was being erected in the 4th century - believed to be the largest single block of stone that humans have ever attempted to erect. To see the advanced crafts and building ruins dating as far back as the 10th century BC was truly remarkable.

A drive through the Adwa Mountains close to the contentious Ethiopian/Eritrean border took us to Debre Damo, known as the holiest place in Orthodox Christian Ethiopia. Debre Damo is a 10th century monastery built on top of a high mountain plateau on which the resident male monks spend their entire lives without sight of the outside world. Unfortunately for Susie, women are not allowed on the plateau which even extends to the cows that live up there. The walk to the top ended with a rather precarious 17m climb up a vertical cliff with a leather rope for Dan to haul himself up with and a leather strap around his waist for one of the monks at the top to help pull him up. An exciting journey to say the least.

Our final stop was a visit to three of the 10th century rock hewn churches of Tigray, each perilously placed high in the mountains to avoid any attack from the Muslims amidst worsening relations at the time. Abuna Yemata Guh, the most spectacular one we visited halfway up a rock pinnacle required an hours steep trekking and culminated in a vertical cliff face scramble (no rope this time) and a walk along a very narrow ledge with a 200m drop, probably one of the least safe things we've done but well worth it.

Our last night before returning to Addis finally saw Dan give in to the local culinary speciality of tere sega (raw meat) that he previously thought more sensible to avoid. In the corner of many a good local restaurant exists several large hanging animal carcasses. To order, the butcher will hack off the requested fine cut (e.g. beef steak) and simply serve on a plate alongside a spicy awazi sauce and the customary injera. Injera is a bread like pancake made from the indigenous cereal tef and used as the base of practically every Ethiopian meal. The taste was divine but will no doubt be followed in several months time by some tape worm eradicating pills.

Our somewhat naive image of Ethiopia before entering, and no doubt that of many others, was one of a dry land ravaged by famine and surviving only on the comic relief esque aid that reaches it every year. Whilst sadly this is likely true in some parts of the country, the Ethiopia we saw was completely different with a very proud population, perhaps something to do with the fact that Ethiopia is the only African country to have successfully fought off colonisation throughout its history. Whilst we unfortunately did not have time to visit the tribes of the Lower Omo Valley in the south, it gives us a good reason to return in the future.

Click on the album cover below to see some more of our pictures.

Ethiopia

Phil and Clare – Sending you all our love for your wedding day!
Emily – Happy 30th birthday!

Lots of love,

Susie and Dan x

Mali

2008-04-09T12:23:00.026+01:00

We never thought we would say this but Mali is one of the friendliest and most interesting countries that we have ever been to and we love it here. Despite being the fourth poorest country in the world, the fascinating and culturally diverse population is mostly incredibly welcoming, relatively hard working and eager to develop. What makes them so poor unfortunately is the historical lack of natural resources, the inability of the land to support the growing population and the gruelling heat that hits them in the dry season coupled with the sometimes devastating nature of the wet season. Historically poor leadership goes without saying. The visible history in Mali is remarkable and yet unfortunately for the people, the lack of tourists in the dry season is equally so. With the 45°C+ dry heat that we've had everyday, we understand perhaps why.

We arrived from Morocco in the middle of the night to face the slightly daunting debacle of Bamako airport and in particular passport control which we had heard had the reputation of being quite ruthless. Luckily the hassle we went through of obtaining our visas in Brussels in advance paid off and we were granted entry with what almost looked like a smile. Since the day that we originally decided to go to Mali, Dan had been dreaming about going 'clubbing in Bamako', the home of West African music and sure enough, that was the first thing on the agenda. After making a few enquiries, we heard that Malian legend Toumani Diabaté was playing in his own bar on our first night and so that was where we headed (for those of you that haven't heard of him, shame on you). Despite appearing to be a fairly seedy and empty place at the outset, we soon realised that everyone was working on Africa time and a 9.30pm start meant 11pm for the sound check and midnight before it really got going. The eleven piece band of kora, guitars, djembe drums, random percussion and singers was electrifying and Dan was in heaven. This was also our first insight into the importance of music to the everyday lives of Malian people.

Having seen most of smog-filled Bamako from the back of a scooter in a mad search for cash (a commodity surprisingly difficult for a westerner to come across), our first destination was Djenne. Whilst this small town, situated on an island in the Bani River, has an interesting past and also the best weekly market in Mali which we were lucky to see, it is the incredible world's biggest mud brick mosque which is the real draw. Declared a UNESCO world heritage site several years back, one can't help but look at it from every angle in awe. It takes four thousand people one day each year to reapply the mud after the wet season to ensure the building survives.

Next stop was the Dogon country, a place firmly rooted high up in the list of things to see before you die and it is easy to see why. The best way to experience and learn about the Dogon people is on foot and we spent six days with a local guide, walking and clambering across rocks on all fours from village to village. The villages follow the 150km long and several hundred metre high Bandigara escarpment, some on the top, some towards the bottom, but most half way up the steep cliffs. The villages are filled with small thatch-roofed granaries made of mud which are used to store the year's supply of millet (the staple diet of the Dogon) and the views from them across the red sand plains are stunning. Even more spectacular however are the dwellings of the now non-existent Tellem people (former inhabitants of the villages many thousands of years ago) built in completely inaccessible places in the vertical cliffs. The Dogon believe that the Tellem had magic powers and could fly whilst the non-believers think the climate at the time to have been more tropical with vines covering the cliffs and acting as natural ladders. What makes the Dogon people so remarkable is their complex and elaborate culture including religious mask ceremonies and intricate rituals. Two of the more unusual traditions we came across were firstly, the court of law practice of leaving two piles of peanuts out overnight for a fox to reveal whether the person in question is guilty or not (apparently the fox never touches both piles), and secondly their sacred treatment of the crocodile - one village we visited had a pool of crocodiles near it with no real fence surrounding it. Whilst we were assured this was not dangerous and that the crocodiles regularly walk through the village with no problems, neither of us were interested in staying too long to find out.

After the Dogon country, it was time to head for Timbuktu which meant travelling cross country in a 4x4 vehicle with the journey culminating in a 200km stint off-road through the desert in the blistering heat of the day. It soon became apparent to us that Timbuktu really is in the middle of nowhere and hence the reason it is a byword for the place at the end of the earth. The history of Timbuktu is fascinating, a town that became incredibly wealthy in the 15th century as the main trading post for gold, salt and slaves between Europe and West Africa, thanks to its location on the edge of the Sahara and at the top of the bend in the Niger River. As the years went by and European ships began to circumvent the trans-Saharan trade routes, the town fell into decline and exists today as a sprawl of shabby buildings with streets filled with sand blown in from the desert. Whilst the journey to Timbuktu was definitely one worth making, a big part of it is certainly the 'having been there' rather than there actually being much to see anymore.

After a night spent in the desert with a Tuareg family and a couple of camels, we left Timbuktu by pinasse (motorised canoe) for a three day journey down the Niger river to Mopti, 350km away. Having heard many stories about how horrendous the journey can be, it turned out to be rather civilised with lazy days on board spent watching village after village and hundreds of waving children go by, and nights pulled up on the river bank. Lunch and dinner consisted of the fish that seem to present themselves to us as we sailed along by literally leaping on board.

Our final stop was the sleepy colonial town of Segou where the streets seemed to resonate to the sound of the djembe drum day and night. We came across some incredibly talented musicians and Dan was lucky enough to play with a few of them on the roadside, although keeping up proved to be somewhat of a challenge.

Having travelled over two thousand kilometres around Mali, we arrived back in Bamako today. To see some more of our photos from Mali, click on the album cover below.

Mali

Although sad to leave, tomorrow we head for Ethiopia where we look forward to spending the first few days with our friends Gavin, Lizzie and baby Isabella in Addis Ababa before heading north into the Simien mountains and beyond...

Many many congratulations to you Luke and Charlie on the birth of baby Iris!
Good luck and lots of love for your wedding day Laura and Reuben!
Happy 30th birthday to you Caroline!

Keep all your news coming.

Lots of love
Susie and Dan x

Morocco

2008-03-27T12:30:00.018Z

It has only been just over a week since we started our travels and it already feels like we have done, seen and experienced so much. The first short stop on our world tour was Morocco, however despite having prepared ourselves for the start of 3 months on the African continent, we soon realised that Morocco doesn't really feel like 'Africa', nor does it want to. A slightly less wealthy version of the Middle East and perhaps a little more chaotic would probably be a much more fitting description. Morocco has a lot to offer and yet we only had 9 days to cram it into.

We spent the first day and a half exploring the streets of Marrakesh which really is as exotic as we imagined it would be, although how much of the 'fairytale' would remain without the tourists is questionable. Our beautiful little riad (thank you Costi) was tucked away in a quiet back alley right in the middle of the souks, selling everything from carpets to tortoises to spices, even one which apparently doubles-up as viagra which must make for some interesting local recipes. Despite Susie's best efforts to make some space in her bag for the customary souvenirs, her jam-packed rucksack was having none of it. The thought of carrying around a metal lantern for the next year was also not one that excited Dan. We took on the obligatory evening meal in the chaos of the djemaa el-fna market on our first night, and perhaps through avoiding the traditional snail stew and sheep's head broth, we are pleased to say we both survived. As we sipped on our 7 pence equivalent hunja (spicy cinnamon tea) with some locals, it was fascinating to see the Arabic speaking storytellers in the square surrounded by tens of locals all diligently listening to the tales unfold, whilst the snake charmers wooed the tourists. The drum and dustbin lid playing musicians in the square, who surprisingly had a hint of West African influence in their music, was a clear favourite of Dan's though.

For those that know Dan well, you won't be surprised to hear that by the second day, he was already itching to get out of the city and into the Atlas mountains. After an 8 hour bus journey over an incredible and winding high mountain pass, we arrived in the small town of Boumalne du Dades which was to be the starting place for our 5-day trek into the Jebel Sarhro range of mountains. Whilst not as high or as famed as the High Atlas mountains, Jebel Sarhro promised to be a much more scenically varied range and most importantly off the well-trodden tourist trail. Having left the organisation of our trek until the last minute, we were passed around from guide to guide, before we ended up with a 'friend of a friend' who we were told had promised to look after us, ensha'llah. After having been picked up from our guesthouse the next morning in a clapped out old van (also the driver's mobile home) which had a huge oil drum rolling around the back as the petrol tank, we had a sense of what was to come. On arriving in the remote village of Tagdilt, the starting point of our trek, and having been into our driver's home for the usual mint tea and khoobz (local bread), we were greeted by a one-man-and-his-mule Berber called Hussein who was to guide us through the 100km of remote terrain ahead. Having been somewhat spoiled on our previous Himalayan trek in Bhutan in 2006 for which we had 2 guides, 2 cooks, 2 horsemen and 12 ponies accompany us, we were slightly apprehensive with just Hussein and his four legged friend, particularly as it quickly became apparent that he spoke no english and only basic french (although still better than ours)... clearly our expectations are going to have to change for the year ahead.

All our fears were instantly quashed as we began walking, and it turned out to be a most incredible trek through the middle of nowhere, passing no-one but nomads with their hundreds of goats, sheep and the odd camel in tow. (For those tracking our route, the trek was something like Tagdilt-Assif Ouarg Valley-Igli-Tajalajt-Achmrah-El Kelaa M'Gouna.) Accommodation was pretty basic to say the least - if we were lucky we shared a nomad dwelling, if not, it meant braving the freezing cold night outside with only our sleeping bags between us and the stars. The mountain and desert scenery was spectacular.

One of the most amazing experiences we had was spending the first night chez Hussein and his family. Despite the primitiveness of the surroundings in which they live (6 people living and sleeping in a room half the size of our living room), what astounded us the most was the delicate and intricate process by which the ritual mint tea was made. The gunpowder tea, fresh mint leaves and monumental amounts of white sugar broken from a huge block are dissolved in hot water. This is then poured into a glass before it is smoothly poured back in the pot, repeated several times to help it all steep. The tea, poured from a height, is then smelt and tasted on the palette, exactly as if one were tasting wine. The tea is then refined accordingly, most commonly by adding even more sugar. When the person making the tea is happy, it is poured out for everyone to enjoy. What neither of us could believe was just how sweet it was, almost like drinking mint flavoured syrup which we had to grin and bare over and over again so as not to offend.

A similarly surprising process was the Gordon Ramsay-esque cooking of the evening tagine for 3 hours which was again put together so delicately, constantly tasted, spices added and slowly cooked. The experience we had of sharing the family meal (with the men at least) all eating from the same plate was amazing... it really did feel like no tourists had been through there before. Seeing the contrast of incredibly primitive accommodation with immaculately presented food and tea was a real eye opener, showing that one clearly does not have to follow the other. Observing the Berber way of life was a genuinely memorable experience which we feel incredibly privileged to have had.

We managed to finish our trek relatively unscathed, however likely owe a large part of that to our high-tech water purifying steripen and probiotics (courtesy of our mums). We are not sure how our stomachs would otherwise have coped with drinking the stagnant pond water on offer and eating the 5 day old chicken pieces which would have virtually cooked in the heat of each day.

After a quick trip to the Dades Gorge, it was back to Marrakesh which gave Susie the chance to find us a hammam for a well deserved scrub and massage - although in Susie's words, not quite the Urban Retreat.

Tonight we fly to Mali for our first taste of West Africa and most likely the biggest culture shock of the trip. The next 3 weeks should certainly be interesting...

Click on the album cover below to see some more of our pictures from Morocco.

Morocco

We hope you are all well at home and we look forward to hearing your news.

Until next time,

Susie and Dan x

The Planned Route

2008-03-17T23:53:00.002Z

Africa 18th March - 21st June 2008
Morocco
Mali
Ethiopia
Rwanda
Uganda
Zambia
Botswana
Namibia
South Africa
Asia 22nd June - 31st August 2008
Vietnam
Cambodia
Singapore
Bali
Japan
China
Himalayas September - October 2008
Tibet
Nepal
Bhutan
Australasia November - December 2008
Australia
New Zealand
Antarctica January 2009
South Georgia Island
Falkland Islands
Antarctic peninsula
South America February - April 2009
Chile
Argentina
Peru
Bolivia
Ecuador