Archives: Guide

“Bucket List ….no.8 Egypt,” was the choice for our 70th birthday celebration with two friends. The Nile cruise over, we set off in a comfortable mini-van for the White Desert National Park.

I was 58 years old and had hiked for years, but never climbed a significant mountain in my life. Why on earth did I think I could climb two in three days, one being the highest in Great Britain?

‘I can’t feel my face,’ Tracey says as her words are blown back at her. I have to lean in at forty-five degrees, using my body weight just to close the door.

‘I can’t feel my face,’ Tracey says as her words are blown back at her. I have to lean in at forty-five degrees, using my body weight just to close the door.

I smelled like dried fish. As I sat in a coffeehouse in Bogotá, the sharp pieces of dried fish that clung to my cotton trousers were scratchy and annoying.

I climbed back onto the Greyhound, the smell now familiar to me after twenty four hours of travel on this thing; dust mixed with chemical pine from the air freshener hanging from the mirror.

Hmmm, I thought, this is either a particularly well-behaved class, or there’s some truth to that annoying “European children are better behaved” theory.

Hmmm, I thought, this is either a particularly well-behaved class, or there’s some truth to that annoying “European children are better behaved” theory.

Uneasily, I boarded the small boat with fifteen other people that would take me out to cage dive with great white sharks. I was on the coast of South Africa and terrified of the large predators of the ocean, but didn’t want...

On the 4th April we woke ready to begin the next part of our trek. Arriving at Deboche later I headed straight to our tent to rest.