Let’s continue our wander through the animals of the rescue centre, starting with the creatures that I found the most menacing and that was the parrots. I genuinely found the parrots to be more fucked up than the capuchins at…
My Ecuador animal rescue centre diaries Vol 1
I was about ten years old when I made the discovery that animals weren’t all they seemed in pictures and in stories. I used to beg my parents to take me to the zoo at every opportunity as watching animal…
Why should we care about the Amazon rainforest?
As the Amazon rainforest burns I thought I would elaborate on the ecosystem that supports us as well as many incredible animals. I have seen the Amazon described by the National Geographic as ‘an incubator of life’ and having lived…
The ruins and mountains of Huaraz
Steph and I moved up North to Huaraz, which is the gateway city for the Cordillera Huayhuash mountain range in the Peruvian Andes. It is widely believed to be one of the best trekking locations in the world. The twenty mountains bound…
What’s it like to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu?
When I wrote this chapter on my phone it autocorrected to ‘Macchiato Picchu’. This says it all really, as the service you get on the Inca Trail trek is amazing. Your food is cooked, tents unpacked and essentially all you…
Why are the Nazca lines such a big draw?
On our way to Nazca on the bus, a woman asked if she could put her bag under our seat. Steph said yes as she is so nice but I was immediately suspicious as it was a small leather bag…
The two sides of Lake Titicaca
Lake Titicaca is famous in lake terms as it is the highest navigable body of water in the world at 12,500 feet (3,811m) and very nice it is too. It effectively straddles Bolivia on the East and Peru on the…
Inside La Paz’s notorious San Pedro Prison
Now for our next infamous attraction. The San Pedro prison experience was made famous in the biography of English drug trafficker Thomas McFadden who was incarcerated there. His story was told in Marching Powder which was written by the law…
Why I loved the sunny streets of Salvador
Salvador de Bahia, Brazil is not in the top google searches for Salvador as it is beaten by Dali and Allende, which goes to show how overlooked it is. Personally, it was one of my favourite places in Brazil and…
Uruguay: South America’s sleepiest and safest country
Uruguay is the only country whose English name has the same letter three times in its first five. It is the second smallest South American country after Suriname, named after the Uruguay River, which means ‘river of the painted birds’…
Whale watching in Peninsula Valdes
We travelled up the east coast of Argentina to visit Puerto Madryn, an uninspiring seaside city which is the gateway to the Peninsula Valdes reserve. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site which covers 400km of coastline ranging from cliffs,…
How Patagonia made me fall in love with Argentina
Patagonia has mountains on such an epic scale that it is reminiscent of Switzerland on crack. It has its own Swiss, Welsh and German communities to prove it. The first thing to know about Patagonia is that it is huge…