On The Road Again

Otavalo, Ecuador Guatape, Colombia Bocas del Toro, Panama Mancora, Peru Galapagos Islands, Ecuador Valparaiso, Chile Cali, Colombia Uyuni Desert, Bolivia I’ve added another resolution to my list for 2013. I really need to stop doing this in photos. Can you spot it? Do you notice yourself making the same face or striking the same pose in pictures? I swear my mouth is open in half of my photos from South America… *Follow me on Facebook and Twitter!*

                          The Galapagos Islands, Ecuador There are really no words, and the photos do not do the day justice. When you are surrounded by dozens of sharks, sea lions, turtles, schools of fish, and a 5-metre manta ray, when you are seeing one of the most diverse and unique ecosystems in the world, when you cry from joy with your mask still on, when your heart nearly explodes out of your chest you’re so overwhelmed with the luck and the beauty in your life – it’s all worth it, every last penny and every last drop of sweat and every last second standing in line at immigration. It’s all worth it. *Follow me on Facebook and Twitter!*  

Cali, Colombia What do you get when you mix a club full of salsa-ing Colombians, free-flowing aguardiente, and some amazing new friends? You get the best night ever. *Follow me on Facebook and Twitter!*

                Koh Tao, Thailand February 14, 2011 I simply cannot believe that it was exactly a year ago that I wrote this post as I sat in an internet cafe in Thailand. I can remember so clearly waking up at 5am that day, preparing for a sunrise dive with my best friend, Kerri. The boat ride to our dive location, preparing our gear and making jokes about fishes for Valentines. I remember holding her hand underwater, swimming through schools of silver fish, practicing our buoyancy, somersaulting past beautiful coral and colourful creatures. I remember jumping off the side of the boat and laughing as we took an afternoon swim, still clothed in our restrictive wetsuits. Sharing cookies and cold tea with all the other members of my dive group, some Australians and Swedes. I remember spending the rest of the day on the beach in the hot sun, wearing a white dress, going for beers at the dive shop’s bar as the sky turned or...

When I booked my flight to the volcanic island of Tenerife, there was one stand-out destination that I knew I needed to visit. It had dominated my bucket-list for years, ever since I saw it plastered over post-cards in tacky souvenir shops. The iconic landscape didn’t make it onto the reverse of Tenerife’s old currency, the 1000 paseta note, for no reason. It looked other-worldly. It was Teide National Park. Named after the towering volcano that lives there, Teide National Park rules the heart of the island. With its summit at a whopping 3,718 metres above sea-level and 7,500 metres if measured from the ocean floor, Teide is the third tallest volcano in the world, only beaten by Hawaiian volcanos. The national park itself extends over an area of 18,900 hectares and is named as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Teide is a stratovolcano that is in fact made up of two separate volcanos: Teide and Pico Viejo (which translates to ‘Old Peak’, even though this peak is in fact younger tha...