London

Grey, wet, cold, busy, smoky, unfriendly, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful London! I've never loved this city as much as i do right now. Restaurants from every corner of the earth with all their menus written in English. Public transport that more or less functions despite being packed in like a sardine. Cab drivers who know exactly where you are going, even when you don't. Beautifully spaced out queues of people. Cool, fresh weather - not a drop of sweat in sight. They have a thing called pavements here, which are these areas on the side of roads where no cars, motorbikes, trucks,  horses, donkeys or cows can travel along making it safe for the humble pedestrian to go about their business - it's bloody genius!
And don't even get me started on the delights packed into my beautiful, beautiful flat. Double beds with the softest mattresses, clean linen, rooms with as many power sockets as you could ever possibly want... Wardrobes. Oh, a whole wardrobe full of wonderful, wonderful things. Heels, belts, bags, jeans, dresses. A dressing table with make up, perfume, moisturisers, hairbrushes, hair dryers. Oh my god, it's like my own personal beauty salon... A bathtub. a real life, clean, white, bathtub stocked with shower gels, soaps, shampoos and conditioner - I don't think I've ever been this clean in my life. I smell like fresh flowers and my skin feels like a dolphin's. I put on real clothes, high heels, make up and I even brushed my hair and when I looked in the mirror I felt like one of those women off a Trinny and Susannah makeover show. It almost brought me to tears. I've been reunited with my music collection. I will never listen to Whitney or the Bee Gees again. Best of all though are the toilets! Gleaming porcelain beauties with seats, flushes, tissue paper, soap, running water. Now I understand why they call it a throne, I could sit on that fresh smelling thing all day... I mean just look at this before and after shot:

Yes, that's right. Squat toilets with no doors. I mean seriously Beijing, are we animals?!

There's also this thing called a kitchen in here and it has everything you possibly need to turn raw stuff into food.. Look at how I transformed these eggs and bread into breakfast:

A miracle! And not a noodle or a grain of rice in sight. Joy of joys!

In all seriousness though, I'm surprisingly happy to be back. I'll try really hard to not write a million soppy cliches but there's no other real way to describe this than as a sort of rebirth. Everything seems new and exciting and I can appreciate things that I would never have thought twice about before. I am relaxed and happy and the best part about it is that I have 1001 incredible memories that will last me a lifetime. There aren't really any words to describe the past 6 months. I've been dreaming about them since I was a teenager and they have lived up to and far surpassed any expectations that I may have had. People ask me what my favourite places were and I usually give them the easy answer which goes something like: "Bolivia and Laos. China and Malaysia were amazing - all of it really except India which I didn't massively enjoy" but really it isn't that straight forward. It's not so much the places that you visit that makes a trip it's the experiences you have there. My favourite places actually are the tops of mountains, the bottom of oceans, the middle of jungles, the beginnings of friendships... Rooftop bars with glasses of champagne, greasy little backstreet restaurants, beach bars with fire breathers, trains and buses with multiple landscapes flickering through their windows, nightclubs at 4am ... my house packed with great friends, my lovely soft bed (not packed with great friends). I could rabbit on and on but I've already blogged about it all so if you've read it you already know what my highlights are. Even India which may not have given me the greatest experiences taught me something about myself and something about the world, so whilst I am not in a rush to go back there, I am actually happy that I went.

Anyway, I want to thank you all for reading my rambles about my rambles. I'm heading home to Gibraltar on Wednesday so I think I can manage one last post in honour of my beautiful home town but other than that, my everyday life is sadly just not all that exciting so if I don't think of something else to write about, Kate will no longer post. What I will say to those folks who go on about how jealous they are is to stop being jealous. I didn't win the lottery or get some magical travel invite, I just saved up some cash, quit my job and booked a flight. Seriously, it's that easy. Obviously if you have financial commitments or a family please don't go and bankrupt yourself or give your children abandonment issues - make do with a week off here and there. But if you can do it and you want to do it, just go and bloody well do it! Please!

PS. Errr... Anyone out there want to employ me? I'm kinda broke... :D

São Paulo and Foz do Iguaçu

Now I don't want to get too deep and metaphysical on you - but I just want to clarify that the precious moments I refer to in my intro are not necessarily enjoyable moments... Every moment is precious and ultimately it's actually the bad stories that make the best ones. So when I make it back to reality it is unlikely that I will be recounting the glorious moment when one dives into the Atlantic off Ipanema beach and takes in the lush tropical scenery and realises that all of that dreaming, saving and planning has finally paid off... No; it is far more likely that I'll be telling you about the time I arrived in Sao Paulo with heat rash to discover fraudulent debit transactions on my account and that we were sharing a room with Jabba the Hutt and what looked like his less attractive Vogon brothers...
Of course when you have bags under your eyes the depth of trenches and your entire body is covered in a rash you are hardly in a place to complain about the appearance of others... But it wasn't just the sheer size of one of my roommates that offended me so much as the fact that the gluttonous behemoth couldn't even be bothered to put his bed sheets on. So there he was, festering in the corner of a room on a dirty suffering mattress - tiny laptop teetering on the huge furry mound of his belly... At least the bald guy with the worst combover this side of the hemisphere had the decency to make his bed, although he made up for that by deciding that it was totally acceptable to sleep in his little black panties... And of course the position of my bunk bed adjacent to his gave me a fantastic viewing angle of his... Of his... Well... of his gooch if I must be graphic. Ah, the joys of budget travel!
Unfortunately we only stayed in São Paulo for one night so that's the only real lasting image that I have for you. Other than that I can say that the tube system seems to work quite well and is easy to navigate and Pinheiros where we stayed seemed to have some cool bars which we didn't make it too...

After a long bus journey from São Paulo we arrived at our hostel in Iguaçu at about 10am, dropped off our backpacks and headed to the Brazilian side of Iguassu Falls on a beautifully sunny (and excruciatingly hot) day. I could go on about how stunning the waterfalls are but it really wouldn't do them any justice... And as if the park in Brazil wasn't beautiful enough, the visit to the Argentinean side the next day completely surpassed my expectations. I've posted some photos so you get a fraction of the idea but seriously if you haven't been already, go! The place is a paradise of greenery, cliffsides, waterfalls and wildlife all interspersed with rainbows. And just to add the cherry on the icing we spotted a turtle in the river popping its head above the water (I have a thing for turtles but then again I believe most people do?)
Aside from the natural beauty of the place, Foz do Iguaçu was also a perfect example of the fact that when you travel, you don't just visit the World; The World visits you too... And so it was in the middle of South America amongst people we'd picked up on our tour of the falls and in our hostel, that we sat and learned about great nights out in Niagara, humid summer days in Japan's concrete jungles, cold snowy days in Grenoble and hearty Turkish cuisine. A tower of beer (and an orange juice) shared between new friends was the perfect ending to a great visit to Brazil... We are currently driving through Argentina on an 18 hour night bus to Buenos Aires where I am massively looking forward to a fat medium-rare steak and large glass of red wine!

Key info, São Paulo:
Hostel: Hey Hostel, Pinheiros - Only 1 night here but the hostel wand the area seemed fine save from the fact that we lost the roommate lottery...
How we got here: 6 hour bus from Rio de Janeiro.
Highlights: The tender picanha na pedra (Sliced beef on a hot plate) that we had for dinner.

Key info, Foz do Iguaçu:
Hostel: Your Place Hostel - Small friendly and clean hostel with air-con and free dinner and caipirinhas! Two thumbs up!
How we got here: 15 hour bus from São Paulo.
Highlights: Argentinean falls and we also quite enjoyed the bird park which is next to the Brazilian falls.

Rio de Janeiro

What's not to love about a city with scenery and beaches that look like the below and whose inhabitants look equally good? Its nickname, La Cidade Maravilhosa, seems well deserved.

We booked a tour through our hostel on our first day here so that we could get all the key sightseeing out of the way. So after a whistle stop tour of Cristo Redentor, Pao de Azucar, Catedral de San Sebastián and Escadaria de Selaron (all of which were very impressive) we were free to roast our pasty bodies on Ipanema beach (photo below - of the beach, not the bodies!). After tasting our first (and last) feijoada, we headed to Lapa, the samba district, with the 101 Argentinians who were staying at our hostel. After weaving our way through the several hundred people dancing and drinking in the street, we headed to a bar called Leviano - an odd but fun bar with a live samba band on 2 floors and an unexpected hip-hop/reggae nightclub complete with an abismal but highly entertaining Michael Jackson impersonator on the 3rd floor (those of you who know of my MJ obsession can imagine my delight!). Caipirinhas were drank, booties were shaken and much fun was had.
On Saturday morning we went for a walking marathon along the lake to the lush botanic gardens which left mine and Cata's feet looking like inflatable toys. In the evening we had tickets for the winner's parade at the Sambodromo. The parade was truly awesome - jam packed with feathers, sequins and gyrating muscular bodies on the most amazing floats imaginable (apparently costing up to 1 million reais each!). Having said all that, 8 hours of samba is too much for even the most determined traveller to take! We didn't quite make it to the end (5am) as we were exhausted from the previous night and had a tour to the stunning Angra dos Reis the next day at 7am.

I am on a 6 hour bus to São Paulo at the moment where we will stay one night before heading to Foz do Iguaçu to see the falls.

Key Info, Rio:
How we got here: 11 hour British Airways flight from London.
Hostel: Che Lagarto, Ipanema. - Clean, helpful, sociable and well located.
Length of stay: 5 nights
Highlight: Views from Corcovado and. Pao de Azucar.

Key info, Angra:
How we got here: 2.5 hour tour bus from hostel.
Highlight: Incredible beaches and the great samba band on our boat!

T-6 Days

I realise that you have all been sat in your homes and/or offices doing NOTHING but wait in anticipation for another post from me... Apologies for the delay - but it is a travel blog, and I haven't actually gone anywhere yet so it leaves me with little to say.

I've been unemployed for just over 3 weeks now and I have to say I highly recommend it.  Close this webpage, open up word and write your resignation letters folks - you are wasting precious time!  OK, so watching my precious savings starting to deplete at a surprisingly drastic rate is somewhat alarming but never mind that... You would think that this time has been filled with instilling envy in many of my friends and family by incessantly chatting about my trip but it's actually been quite the opposite. I've had the same conversation so many times with so many different people that I actually don't want to talk about it anymore - I just want to be out there doing it instead! I'll have plenty of time to talk about it when I come back and it'll be much more interesting then... Believe me I won't shut up for ages so enjoy my silence while you can.

So what have I done? Well, I went home to Gibraltar for 10 days to spend some time with family and friends... Spent a fortune on travel essentials such as microfibre towels, hiking boots, money belts and yet another fortune on non-travel essentials such as winter coats, high heels and plenty of other things that I'm clearly not going to wear over the next 6 months.... I'm a weak woman when it comes to shopping.

So now, armed with a thousand vaccinations, malaria tablets, indian visas, bug spray, imodium and sun cream, I'm more than ready to embark on my adventure with just under one week to go. I've even added a special travel folder to my iPod:

The above apps will allow me to do lots of useful things all from the comfort of my iPod Touch (until the apparently inevitable armed robbery that supposedly awaits me in South America according to everyone I speak to) from every day travel stuff like checking in to flights, booking hostels, calculating exchange rates to learning life saving skills such as figuring out which mushrooms in the jungle are edible. You laugh, but when you are next lost in a jungle, you will remember this moment.

Anyways, everyone has been going on about how jealous they are... Here are some weather forecasts to ease the envy. 

Yes, I get to escape sleety London. No, I don't get to lie on a sunny beach. I have unpacked my bikinis and replaced them with a brolly. This post is getting a bit long now so rather than going into the many rainy travel stories I have, I will go straight to the point: I attract rain - expect a lot of it throughout my trip.  Is it because I lied when I was 17? Who knows.

Travis - Why Does It Always Rain On Me

Hello World!

My first discovery on starting this blog is it that it seems I'm not much of a writer. I must have typed about 17 versions of this first post and still I'm sat staring at an empty webpage… So here it finally goes without much thought!

I've been wanting to do a round the world trip since I looked like this:

Fast forward over 10+ years of dreaming, 7 years of saving, 6 months of planning and finally the trip of a lifetime is booked and confirmed. 

There is no plan as such, the only things booked at the moment are:

13-Feb-13: London-Rio

01-Apr-13: 1 week Inca Trail tour

10-Apr-13: Lima-London

15-Apr-13: London-Delhi

15-Aug-13: Beijing-London

Which may end up looking something like this:

South America (2 months):

 Asia* (4 months):

*Note that the Indonesian part of the journey is missing on this map but we do plan to go there also. If you are interested in seeing the whole map, you can find it on the following link:
South America and Asia 2013: The plan

All seems simple enough but it's been a bit of a bloody nightmare to plan at times and still have some stuff to go… So far it's looking like this:

Travel buddy: Check
Battle with inept travel agents at STA to book appropriate flights (and avoid drowning in monsoons): Check
Travel insurance (just in case monsoon season comes early): Check
Macchu Picchu trek booking: Check
Voluntary unemployment in the middle of a global recession: Check (as of the 15th January)
Backpack: Check
Friend requiring a room to rent for a few months: Check
A good healthy mix of terror and excitement in equal parts: Check

Still to arrange:
Vaccinations: Mostly done but rabies and malaria pills still to go
Visas for India and China: Still to arrange (including booking of a flight into China)
6 months worth of stuff to pack...

Watch this space!