Reykjavik harbour

Geysir

Gullfoss

Hallgrímskirkja

Four girls, one jeep, six youth hostels booked in an initially nonsensical pattern around the south coast of Iceland. Many outdoor hot springs including thorough washing of pits and bits before entering. Incredible waterfalls, a cuddly puffin called Colin, exploding geysers, epic scenery, sweeping cliffs, quizzical sheep, panicking puffins, menacing skua, driving through rivers, scrambling up scree slopes, gazing at views, unpronounceable destinations, grinding glaciers, lava fields, black sands, cloud shrouded islands, stinking seagulls, warm volcanic rocks and lying in the sun in the blue lagoon smothered in white mud and drinking a glass of wine.

Pingvellir

Highland lake

On the road

Landmannalaugar

Landmannalaugar

Svartifoss

Skaftafell

Sheep!

Jökulsárlón

Iceland

looking to sea

Vik

Otavalo was a riot of colour, market stalls, traditionally dressed people, farm animals and shopping. Probably the only place I’ve ever seen everything from Guinea pigs to puppy dogs, pigs and cows for sale.

We spent a few relaxing nights enjoying good food at the Hacienda Guachala outside Cayambe. We discovered several equators, the official equator and mini theme park complete with the balance the egg on a pin activity, shrunken heads and pickled penis fish.  Then there is the military equator and finally the wrong equator where they just…erm…got it slightly wrong. We also got up one chilly morning to climb the slopes of the Cayambe volcano and trek over the snowfall to look down under the clouds into the valley.

The beautiful colonial rooftops and streets of Cuenca charmed us with their churches and hat shops. Further afield the wild and stark landscape of Cajas National Park thrilled with it’s brooding skies, mirror lakes and haunting Quinoa forests.

Relaxing sauna in strange wooden boxes filled with eucalyptus branches and iced tea? Tick. Afternoon horse ride through beautiful mountain scenery in the shadow of cloud shrouded mountains? Tick. Crazy night out dancing? Tick.

We drove to Tena and on into the Amazon to stay a few nights with a lovely family in the middle of the jungle surrounded by jungle, creepy crawlies and absolute black at night. We walked to the very end of the road and found a swimming hole all to ourselves, wellapart from the sandflies. Then we travelled via rafts and some exhilerating white water to a jungle lodge with the most incredible views over the Amazon…oh and a Tarantula.

Only two days into the trip and already we’ve decided to take some time out and relax in the hot springs of Papallacta. And as if the local outdoor bathing pools weren’t hot enough and relaxing enough, our cottages also have ‘private’ hot pools outside. Time for a cold beer in the warm waters after a long walk!

Quito – a city nestling between the hills and stretching out urban tendrils ever further along the valley. In the centre lies a beautiful, historical centre of open paved plazas, grandious cathedrals, tree lined streets and balconied cafes. The perfect place to acclimatise, overcome a spot of jet lag and try to resurrect some rusty Spanish.

For someone who grew up on the borders of Hampshire it is a little strange that this should be my first ever trip to the Isle of Wight. Armed with wellies, a rather trendy tepee tent I had brought from Amazon (after hearing it was the tent shape of choice for all the cool kids), and a refreshing lack of creature comforts Nicky, Rachel and I began the multi-transportation journey to the IOW festival. Two trains, one ferry and a bus ride later we arrived only to discover a distressing lack of camping space still remaining once through the gates. After what felt like walking about sixteen miles further and further away from the actual festival itself we finally reached the furthermost field which mercifully still had some space. Actually it turned out to be a very nice field to camp in complete with Glaswegian men on a stag do next door who had the most excellent toffee flavoured vodka. The only slight draw back was the lumpy, mole hill ridden nature of the ground which was fine for the others touting thermarests and inflatable mattresses. Unfortunately for yours truly, experiences of the wilds of Patagonia and the unpredictable nature of inflatable sleeping implements over prolonged periods in the outdoors I’ve always held the opinion that a good roll matt is the only way to camp. Now I’m 29 and have effectively ‘gone soft’ I am rethinking that strategy. Next time I’m coming with my inflatable double mattress, Egyptian cotton sheets and a duvet.

Anyway, tepee up, we trotted the actually-not-sixteen-miles into the festival fields. We were joined later by a Jarrad – fated to be the only boy for the weekend – Becca, Anne-marie and Alex. The IOW festival was relaxed, surprisingly family orientated (based on my only previous experience of a festival being V) and let down only by the discovery that I still enjoy drinking Smirnoff Ice and the foolish idea that packing ourselves into a small tent to watch N-Dubz along with hundreds of screaming teenagers would be quite amusing. We fled after less than 15 minutes and went to watch Blondie with the grown ups. Debbie Harry blows chunks over Dappy any day!

We saw Florence and the Machine who I loved despite Nicky and Rachel frequently complaining that you couldn’t make out any of the words to what she was actually singing. Jay-Z was just unbelievably cool. Crowded House and Shakespeare’s Sister were nostalgic, Blondie awesome, the Silent Disco was priceless, Pink was amazing and the whole weekend finished off singing very loudly to Hey Jude with Paul McCartney. The weather was gloriously warm and sunny…well until about 15 minutes after the end of Sunday when it started to heave it down. By this point I had been thoroughly lulled into a sense of false security so was in a t-shirt and flip flops, sans wellies and sans waterproofs. Drowned cat would be the appropriate description to insert here. But at least we got to stop off and buy Indian headdresses on the way home!

Despite the unlikely happenings with Icelandic volcanoes that threatened to make this trip an impossibility, ten years after first visiting the Island of Barbados

I found myself flying back to the home of my favourite rum. Four if us arrived on a hot humid evening and were deposited in a fantastic villa with a couple of cases of beer and a gazebo inticingly lit next to the pool. Compared to my last home in Barbados with cold running water, broken window panes and a dead bat in the shower, this was a considerable upgrade. Needless to say our first night was not an early one.

The next days were fairly arduous, walking to the beach, reading on the beach, occasionally sliding into the crystal lear waters to cool down before flopping back on the beach!

Saturday was the day of Theo and Olivia’s wedding in her hometowm, St James. The wedding itself was in a beautiful stone church among the trees where everyone fanned themselves vigourously throughout the ceremony and then afterwards sipped cold beers and cocktails on the beach at the Sandy Lane Hotel. The reception was then at the Sandy Lane country club where I absolutely did not steal monogrammed shampoo and conditioner from the bathrooms!

After the end of the reception the evening took a slight turn for the weird. We ended up persuading most of the wedding party to head to the Piano Bar along the west coast on the recommendation of Scott and GIles who had spent a comedy evening there the previous day. A fairly normal bar with a piano playing singer sporting a bizarre mix of air stewardesses, tourists and eccentric locals gradually descended – aided by much rum – into a lock in – odd conversations, Fiona persuading me to audition for the bar owner so he would let me sing Son of a Preacher Man with the pianist (which I duly did) and finally at 6am we ended up almost kidnapping the Spencer the pianist to head back to our villa for more drinking. Probably fortunately this plan fell flat and just the four of us stumbled back to ours in a taxi as the sun was well and truly up in the sky.

The following day we crawled out of bed feeling rather worse for the wear for the post wedding BBQ down on the beach. A huge amount of fantastic food later, home made lime juice, swimming the balmy water and a salad dressing called ‘Whoop-ass’ later I was feeling tired but far more human! I only had one day left after the weekend and we spent in lazing around our beautiful villa and had some of the guys up for a pool side BBQ in the evening. Like I said, it’s a hard life on the island!