haberdashery

Laddered tights, library loyalist, three passports.

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Rounding Up 'The Great Andean Adventure'

Rounding Up ‘The Great Andean Adventure’

Hello strangers. Many apologies for being absent for a while. Since returning to the UK, it is quite possible that posts will probably slow down significantly due to a lack of financial aid towards expanding travels. The good news is, in the meantime, we may have a few more things to say about our long haul travel recently – and when I say ‘things to say’, I really mean an assortment of titbits.…

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Guatape & Medellin, Colombia: Final week in beautiful Colombia!

Guatape 8-10 February 2016 As the JMC airport in Medellin is pretty far from the city, it made more sense for us to go straight to Guatape for two nights. An airport taxi cost 100,000 pesos however an Uber would have cost half of that. Turns out the airport has a proper monopoly on taxis, and after piling into the cab, we were stopped and forced to get an airport registered taxi. Top Tip: Get an…

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Minca, Cartagena & Barranquilla Carnaval, Colombia: South America’s 2nd Biggest Carnival is Okay

After taking Jelle with us back to Santa Marta for a night we caught a taxi (50,000 pesos) from the hostel to Minca, a beautiful little town perched in the hills surrounding Santa Marta. Minca 30-1 January 2016 An ornithologists dream, perched high in the hills and accessible by a harrowing 45 minute mototaxi (20,000 pesos each), Casa Elemento has extremely special 3.5 walled little cabanas which…

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Santa Marta (cont.), The Lost City Trek & Palomino, Colombia: A Jurassic Park trek followed by utmost relaxation

Santa Marta (cont.), The Lost City Trek & Palomino, Colombia: A Jurassic Park trek followed by utmost relaxation.

Santa Marta 20-23 January 2016 Following on from our return to Dreamers for a night after visiting Tayrona National Park, we moved on to Drop Bear Hostel to meet Niamh and Killian + friends for the long awaited night out. Drop Bear was a bit dirty, with strange dorms that claim to be 6 or 8 bed but are actually 6+8 bed. I did enjoy the individual fans but the toilets not locking and being unclean…

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Bogota, Santa Marta & Tayrona: Sushi cosmopolitan & Caribbean relaxation to the max

Bogota, Santa Marta & Tayrona: Sushi cosmopolitan & Caribbean relaxation to the max

First of all I was going to contradict the ‘Colombian buses are freezing’ stereotype (in fact, our experience so far has been hot, sweaty and broken windows), when I managed to leave my hoodie somewhere between La Serena in Salento and the bus station at Armenia. Although I was armed with a shawl, I had a bad feeling that Sod’s Law may come into action at this juncture regarding bus temperatures…

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Ipiales, Popayan, San Agustin & Salento, Colombia: Dodging motorcycles spewing foam

Ipiales, Popayan, San Agustin & Salento, Colombia: Dodging motorcycles spewing foam, gurning at statues, hummingbirds & more.

To begin, just a small warning regarding a certain airline called Avianca. As we booked our flights home via Cuba at around £600, we were assured that the confirmation email would come through within 8 hours. This was not to be, and when we followed up the lack of email about 24 hours later, it turned out that Avianca had decided to cancel our reservation for a reason they refused to tell us and…

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Banos, Latacunga, Quilotoa, Cotopaxi, Quito & Banos, Ecuador

Banos, Latacunga, Quilotoa, Cotopaxi, Quito & Banos, Ecuador. Adventure activities, volcanoes and the festive period.

A note dear readers and an apology. I have done Ecuador a grand injustice. In all that D and I feel that the lack of traveller talk about Ecuador is a shame, I have also fallen into that trap which is seen in the lack of posts about this beautiful green and rolling country. However the next 2 weeks in Ecuador were to prove a lovely treat, with exciting activities and a beautiful festive period.…

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Galapagos Islands, Ecuador: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN. £600 for 7 nights including flights.

£600 for 7 nights including flights Having heard that our old friends from Beehive, Daphne & Ellie, had managed to nab extremely cheap flights for Darwin’s magical place, and been encouraged by Aoife & Dave to take the plunge in Chachapoyas, we booked flights for the Galapagos islands. On the advice of others, and an effort to reduce supposedly vomit inducing boat journeys between the 3 main…

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Piura (Peru), Loja, Vilcabamba & Cuenca (Ecuador): Final Peru thoughts & crossing the border

Piura (Peru), Loja, Vilcabamba & Cuenca (Ecuador): Final Peru thoughts & crossing the border to Ecuador

Our final post involving Peru! So a few observations for you: – Young amorous couples are often found in dark corners of public places, making out ferociously. It’s difficult to discern ages as they mostly look disturbingly young. – The regional hat differences in the Andes continued to stay strong, as in Bolivia. – All the traffic police are ladies. – For the last time, I am not Argentinian. –…

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Cajamarca & Chachapoyas, Peru: The chicken was alive when we left

Cajamarca & Chachapoyas, Peru: Dying chickens, funerary niches, cheese farms, Kuelap ruins, giant waterfalls and D finally pipes up!

Cajamarca 26-28 November 2015  We arrived via Linea Transportes to a rather wet and windy Cajamarca around 7pm and caught a taxi that appear to be suffering from real time flooding to our lovely hostel (no breakfast) Hospedaje Las Jazmines, a mere 4 minute walk from the central plaza. Our first impressions remained true throughout our stay, beautiful architecture with a similar feel to Cusco…

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Huaraz & Huanchaco, Peru: Yo-yoing through all the altitude

Huaraz & Huanchaco, Peru: Yo-yoing through all the altitude. Short guide on beautiful mountainous Huaraz & feisty beach town Huanchaco, Peru

Huaraz 17-21 November 2015 Top tip for catching a 9.30am bus from Lima to anywhere. Firstly, make it a Cruz del Sur, obviously. Secondly, leave the house at least 1hr30mins early in an effort to have a dash of stress in terms of making it on time because the traffic is there and very real. Thirdly, the reason why it’s obvious that you want to take Cruz del Sur is because the attendant arranges a…

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Huacachina, Paracas & Lima, Peru: It’s always sunny in La Molina

Huacachina, Paracas & Lima, Peru: It’s always sunny in La Molina. Sand boarding, wildlife spotting, seafood eating, big city living.

Huacachina 10-11 November 2015 Now as you might have noticed, we have so far been rather adverse to night buses, however we expected the combination of a 4am start & hard hike + Cruz Del Sur VIP luxury to work out in terms of actually sleeping on the bus. And it worked! Amazing combination! So, we arrived in Ica at around 10.30am, which took a little longer than expected. On arrival at Ica we…

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Arequipa & Colca Canyon, Peru: Architecture & Treks

Arequipa & Colca Canyon, Peru: Strolling through the white city, trekking through the world's second deepest canyon (apparently)

2-9 November 2015 8 hours from Tacna to Arequipa on a bus was sufficient to put us off bus travel for a while. The bus company, Flores was appropriately ok, despite playing a dubbed version of John Wick (which was so terrible we actually understand the whole plot and movie without requiring English) and then when the movie was over allowing the 30 second dvd title screen to play over and over…

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San Pedro de Atacama, Iquique & Arica, Chile: Joint Country 40!

San Pedro de Atacama, Iquique & Arica, Chile: Joint Country 40! A short week in northern Chile and how to cross into Peru.

So No Man’s Land! We didn’t really realise we were in No Man’s Land before we saw a sign with only two prongs (directions?) – one pointing to Argentina and one pointing to Chile. It was pretty exciting. Before you get to this point however, I strongly urge you to throw away/eat your bananas! – or any fruit in your possession as Chilean customs mean business. After about an hours drive down a long…

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Uyuni, Salt Flats & Eduardo Avaroa, Bolivia: No rules in turtle racing

Uyuni, Salt Flats & Eduardo Avaroa, Bolivia: Turtle racing, Red Planet Expedition, Volcanoes, Geysers, Lagoons & final thoughts on Bolivia

Sadly this is the last post about Bolivia, so we felt it appropriate to add some of our (astute, I’m sure) observations on this country which we loved and enjoyed so much: In Bolivia, they love diluting the hand soap with water. Toilet seats are harder to find than McDonalds. McDonalds was kicked out of Bolivia for being an American company. Trufis or collectivos are like bus taxi hybrids in that…

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Sucre & Potosi, Bolivia: Fruitlessly Searching for Avocados

Sucre & Potosi, Bolivia: Fruitlessly Searching for Avocados. Things to do in Sucre and an afternoon in Potosi, Bolivia.

Sucre 11-23 October 2015 Another £30/40 minute flight from Cochabamba took us into the beautiful Sucre, official capital and white city of Bolivia. We were welcomed by giant dinosaurs with phone booths cut into their bellies, which was highly approved. As it was my birthday, D treated us to a couple of nights at Parador Santa María La Real, a dream hotel with a BATHTUB, balconies, beautiful views…

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Cochabamba & Toro Toro: Aqui, aqui, aqui, uno, dos, tres

Cochabamba & Toro Toro National Park, dinosaur footprints, caves, rock formations and more hidden Bolivian treasures

6-10 October 2015 Tiny flight from Rurrenabaque survived, it was time to take another one onwards to Cochabamba. Now, the reason for getting a flight, rather than a bus, was rather simple. It was only £22 and 30 minutes long, I really don’t feel the need to explain it any further. Despite arriving late in the evening and having a bit of a fiasco regarding the taxi not knowing where our hostel…

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